Bruce, I worked at The Parts Place for a couple years, I learned a great deal about repro and NOS sheetmetal during that time. 1. It is very expensive to make tool and dies for sheet metal. Duh! 2. NOS sheet metal is not always that great. Lot of the NOS is left over because it was rejected for minor fit problems. Seen it, been there. 3. 99% is from over seas, and the rest made in the states or Canada. US made is junk. 4. Goodmark has their panels made overseas also. A US company selling overseas stamped metal. 5. Yes it is a thinner gauge. 70-72 442 fenders can ding by just leaning on them while working on engine. 6. Some fit like sh*t and some fit better then original. Do your homework and ask tons of questions on mail boards like this. 7. It is very rare to have 2 different manufactures for the same piece. Very small market makes it hard to recoup production costs. 8. It's is best to pict up the sheetmetal then to have shipped, you need to look it over very careful before buying or before truck freight driver leaves. 9. Original tooling is not always better, can be very worn so you may have fit problems, and some details can be lost. 10. And yes more is made for Chevy, not much for Olds.. Almost nothing before 1970 Cutlass, 442 11. All repro metal will need smoothing with block sanding. So to answer your question... buy from the closest and cheapest you can find. 70-72 cutlass 1/4s can still be found in NOS for just a little more. I've never heard anything bad about either the NOS or repro for these years 1/4s. Trust me if they were really bad I would have heard about it. James Aiello 1970 442 no repro sheetmetal... yet 1974 98 ha ha I'll die before someone make anything repro for this car! I do have NOS for sale though! :) 1968 GTO repro full 1/4s... not yet installed
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- Re: Still looking for quarter panels for 72 Cutlass Conv james aiello
