BMW 700 "art piece" for my wife

[autokunst]

Amy's birthday is coming up. She has recently discovered the 700. In a perfect world, we could have found a rough car in our budget and worked on it together. Amy likes ratty cars, but even with that criteria, we weren't able to find a "real" car within our reach. But I did find a reproduction Coupe emblem on eBay. I felt the emblem alone wasn't enough. Instead, it would be really cool if we had a piece of a car - the rear panel where the emblem lives. Of course, if I had access to an actual car, I would never cut it up for a gift - I'd try to restore the whole thing. So I found myself fabricating my own piece of a 700.

I didn't have a car to measure but did find a good photo online.

I used the photo to create a reasonably accurate (probably not that accurate) layout of the rear panel.

With some measurements, and using the emblem as a known metric, I started with some basic forming.

Here's a quick mock-up - it's starting to get exciting.

I think the best part was creating the curved lip along the bottom. Here is a shot showing that shaping work, and with a coat of matte black paint. I thought the "rat rod" look was going to be sufficient, but I felt it looked too flat. Not interesting enough.

So I set out on replicating a 63 year old patina. I am not good at this. My usual MO is to try to make things look as good as possible. It was a challenge to sand away the paint and expose primer/metal.

I think Amy will love it!

 

 

[autokunst]

Today is Amy's birthday. I gave her the "700 rear panel" this morning. She loves it! We're deciding where to display it, although she did ponder leaving it outside so it could rust a bit.  That's my gal - she loves the rust!

[steve k.]

That is very nice! 

[popovm]

Just found this. So good! A lot of love and work went into that piece. Sounds like she appreciated it. 

[Camacho]

Amy clearly appreciated such a gift.