Bodywork Session 11: Offside rear panels

Today we continue with CRG163’s rear offside corner panel woodwork that sits behind vehicle body panels once in place, and provides anchor points for when the vehicle’s brightwork is reapplied.  This has been the case all the way through CRG163’s bodywork restoration.  Total care has been taken at all times to ensure precision.  (29.08.25)

A sandwich of wood has been put together during our last session to create the top rear offside vehicle corner profile.  The top section of this profile was added today.

The second lower corner profile for the offside rear vehicle corner is carefully put together with absolute precision.

Two offside rear corner wooden corner profiles have been meticulously put together today.  This has taken a lot of time today but well worth it for the quality and precision produced.  

The second lower offside rear wooden profile is now put into place.  Not only was there a requirement to get the horizontal profile absolutely perfect and precise but also the vertical profile too.
 
As demonstrated here by the wood piece on the left which is being held against the vehicle’s rear bidy frame for comparison.  It can be seen how the vehicle’s overall shape tapers out from it’s lower skirt to it’s waist and then inwards again towards the top of the vehicle, beginning from the lower rubbers of windows.

We must remember that these fine vehicles were each manufactured by hand and as such no two side corners are the same from vehicle to vehicle or even the same vehicle.  Total care is taken here to maintain corner shape wooden profiles in line with the vehicle taper so that corner panels fit perfectly when refitted. 

The final photograph of today showing the three wooden offside rear corner panel woodwork now in place.  A difficult element was fixing the top wooden profile in the first instance as this had to be fitted carefully due to its close proximity to the vehicle’s rear offside corner window.  A lot of time was taken here to fit the wooden profile carefully, readjusting and re profiling the piece several times before being installed which included sanding to get things absolutely right.