Body / Glass: Inner Fender liners

[LugNut]

Hello to all;
A friend was looking a my 57 G H which is under construction and he asked a very interesting question about why Studebaker didn't use inner fender liners. He drives a Volvo so, I explained that none of the MFG's (in 1957)that I was aware of used any thing other than the fender skin and the metal inner fender.. That got me to thinking (very dangerous thing to do) about the modern day plastic/composite material that most all cars have today. I wonder has anyone tried to fabricate a tub liner for the Studebakers out of salvage yard cars or better yet light pick-up trucks. The material is fairly easy to work with and could be easily removed for service. Any ideas?

[rockne10]

CE has made an inner fender baffle available. Back in the day, I don't think anyone imagined the abuse our salted roads would extoll. Back then, they didn't even have cruise control or FM radio.

[warrlaw1]

I have Classic Enterprises inner fender kits front and back. Light weight (aluminum) and you can glue or pop rivet them in place. Covered with some black undercoating, they are pretty much unseen.

[Jeff_H]

I made up ones for my '53 both front and rear out of 4 (2 lefts and 2 rights) front ones from '83-'86 tbird/cougar ones. Used those and some sheet plastic and large head pop rivets to make them. Fronts vs rears are different of course.

Those cars were getting scarce in the 'yards even 10-15yrs ago though. I could not find anything else at the time I was doing this that had large enough plastic liners to work with. Other cars had them, but smaller or narrower, etc. I didn't look at light trucks though.

[rodnutrandy]

I have fiberglass fenders on my M series, made brackets that came off fender mounting and put belting under my fenders. Does 2 things , keeps stars from happening to the fenders from rocks and keeps road debris off inside of fender. Put in under all 4 fenders.

[Dan White]

I put the CE ones front and back in years ago in my '64 R1 GT and they work fine. They used to be galvanized steel so I am surprised to hear they are aluminum now, as Al does not hold up well in salt. The only issue you need to be aware of is that the front liners are made for '62 and earlier C/K models and you need to do quite a bit of cutting and fitting for '63 and '64 GTs unless he has modified them recently.

My '50 Hudson has inner fender liners. I think Studebaker just kept the costs as low as possible as I have heard many midwestern owners that bought them new had rust in now time up in the upper fender areas. Not all makes took this short cut and it would not have been an expensive option or standard feature.

[Blue 15G]

I think I read somewhere once that for Studebaker to add inner fender liners would have cost about 50 cents per car (but don't quote me on this.) An amount like that per car would fill some bean counter's eyes with tears, that's why Studebaker didn't install them.