Updates to My Imperial Page!

Owner: Mark Evans

click on any picture below to see a larger version

My transfer to Austin went well for the family. But, The Imperial and Polara arrived with some nasty damage. The shipper failed to secure the Polara properly and it jumped onto the trunk of the Imperial crushing the trunklid into the lower fascia. At first glance, the damage doesn't look too bad. But, white hides the blemishes. The fascia is bowed out about a 1/2 inch and the trunklid has been bowed in. The next photos show how the panels on either side have been pushed in and how the scrapes have been gouged into the pasenger side.

It took about four months to settle with the carrier and the relocation company. The first photo shows how far back the damage was. Here, the inner panel and fuel filler surround have been cut out and the fascia has been pulled back out. The trunklid still needs to be re-arched. The left photo shows the completed fascia. The skim coat of body is filler is almost translucent. I thought it was interesting how they pulled the bow out of the quarter panels by attaching a piece of metal to use for pulling.

We did a full re-paint of the car. The left photo shows damage repaired before I got the car. This solved the mystery of the blue paint and the missing "Imperial" emblems. Someone was over-zealous with the plastic body filler. I had the body guy pull it all out and repair the panel properly. Notice that the car had a re-paint to blue at one point with another coat of white sprayed over it. I thought this car was a pretty solid example since it was from Montana. However, like most of Exner's beauties, this one had rusty quarters, wheel wells and rocker panels. I had all of that cut out and new metal welded in.

Notice how the welds are ground so that you can barely tell where the old metal stops and the new panel begins. The car spent longer than I want to admit in primer. This body guy is pickier than me! Every time I came to visit, he was blocking out the car in one area or another. I think the compound curves of that front fender was tougher than he thought. Proof is in the pudding. Wet sanding shows how straight the car is. It's finally ready for color.

I decided to shoot the car with a modern base coat / clear coat but in the original color. With those lights, it was good to see how straight the body came out. I looked over several angles. Couldn't catch it in photos, but I found two runs in the clear coat. As good as the car looks, those runs were a real disappointment after I had waited nearly a year to get to this point.

I got the car home and parked it naked for a couple months trying to figure out what to do about the runs. I used to paint cars when I was single. But, that was 15 years ago and I'm too picky to be my own body guy. I think that's why it took two months to decide to tackle it. I picked up some 1500 and 2000 grit paper and a Milwaulke polisher and went to work. Sure enough, the runs were just in the clear (and there is lots of clear of the car!). It turned out so well, I decided to color sand the whole car. It took about 30 hours to block out all those panels with 1500 followed up with 3M polishing compound. I topped all that out with wax. That polisher certainly earned its keep!

This page was last updated 9 December 2006.

My transfer to Austin went well for the family. But, The Imperial and Polara arrived with some nasty damage. The shipper failed to secure the Polara properly and it jumped onto the trunk of the Imperial crushing the trunklid into the lower fascia. At first glance, the damage doesn't look too bad. But, white hides the blemishes. The fascia is bowed out about a 1/2 inch and the trunklid has been bowed in. The next photos show how the panels on either side have been pushed in and how the scrapes have been gouged into the pasenger side.

It took about four months to settle with the carrier and the relocation company. The first photo shows how far back the damage was. Here, the inner panel and fuel filler surround have been cut out and the fascia has been pulled back out. The trunklid still needs to be re-arched. The left photo shows the completed fascia. The skim coat of body is filler is almost translucent. I thought it was interesting how they pulled the bow out of the quarter panels by attaching a piece of metal to use for pulling.

We did a full re-paint of the car. The left photo shows damage repaired before I got the car. This solved the mystery of the blue paint and the missing "Imperial" emblems. Someone was over-zealous with the plastic body filler. I had the body guy pull it all out and repair the panel properly. Notice that the car had a re-paint to blue at one point with another coat of white sprayed over it. I thought this car was a pretty solid example since it was from Montana. However, like most of Exner's beauties, this one had rusty quarters, wheel wells and rocker panels. I had all of that cut out and new metal welded in.

Notice how the welds are ground so that you can barely tell where the old metal stops and the new panel begins. The car spent longer than I want to admit in primer. This body guy is pickier than me! Every time I came to visit, he was blocking out the car in one area or another. I think the compound curves of that front fender was tougher than he thought. Proof is in the pudding. Wet sanding shows how straight the car is. It's finally ready for color.

I decided to shoot the car with a modern base coat / clear coat but in the original color. With those lights, it was good to see how straight the body came out. I looked over several angles. Couldn't catch it in photos, but I found two runs in the clear coat. As good as the car looks, those runs were a real disappointment after I had waited nearly a year to get to this point.

I got the car home and parked it naked for a couple months trying to figure out what to do about the runs. I used to paint cars when I was single. But, that was 15 years ago and I'm too picky to be my own body guy. I think that's why it took two months to decide to tackle it. I picked up some 1500 and 2000 grit paper and a Milwaulke polisher and went to work. Sure enough, the runs were just in the clear (and there is lots of clear of the car!). It turned out so well, I decided to color sand the whole car. It took about 30 hours to block out all those panels with 1500 followed up with 3M polishing compound. I topped all that out with wax. That polisher certainly earned its keep!