Restoration
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Aluminum paneling is a great way to dress up the underside of your vehicle's hood and fenders. It also looks good in the trunk or on the firewall. It can be polished for a bright shine, or rubbed with a Scotch pad for a satin finish with a fine grain.

Simple Materials
Most any car can benefit from this treatment. Cars like the '41 Willys and the Cobra lend themselves well to an aluminum front-end treatment because of the large gaping hole where the grille was removed to allow for more air to get to the radiator.


It's not difficult to dress up your street rod or custom car with aluminum paneling by using cardboard and a sheet of aluminum available from most steel yards or metal recycling centers. The pieces we used for this particular project came from a scrap metal recycling yard.

Simple Work
Aluminum is fairly easy to work with. The key to a nicely finished project is to take your time, measure carefully and use cardboard templates to work out the design before actually cutting and bending the aluminum.


This particular project required five pieces of aluminum in the nose section of a Cobra replica to deflect air around the radiator for better cooling. They consisted of one for the opening at the top of the radiator, one for the bottom, one piece folded up on each side for the sides of the oil cooler, and two pieces for each side of the radiator.

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Photo Guide

In addition to covering that unsightly hole between the bottom of the radiator and the body of the car, we had another reason for adding aluminum paneling: improved cooling. A lot of air is lost going around, so we wanted to funnel the air through the grille opening and directly into the radiator.

Start by measuring and cutting a cardboard template.

We decided to use an engine oil cooler with this car, so the oil cooler is set in place and the hose holes are marked on the cardboard.

Use a small hammer to mark the underside of the template. This shows us exactly where the oil cooler hoses will come through the aluminum.

Cut out the marked holes and check for fit.

As you can see, we made the lower template out of several pieces of cardboard taped together. After double-checking for fit, the outline is marked on the aluminum, and out come the tin snips.

A small hole is drilled in the aluminum for the oil lines.

Next a hole cutter is used to make the larger hole. This cutter helps to keep the aluminum from warping and leaved a smooth edged hole.

The opening for the oil cooler is wider than the cooler, so we designed a piece of aluminum that will fold up around the sides and give it a finished look. The finished cardboard template for the oil cooler is laid out and the finished design is scribed onto the aluminum. Then the aluminum is cut and bent to fit around the sides of the oil cooler.

The finished project adds a lot of class and makes the car look really cool. And it even runs cooler, too!


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