Fiberglass Bugeye rear tub

[Trevor Jessie]

Has anyone here ever put a fiberglass rear tub on a spridget. I'm tossing around the idea of making my 1970 Midget (that has already had a 1972 rear tub grafted on) into a bugeye "wanna be". I found a supplier for the tub, but I'm wondering if it would be practical on a street car. I know there would be issues to work out (cockpit shape and door curvature), but I thought I'd ask here first.

 

[aeronca65t]

Hmmm....
Putting a Bugeye/Frogeye *nose* on your Midget is easy....it'll fit right on. This is actually a pretty popular swap
But putting the rear of a Bugeye on a Midget is a pretty big deal. I'm not sure I've ever seen a fiberglass Bugeye rear-tub, but if there is such a thing, it would need a lot of reinforcing (our other racer has fiberglass rear flares and they are quite flimsy).

 

[Trevor Jessie]

I assumed it would need some reinforcing, but I do not know if the inner panels(structure) of a midget will fit inside the tub. https://www.showcars-bodyparts.com quoted me a price price for the tub, but did not provide any other useful information. And yes, if I went the the trouble of doing the rear, I would certainly do the nose as well. I like a challenge and the midget is already a mongrel, so I started in on this hair brained idea.

 

[spritenut]

A friend of mine grafted a steel Bugeye rear tub to a rubber bumpered Midget.
So now he has a roll up window Bugeye with a fold down top.
https://www.exit109.com/~spritenut/piecesII.jpg

 

[Trevor Jessie]

Looks nice. I was thinking about shaving the door handles as well. Another thought that crossed my mind was to moddify the top mechanism to recess more and make a hard tonneau cover. I was thinking this would help recreate more of the original bugeye lines when the top is down/stowed.