American Custom Coachworks History:
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American Custom Coachworks
In the late seventies this company was the largest custom coach builder in the USA. While they built a number of stretched limousines and utility vehicles, mostly for oil-rich Arabs, the bulk of their business was in converting steel-topped coupes to convertibles. They worked exclusively for Ford, Cadillac and Lincoln-Mercury dealers. It took about six weeks to make the conversion; this required removal of the top section as well as some restructuring, including reinforcing the windshield and door pillar posts. Production in 1978 was estimated at 2000 units.
As far as how many of my car was made. I have some new info. This is from an article by Charles E. Dole appeared in The Christian Science Monitor for April 18, 1978:
"With the base unit shipped directly to one of its conversion plants, the company takes about six weeks to produce a ragtop. 'We remove the top section of the car and restructure the vehicle so that when we are done with it the car is stronger than it was originally,' asserts ACC's Mr. O'Keefe. The windshield and door pillar posts are reinforced; also the fender wells. The company reports it spent almost $1 million in engineering and prototyping the ragtop. With their limited output of any model, the conversion firms do not come under the hand of the federal government's safety czar [Ralph Nader?]. 'If we build 10,000 units a year', declares Mr. O'Keefe, we'd have to build in an ugly roll-bar. He adds: 'We can build 500 of each model, however, and not have to comply with the safety regulation for higher-volume output.'"
So from this statement seems to come the rumored 500 cars statement.
What would the cars history be without some other examples of cars by this company
Here are some American Custom Coachworks links
Check out the top picture
Scroll down to the bottom
Nice Lincoln
Nice Caddy
As far as American Custom Coachworks the company, It still exists, but has been renamed, here is there site:
AMERICAN LIMO SALES
As far as getting info on the conversions that they have done. You won't get it from them. There was a flood 8 years ago (1996?) that destroyed all their old records :(
