my plans are to change the whole front clip, the doors, decklid, rear bumper, and tail lights.

 

ok so you have a 80 or above and you wan tot make it look like a 78-79?
it would be cheaper and easier to just get a shell of the 78-79 that has the sheet metal on it and useing your car as a parts car to make it the way you want.

not sure why you would wan tot make one look like the other style if you can still find the model you wan tit to look like.
sorry trying to uner stand the resoning that you have here.

 

the 78-80 look diffrent then the 81-88 personaly i like the 81-88 better ! btw witch gen do you have ?

 

see i like all of those years i never cared for the 73 -77 versions of the monte carlos or the Elcaminos or even the chevells. they jsu tdont look right LOL

but hey the nova was the same body for like 50 years before they changed it again.

but im with ya what year car do you have and what are you trying to make it look like?

 

ok i have a 3rd gen which is the 78-80 body style and i want to make it looke the 81-88 body styles.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol
i guess i am partial to those years. im looking for another one . the 4th gens are all over the place why would you want to take a third and make it a forth? you can get a 4th gen cheaper then you could probbly change the parts out.
you would have to pretty much take all of the sheet metal off the car to get it to look like a4th gen.

i guess the other question that comes to mind is why are you trying to keep this car so bad when you could mos tlikly get the 4thgen for wha tyou will spend on doing this and come out better ahead.

Also the 78-80 are becoming more popular then folks think put it on Ebay and sell it . they buy anything. LOL

 

do you have both cars now ? why not fix them both and have a 3dr and 4th gen i dont thing the cars will look right doing that to them there alot of simlaritys but theres alot of diffrences to i dont think it will look right but thats just me i really like the 4th gens i got nothing against the 3rd but i would not strip a 4th gen to dress up a 3rd gen

 

i wouldnt strip either to do this to 3rd or 4th. but then it is me i would do as you said make them both good cars or if i had to i would sell the one i didnt like as much to get money to put the other one togeather.

 

well around here you cant pick a 4th gen for less than $2000 and i bought my 3rd gen for $900. but i have all the spare parts for a 4th gen back home and i dont want to make the trip to get them if its not gonna work.

 

where ya live? 900.00 tha tis not bad if it is in decent shape.
i used to find those that were out in feilds and offer to ge tthem out of thier way. bought 4 of mine for less then 200. all o put in to any of them were brakes and fresh gas. one i had to put a new caliper on and rebuild the carb.

but still that is not to bad if the body and sdash are in good shape. the rest of it is easy to find but that sash is like gold when you go to try and find a new one.