NOS Aluminum fenders
 

No, not ‘63 SD fenders......1948 rear fenders!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...33183488%22%7D

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...4&d=1633573836

That's something I never heard of before. Very interesting.

Inspired by DeLorean's dad?

Alodine chem conversion coat, per MIL-C-5541 back then?

Inspired by Northeast U.S. snow saltings?

So many questions.

It's a little humbling when you realize the "ultra cool, lightweight
body parts", of the 62-63 SD-cars was old technology. Also that the reason was likely completely different. I doubt weight savings was the major consideration in the late 1940's. Again, learned something new.

My thought would be that the WW-II Steel industry was over-taxed with demand DURING (1942) and after WW-II.
Then, in 1950, Korea and the need for more Iron and steel was needed for that war production.

But aluminum out of South America was readily available.
So perhaps some of that aluminum went into the fenders
as part of a alternate material that allowed them to sell vehicles.

Tom V.

I know of no aluminum mining in the USA.

West Virginia mined Titanium, and got manganese, aluminum, and iron ore.
My old boss described modified boxite as a lunchtime story.

There are many advantages to using aluminum. I am going to throw out my theory on this one. Bauxite mining in the US peaked in 1943 (Bauxite is the ore for Aluminium). due to the aerospace war effort. I'm assuming after the war the supply heavily outweighed the demand causing aluminum to have competitive pricing against steel. Also the war effort most likely accelerated the use of aluminum in more common applications. The aluminum fenders are lighter so they should be cheaper to ship and easier to install.

The real reason for these I think comes from clues in the letter as using these as 'service replacements'. These are large pieces with alot of shape. That means large dies and alot of surface wear. Service replacement parts are ran on the production dies after the production run. Dies wear. If you need to supply X amount of service replacement fenders on already worn dies this is a very good way to do it.

Fuel " drop tank" molding methods for fighters and Bombers made this possible at reasonable cost.
WW2 brought a huge amount of modern technology
To the table.
Turbos, Jet Engines, overdrive transmissions, steering technology. Etc

Don't forget GM-1 (NOS), one of Germany's solutions to enhanced high altitude operation.