Thought I would step back a bit. In 2006 as we were finishing the doors, an issue came up. The door lock. A stock 1932 Ford 5W Coupe has one door lock located on the passenger side only. Never understood that. It was a practice Ford carried on for decades. We have a 1956 F-100 pick-up with the same set up. I'm not sure when they added the drivers lock to all vehicles.The Graffiti Coupe in the film had no lock cylinder in the door, just a hole. Don't really know why it was missing. Some say the film crew used the hole to pass wires into the car, but I tend to think it had been gone awhile. The door handle itself had problems during the filming. Fact was, it was gone. Stayed like that until a few years ago when the owner of the Coupe put a lock back on the door. When I first saw the car in 2005, it had a lock.
This presented one of many mini-dilemmas during the build. Follow the car or use common sense? At first we decided that we would of course want to lock the car, so lock in. After a great deal of wishy-washy back and forth, the dice landed on no lock. In our questionable Coupe wisdom, we decided that the hole was one of those distinguishable identifications of the movie Coupe. It seems that whenever the Coupe is discussed among the enthusiasts, it always comes up, so lock out.
But how we gonna wash the sumbitch? We don't want water gettin' in the doors, sittin' there rusting. So the decision was made to have A & M seal the door but don't fill the hole. Huh? Well...having no hole is not the same as having no lock (this makes sense to an addled mind). We left the small, stock reveal around the opening, then went inside the door and welded a small plate over, but not in the hole. We will use artistic license when we paint. It'll look like the hole is there, but it won't be. Movie magic, baby.
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