tighening up the gaps

"Cars from the fifties used to have really horrible panel alignments and no one cared much."

Not here to argue... I'm not THAT old, yet, but I do remember my father got a 32,000 mile '57 BelAir in the early 70's, and I seem to remember that car having really good, clean tight gaps.That car had great fit and finish, and no, it wasn't a resto, just a clean one owner garage kept car (granted, the local tri-five club guys said it was probably one of the finest originals in the country at that time).

My first car was a black '63 Savoy two door sedan and I seem to remember that car having very good fit/finish,too (Mom got that new)...

I never thought the fit/finish started going downhill until later 60's to70's, then went in the sh!tter for 20 years or so, before finally getting better again (let's forget about the later 70's all the way through the 80's).

I remember spending hours in the early 80's aligning new car panels because customers would get a new car and they were junk. Hell,I once had a door shut, locked, across all four fingers of my left hand by a co-worker. Yeah, I screamed, but was left nothing but bruised up (GM X-body).