Hello, my name is Darin, and I'm a maker of cardboard tails.
Yes, I've done this before...
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...uft-25223.html
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...mpg-10691.html
The Civic's tail follows a similar approach: plastic-skinned, cardboard shape on an inner frame. (Actually the Firefly's tail was pretty much cardboard monocoque, with just a few cross braces.)
Wooden frame:
It's mostly triangulated 1x1 extending from 2x4 base that is attached to the trunk lid (screwed through the factory licence plate holes) and the trailer hitch.
Then I added a few vertical and horizontal cross-braces for attaching the cardboard bulkheads that define the tail's outer shape.
Lots of hot glue gun use to stick the cardboard bits together.
Tail lights are off a Swift GT parts car:
I modified (ie. hacked them apart), and they connect to the Civic's trailer lights harness.
Yes, I realize the tail would work better if it was full width and covered the factory tail lights. But I like redundancy, plus the factory lights give the car more visual mass/width at night when lit up.
Whoops! It looks a bit too "fast" at the very end, when I overlay our streamlining template (v.2). Maybe I'll fix it with a little spoiler. Because racecar!
But this is the closest-to-template project I've ever done. The previous ones were just eyeballed. Because art!