lortech -- For certain values of 'the same'.
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would it be easier just to remove the bed and make a new boat tail?
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A friend of mine did that in the 1970s. I don't have a picture, but I just made a phone call to see if I can have one to share. I do know that it appeared in the Whole Earth Catalog Supplement, maybe I can get the page and ISBN.
He had a 1954 Ford flatbed truck and took the bed off. The new bed had curved sides (symmetrical, not plan tapered), and IIRC he built a camper floor on that. The curved ribs were sawn out of 3/4" plywood sheets and stringers of 1x2 ran longitudinally.. Basically it was an egg shape cut off on the front and back, plus a notch in the lower front for the truck cab.
The stringers were sheathed with laborously hand-cut tapered cedar shingles. He could grab it and shake it so he ran tension wires between the ribs. That stiffened it up considerably, then he had the inside sprayed with polyurethane foam. The result was a foamie with a embedded cedar skin. He lived in it for a number of years. Last I heard it was up on blocks in the hills above Ona Beach. He had the shingles oriented like a shed roof, but it could as 'easily' been Victorian fish-scale shingles oriented longitudinally.
OTOH If I was doing such today it might be like this:
Very flattened tetrahedrons made from
prefinished sheet material, likely PolyMetal or equivalent. It would be constructed very accurately by mathematically defining the edge lengths or by picking dimensions off a 3D model.
I want to do this, not for a pickup truck, but for an electric reverse tricycle.
Edit: here's an example of a fish-scaled car.
Also consider a hoop and canvas prototype.
