I ran across an advertisement for a "new tooling" 67-68 reproduction rear bumper. The manufacturer is Auto Metal Direct. Because of the "new tooling" supposedly only available for a couple of months they claim excellent fit as well as superb chrome. I ordered one more as an experiment than anything else and discovered that, for the particular one I received, they failed on both counts. The chrome was passable driver quality but wouldn't pass muster for show quality...there were a couple of small bubbles or blemishes and, with the correct lighting angle, you can see some waviness in the chrome finish.
The fit also left much to be desired. The "new tooling" produced a wider spread (the vee of the bumper looking at if from the inside) of about 1/4" compared to an oem bumper...doesn't seem like much but it really pushes it up against the bumper guards too tightly...the guards can obviously be adjusted some but not enough to produce a decent fit...also, for what ever reason, the rolled or flanged area around the license plate cut out is about 3/8" wider than oem...definitely noticeable, at least to the concours guys. The bumper was also not correctly formed in that it fit way too closely to the tail panel on the rear side...shimming it solved that problem but introduced additional clearance issue with the bumper guard.
All of the repro bumpers seem to be a crapshoot...you hear good things about one vendor and then bad things...lots of Q/C inconsistency. Others may have a better experience with this AMD product.
