I did consider it, but when I saw the way the body panels are joined there, I quickly dismissed it. The seam where the body panels join is the at the bottom of those metal pieces, so if you wanted to really trim it all off you'd have to do quite a bit of body work to join them back up again. (And you *would* want to join them back up again, otherwise you'd have a huge hole.) Considering how much swearing I did just trying to weld shut a 6" seam in the rear wheelwell, there's no way I'd want to pursue that...maybe you'll have better luck though. This was my first experience trying to weld sheetmetal, and it SUCKED.

Hope this helps. Sorry to kidnap stormy's thread.