Looking to make more room between wheel wells

Im currently converting my caprice wagon into a van/wagon delivery vehicle. I've posted on here how i own a bakery/bread business and goto markets/festivals with the cars loaded with breads. I got my self a white 92 caprice that ive stripped the interior out of from the front seats back pretty much. As it were i could fit 2 stacks of bread trays side by side in the rear passenger seat and then two more stacks of 4 going back to the tailgate. With a sheet of thin ply wood down it worked fairly well for sliding things right in. 16 trays with 8-9 breads per tray. This was how we were running it before any modifications with the interior still in tacked. 

With the prospects of needing more than 16 trays and still not ready to invest into a commercial van yet i set out to fit as many as possible. Working with a friend we removed the second row bench entirely and welded up and installed into the existing seat mounts a tray that could fit 2 stacks side by side with 5 trays. One stack between the wheel wells and two side by side at the rear of the car. Doing this along with removing the third row seat and using the space as a large trunk for market items netted us space for 22 trays. This setup with the tray in middle of the car ended up not working out very well with trays actually loaded with bread. Its just too cumbersome with removing the trays through the side door even though we modified it to open wider.

So that brings me to next idea to make more space between the wheel wells and return the car back to a bed like configuration. The trays are 25 and 3/4s inch wide on their most narrow side. The distance between the wheel well sheet metal is 50". To me in feeling around there seems to be a fair amount more space between the tire and wheel well sheet metal. I am thinking of cutting out the metal and making enough room to put two stacks side by side. Then welding in metal to repair the gaping hole. It seems nothing very critical runs around this part of the car. The drivers side has extra metal to protect the gas fill nozzle. Anything to watch out for when i begin to cut out the metal? Ill get the car up on some jack stands and remove the wheels before cutting in. There arnt any brake or fuel lines in the wheel well area to worry about as all that runs along the frame right? Im hoping to be able to gain enough room from the passenger side as to not cut into the drivers side too where the gas fill line is and doing the job twice.

Going through this trouble will net me the most possible trays(24 total) without removing passenger front seat and doing anything crazy like towing a trailer or using the roof. Ill try to get some pictures up from our previous work session but i only had an ipad to take pictures with. Any advice/comments are appreciated.

There's lots of space there. You will easily make up the 1.5" you need.

Just curious - how did you mod the rear doors to open wider?

I'm interested in that.

Buy a Hearse,..rollers for the racks,. higher roof,. wide opening rear gate,..

Yeah but then id have a hearse and the whole staff of life thing. 

Id have to look at it again but the top hinge has a punched/pushed up part of it that pops up and stops the door. With the door closed in order to retain some type of alignment we removed the hinge. We ground this away and i forget what stops the door now. The door opens almost a full 90 without exterior of the door hitting anything. We didnt bother to add back to the previous stop to give it more strength but unless you really slammed the door open nothing should get damaged.