Seriously. I want to build a full scale car. A few years ago while still in college I took some automotive design courses and came up with a design that I really liked. Below is a pic of a 1/5th scale hand sculpted clay model of said vehicle. It was a project sponsered by GM and we were to pic a brand and reinvent them. I chose Buick due to it’s roots in racing back in the early 1900’s…I called this car the Buick Apex. Now, if were to ever build one I wouldn’t name it a Buick:biglaugh:
I’d like to get ahold of a rolling chassis set up for rear engine, with full suspension and brakes. I’ve seen these for street rod projects, but not sure where to find them or if there are any rear engine ones around…anyone hear of this???
For the body I had a couple of ideas. 1) Find a sponsor and take computer geometry and mill the car out and make molds. 2) Hand sculpt in foam and build molds over the top…this would be time consuming for sure but would cut down on costs. After the mold was done and a chassis was fabbed, make a roll cage for it for saftey and for the body to attach to.
Windows would be a challenge…lexan???
Interior would have to come much later on when this pipe dream of mine were driving under it’s own power:pimp:
anyway, just dreamin out loud…this is something I’d really like to do someday.
I know that things like this have been done, first thing that comes to mind is the Mosler dude that bases his cars off of Vettes…I think they’re a bit ugly but they perform pretty well…http://www.moslerauto.com/ . If anyone has any links to anything that may be useful to a project like this…please post em up!
Damn HRK! nice thread…i’d need a solid day or two to get through it though. That’s the type of thing I’m looking for…find someone with deep pockets that’s willing to fund a project. Get some other talent involved, and go to town.
I have a whole portfolio of that car, from concept sketch to final render. I wanted to build it in Alias (3D modeling program to those who are unfamiliar…) but chose to build the model by hand since I love sculpting. I’m starting to get reispired to build the geometry now that I have the spare time. All my pics are at home…I’ll see about posting some more stuff up.
Indeed it is. Bugattis in person are jaw dropping pieces of art. I went to a show this past summer, the Ralph Lauren collection, holy shit he has some AMAZING cars dating back to late 1800’s all the way to more modern examples like the McLaren F1 and Porsche 959…just to name a few. There were like 4 or 5 Bugattis that I remember being there…I’ll try to post up some pics tonight…
the bugatti will be built one piece at a time, one person will use his skills and available equipment to build one or 2 items, and ship them out to be united with teh car
after an acceptable portion of the car is completed, sponsorships will be found, but only if they are non-binding sponsorships that were offered just cause its a wicked cool ride
also of interest would be the dick bear “mcbearen” project, its honda powered tho, you might not like it
im trying to remember the name of the custom car from the 90’s that looked like a fighter plane, red in color, it had 1 vertical stab’s “for control @ 200 mph” and a fighter plane canopy … fuck … it would bve a good car to look at for packaging reasons
it was in all the mag’s, but was a MAJOR flop out on the west coast at all the shows …
couldnt you contact a chassis builder and have something made? i know of a co-worker who built a 70 challenger and had the entire chassis fabbed up for him. an idea.
a sufficiently sturdy chassic could be built from a jegs/ summit chassis kit, as long as you do a cad drawing of the chassis / frame and run it by someone who knows how to build a chassis for a road course car
then its that “simple” matter of welding it up in your garage so thats its safe
the power of the internet + finding the right sources to ask = anything is possible
to do a car like that properly would require a one off custom designed fully tubular chassis with plenty of custom aluminum/magnesium suspension parts. Then molds for a Carbonfiber body built from a full-size sculpture, as well as some time testing in a windtunnel to ensure stability of the car at high speeds.
It could be done as a one off, but would require a lot of work and a set of deep pockets. It could be an amazing car though.
I should rephrase what I meant when I said supercar, I think many of you literally thought I’d be trying to dupicate something along the lines of an Enzo (for example). To make something as rediculous as this come to life probably wouldn’t be able to compete on a level that the common supercar performs, at least with my wallet and (lack of) engineering capabilities.
My goal would be to make the design of my clay model a reality in full scale.
That’s why I thought a rolling chassis would be ideal as a starting ground. True suspension, it would be straight, safe, and easy to build up from. Then drop the body panels onto this. Spendy perhaps but maybe a bit more believable. Or, have a chassis builder go ground up on one? Best way to describe what I’m thinking, new ZO6
That’s what I’m referring to…and this by no means handles like ass (Newman)
That Maserati…I geuss I’m missing the similarity to my desgin.:gotme:
In all honesty though, with the body lines of that car, you are not going to really find a suitable base point; it’s going to be a custom chassis from the get-go; if you base it off that, then you’re starting from a blank slate; thus some basic suspension geometry (Find someone who knows how to do this and is willing to help or wants to help) and a CAD system should be able to get you a designed chassis in about the same amount of time that it will take to get the body panels fabbed up.
Then just order the chromoly, build a frame jig setup, and start tig-welding. This is how most street rods/kit cars are done. My dad got his kit car’s frame already welded, but you can get them unwelded as well; thus the reason I suggest just building your own.
I know someone personally who built and is still building an original GT40 from just a fiberglass body kit, and a few parts. He built the entire frame from scratch, as well as the suspension. That’s the type of thing that car needs. A full tubeframe done with Chromoly.
Exactly what I was thinking…I was using the ZO6 as a reference for a car that is strucurally sound, just missing it’s body. My design would hopefully be similar in the general idea, but perhaps not the look.
I’d like to hear more about this GT40…is it local?
