Okrasa Special

[Jonny Hart]

Perhaps pull a swage line through to the tail to give it some visual length at the back?

[Pandora]

I guess my concern still is that we've yet to find a car in period that acheives the sort of shape we're trying to make work: i.e. swoopy front with faired in lights (still my favourite area of the car), mid / rear engine, full sized roof, no butresses and a kamm tail. That's not to say it can't be done of course, just means there's no one car that we can look at and say 'ah, that's what we need to do.

Is that not a DeTomaso Vallelunga?

[Barry]

Pretty close: never even heard of one I'm afraid.

http://www.autogush.com/20651-de-tomaso-vallelunga.html

Similar thing again though, effectively the rear roof/window line is being carried right back at a shallow angle, just with glass rather than flying buttress. Very, very good spot though.

Interesting image Jonny BTW, there's some ideas to be had from that one as well, in the treatment of the rear window, side windows and how it gets to the kamm.

Thanks chaps, there's nothing like having other cars to compare to . Much easier than just trying different things 'free hand' so to speak.

[Pandora]

Looking just at the transition of the roofline to bootlid at the rear quarterlight, I can't help but be reminded of:
http://www.carstyling.ru/ru/car/1955_bm ... ages/1105/

trying to find a 507 to look at is hard enough, but one with a hard top...... Goodwood, maybe?
might be interesting to look at the forms around the transition though? The rear of the boot area is however a lot more curvaceous - more akin to a gullwing or a cobra, rather than the kamm tail.

Edit: Looking again at the gaffertape and wire mock up, I can't help thinking it's maybe become a bit too 'square' - it looks rather redolent of the '64 Le Mans sumbeam Tigers - to my eye it rather jars against the lovely flow of the car from the front and along the side, only to become much more 'square cut' at the back.

Rather than just needing a bum, Kiera needs it to have some curves with it.

I might well be wrong of course........

[Lightweight_911]

Pretty close: never even heard of one I'm afraid.

- see my post on p51 ... :

http://www.ddk-online.com/phpBB2/viewto ... ga#p309640

I'm sure that there is a mid-engined car with Kamm tail & 'swooping front with faired-in headlamps' & full size roof - I just can't think what it is (at the moment) ...

[Barry]

Pretty close: never even heard of one I'm afraid.

- see my post on p51 ... :

http://www.ddk-online.com/phpBB2/viewto ... ga#p309640

I'm sure that there is a mid-engined car with Kamm tail & 'swooping front with faired-in headlamps' & full size roof - I just can't think what it is (at the moment) ...

Oops Sorry Andy: I can see why I missed the shape though, the rear glass is very prominant in the image, and I guess when I Googled it I saw a lot of upper rear 3/4 views that illustrated the other shapes.

The 507 is another really interesting one: the roof is very much of the same general style. When I was out walking the dog earlier it did strike me that there is a car that has a very similar roof-line to a VW KG, and that's a VW KG . Let me try again: it occurred that we might do as well to revisit the roof's donor car, and just have a look at the roof angle, and the way it interacts with the other panels in the same area that we're looking at.

I do think that there are still many lessons to be learnt from other cars, just as long as we're looking at the right ones in the first place. I'm definitely guilty of studying the 'wrong' ones: Dino, 904, GT40 etc etc, which simply don't have the same rear roof height or lines. Therefore we're never going to achieve that sort of look as far as the rear is concerned, because so much of the car's foundations are completely different in proportion. That's not to say I think that the whole kamm won't work (and we're heading the right way with the size increases here for sure), more that we might be as well to study the area ahead of this in relation to some of the above vehicular inspirations.

BTW, Steve's dummying up might be a bit flat, but I think he's really just trying to see the effect of adding more bulk just ahead of the kamm area (the two-o-clock area when looking from the rear). We'll obviously end up with a compound shape that reflects some of the earlier styles in terms of the side view.

Keep the images coming if anything strikes anyone as being of use: many thanks for the interest everyone .

[KS]

The Vintech 550 is the closest to how I envisaged doing the car when I owned it. It's also closer to how David Small saw it maturing. I think the tail treatment is spot-on. But that's just me. I do accept it possibly wouldn't work 100 per cent with the current nose, though. Or would it?

[roy mawbey]

Oh Keith,

I like that image very much indeed

Roy

[Pandora]

Looking at the rear screen to 'bootlid' angle, the rear of an Elan+2 is interesting - very clean and uncluttered (unlike the fromt of the +2!) - no quarterlight, but from this angle - nicked off Flickr, it isn't a million miles from Steve's idea?


Lotus Elan +2 by SuperCarFreak, on Flickr

[BAHumbug]

Steve
Re the sentiment expressed in your post of 08 Aug--it IS supposed to be fun, although at times, perhaps scary and even frustrating. As an example meant to be encouraging, photo #1 is 1999 and represents a very nice body on a NHRA approved frame. No engine, suspension, wiring, or shiny bits. Understand, I have a day job, two kids and average mechanical ability.



Slow (not fast) forward 13 years, two weddings, no divorce (very patient wife), no grandchildren (yet), hours or pouring over Ebay listings to find one piece at a time, not to mention the hours doing and redoing the actual work and Voila!



and even better, it's alive! (although if you look carefully you can see I cracked the first windshield)



Like many things the problems getting there are quickly forgotten once the goal is acheived. There were times that I doubted my sanity and wondered just what I had been thinking or drinking when I committed to the project. It was all worth it.

Onward and upward, Bruce

To Keith and Roy re:the Vintech--I think I'm in love. . .

[911hillclimber]

Is it right to chase a design from another car be it a concept car, a racer, a production car?

Should this car show individualism and a risk in itself, just as others have and will do in the future?
I see shades of Boxster in the front 3/4 pics around the back side.

Maybe a shade more 'free-hand' sketching and with your eyes for a curve (.....) it will flow.

There comes a time to shoot the (designer/engineer/marketing man) and do it.(?)

There must be an awful lot of car styles from this period which might prolong the decision and clutter the mind?
I do not mean to be critical, I'm just an old hotrodder, but are you working at this too hard?

[Barry]

Nope: not with you on this one .

As neither of us are designers, it seems to make the most sense to me/us to try to get to the root of some golden rules (if there are such things), and looking at previous successful designs seems to be the most sensible way of doing this. It might not be clear from the pictures, but we're not there yet. As I've said before, we're not looking for design perfection (there's no such thing), but to have that basic feeling that it's about right. Front end is a good example: it wasn't right, it was changed, and now for most of the time, and at most angles it looks great. I'm sure we could keep tweaking it here and there, but if we did, there would simply be new ways in which it looked better, and new ways in which it would look worse. We're just not at that stage on the rear yet. We will be though: it's a process, and frankly we just need a breakthrough: it'll come though, they always do, usually just when you don't expect it.

As it happens, Steve is starting a new job with a new company, and I'm still playing catch-up from earlier in the year, so other than Steve popping up now and then (and me joining him should he need some bits welding / shaping), we're in a holding pattern for now.

As the various parties that Steve has courted for suggestions will be returning from their summer breaks over the next month or so, it may well be that we can get some fresh (ideally qualified / experienced) eyes to give it the once-over (would love for Macaulay to walk into the workshop ).

For my part, I'm now shopping around for a much bigger workshop (around four times the size of my little home-based place), with a view to having the Special moved there once the design is settled. This way I'm hoping to have all of the equipment under one roof, and be able to gain some efficiencies in terms of moving tools / dog / me between workshops. Will also be able to have the folder, flypress and both English wheels to hand, and hopefully get hold of a big 3ph hydraulic press also. Time has come to move on, and I'm bursting at the seams here .

With this in mind, I can't wait for us to be at a position where we've got a design to work out from, and a new workshop to work in. Obviously in the meantime, if a design gets settled, we'll carry on as before, at Steve's workshop.

[Pandora]

Nope: not with you on this one .

As neither of us are designers, it seems to make the most sense to me/us to try to get to the root of some golden rules (if there are such things), and looking at previous successful designs seems to be the most sensible way of doing this. It might not be clear from the pictures, but we're not there yet. As I've said before, we're not looking for design perfection (there's no such thing), but to have that basic feeling that it's about right. Front end is a good example: it wasn't right, it was changed, and now for most of the time, and at most angles it looks great. I'm sure we could keep tweaking it here and there, but if we did, there would simply be new ways in which it looked better, and new ways in which it would look worse. We're just not at that stage on the rear yet. We will be though: it's a process, and frankly we just need a breakthrough: it'll come though, they always do, usually just when you don't expect it.

Barry, you have a PM (and you are right, there are no golden rules - every single car has a bad angle, somewhere!)

[Barry]

Thanks Al.

[Dingbat]

Hi All
I think maybe your concentrating too hard on the front and rear and also being a little hard on yourselves too, I think maybe a bit more form in the sides to compliment that Ghia roof may help, have you tried maybe curving the sill bottom upwards between the wheels and giving the car some hips by starting to swell the rear quarters out below the rear quarter windows, admittedly the rear track may limit how far you can go without it looking odd but I think it needs something to reduce the slighly slab sided look. Also very few designs are perfect take that Lusso for instance, in the picture its not that obvious but there is a queer mismatch between the line of the rear quarter windows and the rear screen so the "c" pillar has an uneven waisted appearance also Lusso's have slightly odd wheel arches in particular the front ones that don't have an even radius they have a look of a fifty pence piece, another car with an odd angle is an earlier 356 when you follow one down the road they look rather humpty backed and the rear window looks too small and difficult to see out of due to the ngle it sits at but from every other angle they look fine, the point I am trying to make is you can often have cars that most think of as perfect that have a design hiccup somewhere .