Okrasa Special

[hot66]

[Pandora]

Is that an Opel GT?

[hot66]

yes

saw this photo and it struck me it isn't far off the current rear end

[Barry]

Good spot James, thank you .

[steve wright]

well we've had something of a breakthrough in the past week or so. I took the feedback from this thread and ripped off most of the previous mock up, leaving the original rear arch that looked so lovely (minus the bulge behind the air vent that Barry and I agree doesn't really work) but keeping the kamm tail lip above the rear boot and hey presto, something that works. admittedly this is pretty rough, but the moment I stepped back from it, it looked "right", and more importantly it allows the rear to retain some of the width and weight we've been so desperate to inject. I figured out when pulling the last mock up off that we have probably broke a few design rules in mapping things out as we have so far:
1. The centre line of the front wing and door is very straight, with just a hint of curve to the centre line of the car to it, whereas all our efforts with the rear arch and tail have curved the centre line in, so no matter what we did the rear was always going to look small
2. If you're going to curve the rear tail in, then you've got to bulge the rear wheel arch to give some width to the car when viewed from behind, otherwise all you do is shrink an already small car
3. Can't remember what it was but it was pretty fundamental. Anyway, here's the roughed up version. Plus I thought I would put in a few "progress" shots so you can see the effort that goes into just trying to get one panel right

Next step is for Barry to knock up a few rough panels to make sure it works in ally, then we should be in a position to sign off the design, assuming the thing passes the "wheel it outside into reality test".

Cheers,
Steve

[Pandora]

I had a bit of a scribble last night (and it really was a scribble, so please excuse the rather rough drawings -I'm rustier than I thought!) - not a million miles away from what you've arrived at.

I basically pulled the tail back and up, but took some of the bulk out of the bootlid to give it some form to mirror the front whilst not letting the tail look to heavy, albeit with more of a 'haunched' profile.

Starting with this:

I moved onto these:








and so Barry knows how to make it......



You'll note the use of splity tail lights - period, and handy to have spares at the circuit in case of 'incidents'

Oh, and I'm rather pleased with the combined 'door handle' / air inlet detail!

Al

[Dingbat]

Hi All
I don't suppose anyone anywhere has a picture of the white RHD '57 coup'e that had a Kamm tail, it was made of fibreglass and ali and oddly enough had split van tail lights, it was quite nicely done but I know it was put back to a standard rear end a number of years ago and was refinished in red but I don't know the registration number, its possible whoever owns it these days doesn't know.

[sladey]

I had a bit of a scribble last night (and it really was a scribble, so please excuse the rather rough drawings -I'm rustier than I thought!) - not a million miles away from what you've arrived at.

I basically pulled the tail back and up, but took some of the bulk out of the bootlid to give it some form to mirror the front whilst not letting the tail look to heavy, albeit with more of a 'haunched' profile.

Starting with this:

I moved onto these:








and so Barry knows how to make it......



You'll note the use of splity tail lights - period, and handy to have spares at the circuit in case of 'incidents'

Oh, and I'm rather pleased with the combined 'door handle' / air inlet detail!

Al

Nice!

[Barry]

I had a bit of a scribble last night (and it really was a scribble, so please excuse the rather rough drawings -I'm rustier than I thought!) - not a million miles away from what you've arrived at.

I basically pulled the tail back and up, but took some of the bulk out of the bootlid to give it some form to mirror the front whilst not letting the tail look to heavy, albeit with more of a 'haunched' profile.

Starting with this:

I moved onto these:








and so Barry knows how to make it......



You'll note the use of splity tail lights - period, and handy to have spares at the circuit in case of 'incidents'

Oh, and I'm rather pleased with the combined 'door handle' / air inlet detail!

Al

. Amazing, and funnily enough, Steve had been trying to get me to map out a tail lip that only covered the centre part. Frankly I couldn't see how it could work, but that looks amazing!

Many, many thanks Al, you are one clever guy!

[Pandora]

Ha ha, not sure about that.

Funnily enough I was just talking to steve on the phone and I was saying that the reason I drew it with that detail was that to have the tail spoiler as he / you mocked up will either be a nice flourish at the tail, or Could (only could) become a distracting detail, as it's scale is out of proportion with the rest of the smooth flanks - it will work (or not) depending on the detail of the transition alone. I just figured it's easier to hide the transition, than run the risk of getting it wrong....

I think it's also important to remember that the car will largely be viewed from above because of the scale, and yet I drew it from a worms eye view. Doh!

I did also suggest to Steve that it's important to think, to twist a well known phrase, "what would Maurice Gomm have done?" as I'm pretty sure that's where it would have been bodied if it had been completed when built - Williams and Pritchard were miles away in North London, Gomms were (and are) just up the road in Byfleet!

Cheers,
Al

[911hillclimber]

Back a page and I suggested this (and any other 'free-hand' car) should have it's own 'risk' in the style.

And here it is!
The centre section in the tail is spot-on, the air-in and the door release in the b post is very neat and the coincidence of the garage solution and the free-hand sketch is uncanny and I feel very natural.

Strikes me you are there at last?

[Pandora]

Oh, and we also had a chat about the 'rules' of car design, and whilst obviously there aren't any, the following points might be interesting:

I tried to balance the rear overhang with the front. look at most cars, be it an E type or a Mini, and you'll see that this is usually broadly similar. The previous mock up wasn't. but then a GT40 has a long nose and no arse, so that's that rule out the window!

The tail was previously a bit 'droopy'. I lifted the top of the kamm tail to be in line with the strong horizontal from the front wing top and along the door. You're eye won't necissarily recognise this specifically, but it helps pull it all together and look level.

Similarly the combining of the door handle with the air inlet is a wee trick to link the front and rear together - Not necissarily an issue, but can be useful where there are no swage lines or similar to link things.

So you see, that's all there is to it........


Al

[steve wright]

Al and I had a great chat last night. As I pointed out when you know nothing about car design like me then you're unhindered by convention, but it does mean you're unaware of the breaking of the rules! Rules can be broken it seems (eg GT40) but you've just got to know when you're doing it and what effect you're going to create in doing it. It's all about intention I guess, rather than what I'm doing which is based on intuition.

I should mention Al had tried to get in touch with me last week but we hadn't connected, but in a perverse way it meant a high degree of confidence building for me because we arrived at the same point separately it validated the design in many ways, which is great.

As I said last night Al please feel free to contribute more actively here if you see us making mistakes or if you can add value in any way.

On the design I sense the whole rear of the car could do with being raised another couple of inches as Barry suggested to me a couple of months ago, and the transition (ramp) on the leading edge of the Kamm tail lip is too aggressive (ie it needs to be smoother and shallower, but that's detail we can nail once we know the fundamentals are right.

Interestingly my sister in law who is a generation younger and not particularly knowledgeable about cars but very much in tune with style saw it at the weekend and her first words were that it "looked like an old Ferrari". Given she doesn't know her Dino's from her 250LM's I took that as a huge compliment because there were enough styling cues from the era and the marque to have her make the association. I probably shouldn't mention this on the thread but when we set out on designing this I jotted down a few words that I wanted the car to encapsulate. It might sound a bit OTT but it's helped validate the design by referencing the car having: beauty, intent, subtle aggression and speed.

Al and I also discussed having gone for a Kamm tail: David Small was well ahead of his time and this is evidenced in a lot of the engineering details, so it felt right to have gone with the Kamm tail as this was emerging strongly as a design feature in 1961 with the Aston Martin project cars, etc. my view is that with the KG roof it would've looked very frog like if we had gone with the rounded tail like the 550.

Anyway, acid test will be pushing it out into the sunlight hopefully this weekend.

Cheers Steve

[MdR]

Anyway, acid test will be pushing it out into the sunlight hopefully this weekend.

Exciting

[kvinyl]

Absolutely loving this thread, the progression and the pitfalls, with all the contributions along the way...fantastic stuff