Okrasa Special

[hot66]

did you watch the ferrrai cobra wars last night ? ... great bit on when they 'designed' & built the daytona coupe

[Barry]

I like that first pic BTW.

One thing (clue?) is that all the way through this, I've always felt that when you approach the car from the side, or look at it from the mezzanine, the proportions look very good indeed. Even looking straight down around the boot area from overhead, it still looks spot-on.

Steve did say to me that it might well be the case that, like the front end, it might just need some tweaks, and the above would tend to support that. It's just amazing how you can look at any angle except from the rear, and the back end looks fine. That would all suggest we can't be far off. And yet, when you actually do look from the rear, it looks fugly as hell.

I did wonder whether some of this is a function of that large roof, but again looking down from above it looks fine, and many, many successfull shapes have wide, or full width roofs, so suspect that actually this isn't the problem.

[Barry]

Thanks James, recorded it, but not watched it yet.

[KS]

Looking afresh, the problem is (I think) an unbalance between the 'weight' of the nose and the tail. The nose extends forward from the front wheel arches, without curving in very much, whereas the rear curves in sharply immediately after the wheel arch. By lengthening the tail and keeping its plan form a little more 'square' I think the proportions would improve. To work with that roof, maybe take a leaf out of Karmann's book with the Ghia itself, by having more bulk behind the rear wheels. Maybe, dare I say it, drop the Kamm tail and go for a more rounded form?

Just a thought...

[911hillclimber]

Totally agree with KS.
The nose is right, the 'post'axle centre-line part of the rear is too short and the curves fall away to fast.
A bit of re-wire forming and silver paper (alum foil) will get the balance back and give us the chance to weigh it all up again but just the rear corner imho.

Too easy to get into an iteration of tickle the rear, caress the front, caress the rear again, tickle the front (just a touch more) etc etc.

For my part I certainly would start working on the body with the correct wheels and tyres, i thought you already had them on the car all along...

When I did my two hot-rods way way back the wheels were as much a guide to overall balance to the effect as anything else, I feel it is no different here, be it a special like this or a chopped and channelled hot rod, the wheels will add so very much esp 3/4 views.

What a great job you are doing Barry; I can only still feel very envious. I hope not to come over as a key-board metalman; fantastic work so far for a very open minded customer.

Hot rods are the best!

[Barry]

The classic irony to all this is that we did start off with the tail a bit longer than it is now.

We wheeled it out, and thought it looked too long and kept putting the black tape over more and more rear wing until it looked right. After than I remodelled the whole of the rear (again), and that's where we are (were) now.

I think the problem has probably been that the tail has always been miles off (don't forget that I'm working off that one side rendering, so the whole tail was a guess basically) in terms of what I've done. We then fiddled around with it, where I suspect a proper body man / designer would have come in, and made big artistic movements with his hands 'no loads more here, this needs to come right up, this is all wrong: move that up and out by six inches etc etc . We're more the other way: perhaps a tiny bit here, now try it as it was, perhaps something in-between, or perhaps not .... '.

As for the wheels, we have been working with the correct ones virtually all of the time, but in the last few months the bus has grabbed them, leaving the special on spindly little mountain bike rims . I'm sure Steve will have a solution to hand soon, although I think we've pretty much concluded that the rims that started on the Special look particularly suited to it.

BYW, I popped up there earlier to pick something up, and did notice a symbolic cobweb on the shaft of the English Wheel .... I'll have to get my hand back in .

Thanks for the support as ever Graham, very much appreciated .

[Macaulay]

Great work guys!
It's looking like a realy mean little runner.

As you remember (Steve/Barry) I was not supporting the short tail when we first started to get the design down, but slowly got into the idea that it could work.
For a while I thought it actually looked great with the short tail and in a way I think it still does, it's a brutal abrupt cut on the car wich it can have
beacause of the mid mounted engine. I like that because it gives a race feel, one off not beauty, but more "let's not drag around more metal than we need" design.
Wich makes for realistic thinking for a race car.
I don't know but I think it's a fine line between "hard core race car" and "sports car" that you are looking for in the design.
Looking at history I think race cars that have been designed for racing and then modified for road use looks much better than the once designed to look like racers but
realy are just road cars.
I donno why I said that... hope I'm not talking gibberish.

I did not see an image straight from the back as you say is the worst looking side, but from the side veiw I agree it could do with maybe 20cm more metal starting
from the bottom back wheel arch in a nearly horizontal line before going up towards the cam tail top.
I wish I was nearby so I could pop over and join in on the brainstorming, it would be much easier to give a sensible input when seeing the car in the flesh.

Keep jabbing at it.

[Ian 2.2S]

I think you are beating yourselves up too much , it is really close to a very pretty car. The low height side elevation shot seems to show the tail springing from too far up the rear wheel in comparison to the rear of the sill, but I think this is exaggerated by the camera height/viewing angle. It would be nice to rear a rear 3/4 view as well. Is the exhaust the actual one. mounted correctly? It doesn't help!
All the best.
Ian

[steve wright]

Thanks for all the counsel and words of encouragement, it really does provide support for Barry and I. What's really frustrating is that I sense we're not far off, especially because as Barry highlights, when you look at the car from a three-quarters angle, from above, and virtually from any angle other than directly behind, it looks spot on. Then you look at it and realise it has no arse! I'll have a play with card/foil and post a few mock-ups as well as a "as is" so everyone can see what we're dealing with. rather frustratingly I've just realised that most of the images from the early days of this thread have been broken, which is odd because I've not changed anything my end, as we had some great alternatives from Macauley and others which gave different treatments for the rear end.

Just two points of clarification on the last part of this thread: the original wheels were VW solid rims and were swapped for date-correct 356 rims (i.e. May 1961) about 2 years ago, and the exhaust you can see in the most recent set of pictures is most definitely not fitted at the moment - it was the Sebring from the 356 race car but it failed the noise tests spectacularly, so it will probably be cut and shut to fit the Special.

Cheers,
Steve

[neilbardsley]

Mostly I love your garage. You must have a massive lock on the door!

[sladey]

I think you are beating yourselves up too much

Is the exhaust the actual one. mounted correctly? It doesn't help!
Ian

It certainly doesn't - take that out of the picture and I think it will look totally different

[smallspeed]

easy to get into an iteration of tickle the rear, caress the front, caress the rear again, tickle the front (just a touch more) etc etc.

sounds like a recepie for a black eye!

agree with previous comments though; maybe a bit more bulk at the back would balance it a little?

[Lightweight_911]

Looking at the side profile, I think the existing tail would be perfect if it was an open car - it's the roof line/mid-engined configuration which makes the rear end look too short.

Most mid-engined sports-racers from that era get away with a short rear if combined with solid butresses (eg 250LM) - about the only '60's small mid-engined coupe that I can think of that has rear glazed side windows is the De Tomaso Vallelunga which may provide a guide for how much the rear needs lengthening ? Obviously you have to ignore the rear screen :

[Ferry Man]

I really like the short tail. Stumpy is good. I love the abrupt cut-off.
Just shorten the front Barry....

[steve wright]

Andy that's interesting - the Special doesn't have such a long quarter panel (between the b and c pillars) so it's difficult to gauge comparisons, but I couldn't help notice the little Kamm tail spoiler and the fact that the rear valance has more "weight" to it: ie it finishes below the axle line, much like the LM, although as you point out the LM and 910 which I've been using as reference points both have buttresses for the c-pillar.

Tried to mock up the rear today and got thwarted by the silencer. tried to remove it, cursed a lot, gave up and went and tinkered wih the bus instead.... will try that another day!