Okrasa Special

[Gary71]

That's some proper old school work there They must all be deaf though...

[Pandora]

Come on Steve/ Barry, don't be shy!

give the ardent followers of progress here an update.........

Al

[steve wright]

Okay, here we go... sorry Al. So Barry and Al have been busy over the past month constructing the wooden buck for the rear bodywork, I've been conspicuous by my absence.

Rear bodywork buck in all it's glory:


You get a sense of the proportions of the car with the cover draped over the rear:


Here's the classic coke bottle effect beginning to show itself. She finally has hips!


And suddenly the roof doesn't seem to dominate the back of the car as it once did:


And then a lovely shot I think of the lip of the Kamm tail shown off to good effect against the backdrop of the velvet green of the bus:


And then I finally made a small contribution by getting the new wheels mounted on the Dunlop Racing tyres that will be fitted to the Special. We needed a slightly wider wheel and tyre combination to fill out the rear arch, otherwise it looks lost in the wheel arch, a little like the E-Type does. Not that original magnesium BRM's need any justification being bolted to a car


Hopefully we should see some major progress over the summer but I'll let Barry explain....

[Pandora]

Ha ha, no worries Steve. I'm looking forward to Barry putting the rear panel on and the wire lip round the kamm tail spoiler as this will make a big difference to Steve's patented 'sheet test'.

I think this pic Barry sent me shows ste flow in it's best light (it is a bit tricky to see the curves instead of the 'pointy ends' at this stage)



Oh, and I think the BRMs will look great, and I think I've left enough room for them. If not, I'd be glad to stretch the arches as much as needed to get them in!


Al

[kvinyl]

...original magnesium BRM's ....

Nice...

[vicpolky]

...original magnesium BRM's ....

Nice...

x2 the wheel/tyre combo looks very cool

[BAHumbug]

So... if I'm understanding...after a considerable amount of mental mastication (and delay), once you decided "Oh, buck it!" real progress has been made!!!

[Barry]

So... if I'm understanding...after a considerable amount of mental mastication (and delay), once you decided "Oh, buck it!" real progress has been made!!!

Erm no, the thing that's changed is we got Al on board .

You have to understand that everything pre-Al has been guessed from Macaulay's side rendering, so dimensions, front view, rear view, plan view, references, station drawings, curve templates: all guessed. From the first day the car was wheeled out into the light (when the rear turned out to be very wrong), we've been in trouble: no-one's fault, I'm no designer (hell, I'm no coachbuilder either, but I can work on that ), and whilst both Steve and I had an idea where we wanted to go, we didn't know how to get there. I just had a gut feel that we needed somebody with an experienced designer's eye (including Macaulay if he hadn't been so far away) to physically come to the workshop, wave an artistic hand, and say something along the lines of 'no, this needs to be MUCH bigger, and this here all needs to go, chop here, here and here, sweep down so this line meets that curve, bit more here, bit less there etc etc' . The trouble is that it was a bit like a lottery ticket: it was so tempting to try 'just one more' interation, in case we stumbled upon the solution.

Anyway, as soon as Al came along to help, the process has been utterly transformed: after his visit, he spent a lot of time drawing up every station for me to be able to make the buck. In terms of design : cutting ratio, I would say that for every three hours of design, it's only one hour to convert that design-work into physical parts. This is what I've been bashing away at all of this time: the design process is a huge element, and is my road-map as to how to build the thing.

It's not a case of things have moved on because we've got a buck, it's moved on because, thanks to Al, we've got the design to build the buck. With the station drawings I was able to buy the MDF, grid it, transfer the designs, cut the work out, plane and sand it, go to the workshop and fit it, all within thirteen hours.

Clearly there'll almost certainly be areas that we feel will need tweaking, but that's a rather different matter, and is where the foam will come into it's own, but overall it's having the sense of direction that is making the difference.

Again, I'd underline that this is still Macaulay's vision, we still want the car to look very much like the rendering from that side view. Al's input is allowing us to take that vision and work it up into a nuts-and-bolts working set of drawings. We couldn't do it without either of them.

[steve wright]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Six months searching in the dark for a design that worked became really frustrating. However, it was worth the gamble, because despite neither of us being designers, Barry and I did manage to get a very clear sense of what was possible, and it looked AMAZING. Bearing in mind I bought a bare chassis and a cut up fibreglass kit that was never going to work on the car and the process we went through in trying to convert Macauley's renderings into a reality were very much a part of a process: without it we wouldn't have had the conviction to carry on and bring Al into the process because we needed to know that it might just turn out to be a great looking little car. Nothing ventured, nothing gained I think.

Anyway, onwards and upwards now, hopefully at a rate we've not enjoyed for some time!

[Pandora]

because we needed to know that it might just turn out to be a great looking little car.

Might? We'll have none of that 'might' nonsense round here! we won't stop 'till it IS a great looking wee car!

I was thinking just the other day, I've left probably what will become one of the biggest design features of the car out of the picture at this stage, namely the shaping of the rear wheel arch into the flank behind the door. This has been a conscious decision, as it will be a fluid form best worked in the foam, rather than trying the plan it out in tape and MDF in advance.

In fact, the creation of that element is a direct reverse of the process Steve and Barry are now seeing the benefit of and discussing, in that this is a shape will just evolve in much the same way as the process they previously employed.

Anyway, I was thinking, at some stage the car will be getting pushed out into the daylight for the all important 'stand a long way back and see if it's all been worthwhile' test. when we do this, it might be nice to have a couple of options.......

So, Steve, what I'd suggest is that we form the transition from arch to flank differently on each side of the car, then decide which one works best (or put it to the DDK vote!)

I know Steve's preference is the Abarth GTL type arch, the lower edge of which returns in a sweep to the lower leading edge of the rear wheel arch. This is a nice strong feature, and my only reservation about it is that as it is quite unique to that car,and so it might be seen as a 'copy' rather than a feature of the Okrasa, if you see what I mean?

So on the other side I'd like to try a slightly more conventional merge between the surfaces where the arch flows into the wing, still with the sharp transition crease, but not curving / returning to the rear of the car - as seen on the DB4GT Zagato, various Lancias etc, all of the right early '60s type vintage GT cars. None of which could be described as ugly!

Just a thought, and of course, it's Steve's call, but while we have the opportunity it seems the best way to explore the options before Barry has the fun of capturing the 3D geometry to transfer them to alloy (Don't worry Barry, I have a few wee tricks to help ensure symetry!)

Do I need to start buying flowers and chocolates for Jennifer to win some shore leave for a trip south?

Al

[Pandora]

So the transition from the top of the fuller rear wing into the flatter side of the car behind the door would
look a bit like:

Side 1:


Side 2, a cunning blend of:


&



Al

[cubist]

Every time I dip into this thread I never fail to be in awe of you guys and your dogged determination to make this design work cohesively and, more importantly, period correct... much loveliness.

Just a thought on the front to rear width transition, Karmann took a pretty good stab at the haunches around the time the roof section was created...



Just joshing...

[steve wright]

cor, that's like trying to choose between Gwyneth Paltrow and Uma Thurman. Anyway, before I get carried away, I like the idea Al, sounds like a great plan. I've going to put the BRM's on the rear Saturday morning, so if all goes well Barry and I could then push it out into the sunlight at the weekend or next week. Another weekend "session" would be great!

Cubist, good idea - I had the same thought about the KG, as Ghia worked out a lovely solution to the transition. There are two problems as I see it though: because the roof is from a KG we risk it looking like a copy of the KG which I'm keen to avoid, lovely car as it is. And secondly, Barry has steered me away from swage lines, which the Ghia has down the side because of the complexity this brings in metal forming....

Cheers,
Steve

[steve wright]

So we pushed the Okrasa Special outside yesterday to fully enjoy the glorious Bank Holiday sunshine and here are the results.

My favourite one is the side-on view with the cover draped over it. When we first did the wire-form buck both Barry and I said "wow, that looks amazing", and it was hard to see us bettering that but it has.


And perhaps more importantly the roof no longer dominates the rear view of the car as it once did. The centreline of each wheel arch running front to back could do with being moved about an inch and a half inward and the rear arches themselves are about half to one inch too wide with the new wheels fitted, but overall it is really beginning to take shape:






The photos really don't do it justice but it feels like we're on the right track with the design now. The front three quarter, side, elevation and rear three quarter views all still work (in fact the car looks better proportioned I think with the slightly longer tail) and the rear is starting to look resolved. Certainly the roof now works on the car when viewed from the rear which is a relief! The rear panel continues to vex though - that one will require some thinking I expect! However it's all good and going in the right direction, soon we should be able to put our "feet on the gas" again with the car.

[Bootsy]

I think you've nailed it there - suddenly the proportions just seem to work.