New Kitcar Design Sketches and Concepts

There's no doubt that you are a talented designer, and I look forward to seeing any more sketches you have.

On other threads I've often suggested a 2+2 and have cited the Caterham 21 as a starting point so here is roughly what I had in mind.


I've also suggested that the Fiat X1/9 could make a starting point for a new design. The buck for this is an X1/9 (so the buck is half finished on day one) with a racecar style minimal windscreen, aero fairings behind the seats and minor reshaping of the front and the rear panel. No doors which keeps things as simple as possible, just jump in. There might be many more mass produced cars that could be used as a short cut to a buck like this.


Apparently the molds for this lovely car, the Byers CR90, were lost many years ago. Can you imagine losing this? A few examples still exist. I'd change the side air vents for something like the Aston DBR1 or '58 Corvette but it looks lovely as it is. Another design without doors.


These cars have four cylinder engines but if you were resurecting the design it could be fitted with a V8 and be an alternative to the endless Cobra kits.

This is a Rocket that went to India, the clever lads made their own body for it.

Just some doodles, definitely just doodles, from my scrap book. Quite embarrassing really!

Coupe drawn at Uni around 1968 when I should have been cramming for an exam:



Idea for a 'Frontini' based on a Vauxhall Whatsit



Doodle of a three-wheeler based on early Renault 5, drawn around 1988



That one might have worked!

Now you realy do have me confused.
8 posts back you put up a design where the driver clearly could not see out of the side of the car which I mentioned but got no response.
Now another with the same problem only moreso.

I truely do like your designs but they have to be both practical and compliant with the construction and use regulations otherwise they serve no purpose.

It reminds me of this



but lower and sportier

I'd like to jump to Italo's defence and have to agree with Slomax's point of view, at least within a mainstream car production environment.

Italo has an obvious talent (and probably training?) in automotive art presentation. I wish I had half his abilities in this direction to get some of my ideas onto paper. Car design is evolutionary and needs lots of experiments in new directions before a production version is chosen. Hence the reason for sometimes adventurous or even 'whackey' drawings in the first place. So long as the artist/stylist/designer has something new to say, it is relatively cheap to churn out loads of styling ideas on paper.

Even if only a few small, novel elements are eventually incorporated into the production design, it is worth the effort. This is what happens ad infinitum in the design studios of the big car manufacturers, as we all know, for the most part series 5 being a development of series 4 etc. Only occasionally do we see a complete departure from the norm. Plagiarism abounds! But this is how evolution works.

However, the kit car world is necessarily very different! Here, almost exclusively, we are talking low budgets, minimum facilities and numbers of personnel (and therefore talent) involved - often a one-man-band scenario to start off with! In one way a good thing - no restraints on a new design. But, in another way, not so good - no tried and tested yardstick to develop the new car from, unless you pinch someone elses's design. Without being too critical, that is why the kit car scene is full of oddities with no major sales potential, or replicas - the easy way out. (But look what happens when a few guys and gals with a spread of talents and resources get together - LBird!!??)

It seems Italo sometimes uses a clever starting point which is to draw over a photograph of an existing car which at least exists and works in the real world. I've tried this myself. At least you get a design which stands a chance of being dimensionally viable. But the fact is, you can only test its true functionality and aesthetic appeal by building a full size mock-up. Very expensive in the kit-car world unless you get it right first time!

The OP was making a challenging request to ask budding designers to reveal their ideas on this thread - OK if they are simply designers, willing to show off their talents, maybe in the hope of gaining employment or becoming part of a team - nowt wrong with that. I do hope more concepts are posted. Go on, be brave!

But in reality, I think if a designer has any intention of actually building a new car to enter the commercial kit car scene, then they are unlikely to be revealing much on here?