New Prototype/Concept Car

[Vodka Margarine]

Car looks alot better with the wire mesh grill on the front btw.

[Tunku]

Aggresive front and nice arse. Just how I like a car. What kind of grill are you designing for it?

[GTRene]

I love it when its gona look like that in the flesh it will turn some heads! put a good 500hp LS7 engine in it and your ready to rock or even better the coming engine from the Stingray/SS(blue devill) a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8, and this Corvette engine is pushing nearly 650-horsepower!





I like the double bubble in the roof! and the real air diffusers in the car, most cars today have look alike ait holes in the car like the new BMW M3 but they have no use! I like real useful air-ducts/diffusers/air-stream holes.

GTRene

Edited by GTRene on Tuesday 28th August 00:01

[BladeX1]

The car is setup to fit just about any V8… Although I am sugesting a small block for performance and handling. I built a website that has the ideal specs I would like it to have. So far I have been able to stay true to the design and concept. The only thing that was off a little was the head lights… I was told the wrong dimensions for the lights so they are a little bigger than I was planning on. However they still look good.

Here is the site… www.BaileySpeed.com

I am planning on having the body buck ready to go to the Mold process by the end of the year.

- Neal

Edited by BladeX1 on Tuesday 28th August 02:38

[eliot]

BladeX1 said:

Interesting… is there a place where I can get the regulations for such a project. It would be nice to see the regulations for the US too. But as I understand it its pretty relaxed if you keep production under 100 cars a year. I would be happy with that.

Sva info is a sticky in kit cars forum;
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

There's a few people in the kit forum who know a thing or two about designing and building cars also.

[.. al]

Blade,

I think its a decent looking car. If I were to offer anything, I'd say that the front is possibly a little fussy. There was a Mustang/Aston hybrid thing doing the rounds lat year, and it didn't look happy at all. That though, is just my opinion.

But as an idea off the top of my head which is probably 100% impractical, to get around the potential objections of poeople like me who'll possibly really like the rest of it (and if you are after a car which is going to look different), why not offer it with a series of different noses? Say, 4 or 5 choices which may be specified at purchase and bolted on before delivery or supplied in kit form? You may have looked into and discounted the idea though, it might financially be a non starter.

Which leads me onto my second point. Will you market it as a self build kit, or as a supplied item? The kit car business is cut throat right now, and you're probably aware that you will be launching into an extremely crowded and competitive marketplace. Having said all of that, bloody good luck with it. For more and detailed advice about builds and UK SVA, you might like to gauge extra opinion here?

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&a...

[bob1179]

Stunning looking motor car!

I can't wait to see pictures of the finished item, it shoul dbe a real monster. All the best with the project and keep us all updated with how it goes.

Bob

[LotusNova]

Looks very nice.

I agree with what's written above though, re SVA. If you're considering marketing it in the U.K., I'd recommend investing in a copy of the latest SVA manual.

[ceriw]

Hi there,
Must congratulate you on this project first of all, admire your commitment and skill.
There are a couple of areas of the design that, when scanning the project jarr in my opinion.
Whilst designing fibreglass sports boats the objective appraisal was best arrived at by simply looking over the lines of the prototype and identifying which areas contradicted the overall flow of the design. As a designer of them, and some aspects of cars, our team always used this route to appraise. One needs to be ruthlessly objective, and impartiality is the key. Classic designs are not subjectively arrived at, but take on a determination of form on their own- an evolution of sorts.
As I do so with your impressive design there are 2 areas that I would suggest could be considered.
The first is, and I am tempering my comments by factoring in the 'american' nature of the beast, the rectangular box aft of the 'hood' vents; it strikes me as being unsophisticated - whereas the rest of the car is superbly so. I would look at options that remove this. The second is a contradiction that arises due to the marriage of a 'flame effect' dressage to the body, that does not run entirely at ease with the classic compound curves. The rear end is in my opinion superb, (and the marriage works so well here) however the sharp edges to the leading edge of the front wings is not subtle enough. I would suggest you radius these off to give a powerful curve. These will work very well with the excellent roof dub bub. The fact that the front wing would be curved and the rear haunches 'edged' will be both innovative and more subtly powerful than the current continuation of the edge line from front to rear, and you could graduate the edge in to the rear haunch. This would move the essence of the car into a more contemporary light.As it is it looks slightly 'slab' sided, but more of a hint... There is little else, if anything that strikes me as not exuding competance and beauty.
I would only add that there are limitations to angles possible with one off fibre glass mouldings. Maybe this could affect the finished article.
Lovely to see your project. Lucky man! All the best.
Nb, I'm only adding these comments as I am hoping that your project is as successful as it deserves to be, and that you might have reached a resolution in your minds eye that needs to be challenged/redefined.

Edited by ceriw on Tuesday 28th August 09:03

[Hendry]

Does it have an opening boot Neil? This may sounds like a worrying practical question on a forum like PH, but the lack of any decent storage space will inhibit its usability and therefore hamper sales. I think it probably helped to kill the Caterham 21 off.

[tribbles]

BladeX1 said:

Interesting… is there a place where I can get the regulations for such a project. It would be nice to see the regulations for the US too. But as I understand it its pretty relaxed if you keep production under 100 cars a year. I would be happy with that.

The regulations normally have to be paid for - however, there was a link to them in http://www.pistonheads.com/xforums/topic.asp?h=0&a... - although probably a little out of date now.

BladeX1 said:

Here are some images of the real prototype in the garage… It’s all made out of Foam and Wood at the moment. Once I get past the initial stage of shaping the car I will lay up some special material over the car and Epoxy resin to make a hard shell. Then I will finish the details with I’m sure gallons of Body filler and other various compounds. After the shape is painted and looks like the real think I have a company that will make a mold of it. Then the work will continue….

The mold would be a little complex (I was thinking that last night) - the front would probably need to be 2 or more pieces, and the back the same (unless you want to get into silly money).

However, it's really looking good. I've changed my mind about the top front of the hood, btw (got no complaints from a design perspective)

The Aeon that I'm building uses a 1-piece mold for the front, and 2-piece for the back (it's a simpler design though).

ETA: Maybe I should've read the other page to see the umpteenth link to the SVA regs

Edited by tribbles on Tuesday 28th August 15:50

[LotusNova]

BladeX1 said:

Once I get past the initial stage of shaping the car I will lay up some special material over the car and Epoxy resin to make a hard shell. Then I will finish the details with I’m sure gallons of Body filler and other various compounds. After the shape is painted and looks like the real think I have a company that will make a mold of it. Then the work will continue….

Missed that the first time round (was too busy looking at the gorgeous pics). Have you looked at standard clay over the wood/foam armature? That's what I'm using for mine. Pretty sure it'll be less work & cheaper than the Epoxy, etc route you're considering. Don't know what prices are your way, but these are the folks I use in the UK as an example:
http://www.styling-clay.co.uk/contact.asp?ID=3

[BladeX1]

Well gosh… there are a lot of questions here. I will try to answer the best I can so hopefully I will cover everyone’s posts.

First of all… I have to say WOW I was not expecting so many positive responses to my design. This makes me even more excited and determined to make this into a real car. The amount of attention so far has been overwhelming. Kit Car Builder will have a little blurb about me in the Nov – Dec issue which is very exciting. They may even do a build story on me for a few issues. Not sure on that though as they are discussing it.

Also just for everyone to know… I am not an auto designer at all. I barely know 3D Studio Max and this project only started 3 months ago since I sat in front of 3DS Max and started to learn it. The design took me a little over a month to create and went through several variations then when I was happy with it I built the wood frame on top of a rolling chassis to get me started.

As for the design… I don’t think I will be making too many changes at this stage. The hard edges are something unique to the car that I want to keep and along with the wide stance.

The Holes on the hood (Some Times calls snot holes) are functional. They will help keep air flowing over the hood (before the radiator), in other words the radiator will takes as much air as it can and the excess air will escape though the holes in the hood. There will be a stainless steel mesh in front of the radiator, many Cobras and race cars use this to protect the radiator fins.

I have the design files with a friend at Bell Helicopter to do some Flow Dynamics and minor aerodynamics testing. This may take a while to get the data though as the design is being converted into SolidWorks.

This car will be marketed mainly in the US and if it goes well then I will make a few version for the UK. The car will be marketed as a Turn Key Minus meaning that the engine and Trans will come separately from an alternate source or from the customer. Also if it does not go over well in the US then I may focus more on getting it to the UK.

You guy have offered a lot of good info… especial on the UK regulations. I am looking over the SVA manual now and will continue to refer to it as I progress in this project. If it meets the UK standards then it will meet US easy.

The Mold for this will be pretty complex but the company I will use does this all the time. There will be roughly about 25 sections to the mold including the doors, double lined trunk (Yes it has a Trunk/Boot) and hard top. Also it will use carbon fiber or aluminum belly pans and a carbon fiber rear diffuser. The bottom of the car will be very smooth to increase air flow and down force. Actually I have already created this when it was on the Cobra.

Well hope that answers most of the questions…

Thanks Guys…

[BladeX1]

LotusNova said:

Missed that the first time round (was too busy looking at the gorgeous pics). Have you looked at standard clay over the wood/foam armature? That's what I'm using for mine. Pretty sure it'll be less work & cheaper than the Epoxy, etc route you're considering. Don't know what prices are your way, but these are the folks I use in the UK as an example:
http://www.styling-clay.co.uk/contact.asp?ID=3

Yeah I looked at using Clay… but honestly I have heard so many stories of complete destruction when you go to pull the mold from the buck. It seems that if you use the standard Plaster or Clay method that you run a risk of damage when pulling the mold peaces off the body buck / formas. I could be wrong on this as I am only going on what others have told me and experienced.

The expensive part is the Epoxy resin as it’s about 4 times more expensive than normal resin. But the benefit is that it very safe to use and does not produce major harmful fumes. Also it will not melt or have a reaction to the various foams and other materials I am using. Then using the body filler to shape the details will produce a very strong body buck. The body filler is vary difficult to work with but should allow me to save the body buck when pulling off the molds so that I can continue to tweak and make changes if needed. Also the benefit of body filler is that it uses a hardener so the weather should not affect it as much and it’s pretty cheap to get here in the states. About $4 bucks a gallon if I buy more than 10.

There is not a lot of real good info that I have found on this process as it seems to be a secrete art form so I am learning as I go. If anyone has more info on this please send I can use all that I can.

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[zagato]

I like the roof. Why not make a removable carbon roof for all cobra's. There would be a market for those.

Not keen on the square fronted mustang meets curvy vette rear. It look like a cut and shut imho.

[R1 GTR]

tomTVR said:

uzzi said:

Hmmm...maybe its just me, but I think that the big middle gap in the front may need something there rather than just a black hole!...although I cant picture something there without it ruining the beauty of the car!

Maybe a black grille with 2 large round Mustang GT style lamps?

Edited by tomTVR on Monday 27th August 23:23

Or Gone in 60 Seconds GT500 style mini LED(?) blue ones

Great work blade Not too keen on the wheels myself but each to their own i suppose

[grahambell]

A nice aggressive looking design and something the US kit car industry really needs more of, namely an original design.

Can understand why Kit Car Builder is interested.

Good luck with it.

[BladeX1]

zagato said:

I like the roof. Why not make a removable carbon roof for all cobra's. There would be a market for those.

Not keen on the square fronted mustang meets curvy vette rear. It look like a cut and shut imho.

Yeah carbon fiber roof for a cobra would be expensive… and have you seen hard tops on Cobras… they just don’t look good. IMO.

Yeah a lot of people see a Mustang and Corvette in this design. Its kind of funy too, because those are two cars that I did not really look at for inspiration. Honestly I looked at cars like the Porsche GT2 and BMW Z4 maybe mixed with a little Mopar. And of course the Cobra was the main inspiration… but only in Size and function. I wanted something small and powerful. I think you can look at it and see a lot of different cars in the shape… Actually you could probably do that with just about any car. I used to like the Dodge Viper but now the over all shape looks just like the New Corvette. It’s lost its aggressive “Face” and has been replaced with the standard wedge face like the corvettes. But hey I still like both cars a lot from a performance stand point and they both look good. It just seems like Dodge changed there car to better compete against corvette and adopted the “if you can’t beat them join them” motto.

- Neal

Edited by BladeX1 on Tuesday 28th August 21:18

[BladeX1]

Hello all…

Does anyone know of a good source for custom headlights…? I was going to use BMW E34 lights with the halos but unfortunately when I got them in yesterday they were way too big. I need something that 90mm or smaller. Any ideas…

The next set of light I may try out might be the Hella custom 90mm and 50mm projector lights. If anyone knows of something better please let me know. I am trying to make sure I get all the Lights, seats and dash fitted before I start the next stage of the project.

Thanks,

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[baSkey]

it might be worth asking about the lights on the kitcar forum.

there was a firm with a wide wide range of lights at stoneleigh but my mind's gone blank!

ps i can't can't see the pictures - it must be my work firewall. boo hiss.