New Prototype/Concept Car

[BladeX1]

Hey Guys… great forums here. I am obviously new and thought I would start my first post by sharing a project with everyone to get a little feed back. I am currently building a new prototype performance car. I designed the car in 3D studio and am now building the full version in the Garage. It’s definitely a challenge and keeping the details in line are getting more and more difficult. So far the response has been pretty good… and when people see in person the reaction is just as good so that keeps my energy up on it.

Here are a few rendered images… let me know what you think of the design. Keep in mind that I tried to merge a little old school looks in with some modern details.













This is the Hard Top version. Just a rough concept to get an idea.











Thanks,

- Neal

[BladeX1]

tribbles said:

I like pretty much everything of that - except the top of the hood; that doesn't look quite right.

Won't pass SVA in the UK though

Ummm… ok please excuse my ignorance here but I am not familiar with UK regulations? What is SVA and what about the hood would not make it pass?

[BladeX1]

tomTVR said:

I like it - are you using a cobra chassis?

Actually Yes… I own a Cobra and decided to tear it apart and use the chassis for now. The official chassis will be a hybrid combing both square light weight steel with tubular steel support for rollover and side impact.

[BladeX1]

Vodka Margarine said:

Just an idea but maybe the panels (such as the bonnet) would look better if they were smoother i.e. less ridges (like the Ac Cobra for example, where everything looks rounded and smooth, with the bonnet flowing subtly into the front wings)

Sorry if there is any bad spelling btw, it's late and ive had a bit to drink

Yeah good idea… but I worked hard to not make it so rounded like the Cobra… I expect people to see many different cars within this design as I used many for my inspiration. Basically I drive 2 hours to too work everyday and as I looked at various cars on my drive I would write down what I liked about certain ones. Then I brought it all back to the computer and started designing. Did not even know CAD at the time… and surly did not know how I was going to do this. But so far it looks just like the 3d Image.

[BladeX1]

tribbles said:

The SVA is a test that low-production (and kit) cars need to go through - it's to do with sharp edges and a minimum radius. It could probably be made to work though.

Wing mirrors might need raising to see over the rear wings.

Unless you're planning on selling it in the UK, it's not worth bothering about (would look great though!)

Ahh ok… Interesting about the sharp edges… Not sure I fully understand that. I mean I don’t think anyone is going to get cut if they lean on the car. LOL … Interesting though as I named the Car the Blade for now – due to the sharp edges.

I do plan to market it to the UK as well… and have been talking to folks about a right hand drive version.

[BladeX1]

tribbles said:

Basically really annoying regulations that got brought in because some really bad cars got made.

The headlamps will need to be moved forward as well (you've got to be able to see them from an 80 degree angle from the side).

If it does make it to the UK, I'd ***really*** want one (even if I have to build it myself - done that before ).

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.


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….

[BladeX1]

o.versteer said:

That is awesome, I want one. Hardtop especially looks great. All of it using nice references witout being directly retro or derivative. Very impressive. keep up the good work. Look forward to seeing the finished result!

Thanks man… yeah I can’t wait till it’s done too. I work on it everyday. My wife calls it the other woman now.

I appreciate how you see the design because that’s exactly what I wanted to do. The over all concept was to create a car that’s small and powerful like the Shelby Cobra but also to be able to fit a tall person. I am 6’4” tall at about 235lbs. I designed the inside to fit me with room to spare. If you ever sat in a Cobra before it barley fits a tiny person. I basically got tired of all the new two seater cars that have been created lately and don’t sit a tall person very well at all.

[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

[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

[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

[BladeX1]

baSkey said:

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.

Yeah I am on most of the Kit Car sites asking the same question. I figured you guys may know here too as this is such an active forums and I guess mostly UK based.

That’s too bad about your fire wall. You should check out my site to see the images. The images are in Flash and should not get blocked I would hope.

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

tbops said:

hey,
It looks rather mean but if your going to put any welly behind it have you looked at drag coefficients? If theres any lift on the fron or the back?

Thanks,

Yeah I had covered a little bit about the aerodynamic previously in this thread. Although I want this car to be a true sports car I have no interest in making it the next super car. There are already too many ridiculously expensive and non streetable super cars out in the market. My goal is to make something that some one can drive daily or track it and afford it. Hopefully it can fall in line with the Vipers, Corvettes, BMWs and any other powerful street driven. Believe me the car has been designed with some tweaks by recommendations from fluid dynamics specialists. I am sure it will perform well at speeds of 150 Mph and hopefully at speeds too 175 Mph. Not interested in it hitting 200Mph at all. It’s just too small for that.

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

clonmult said:

Gotta say that its an absolutely stunning design, and pretty excellent that you're going to lengths to make sure that the finished version looks like the original design.

Yeah that’s the tricky part… it always annoys me when I see a new cool concept car and then if it makes it to production it looks nothing like that concept did. Blech!!..

I think the main issue with this and from speaking with a few true auto designers. Is that the designers usually have no clue where everything mechanical is going to go on the car. They design the car based on current trends and marketing strategies. Then they try to stuff all the machines in and alter the design to fit and work with the latest machining processes.

I am not a designer at all… but when I set out to design this car I basically listed everything that the car will have internally and built that first then built the design around the chassis and other mechanics including the driver. It was real important that the car fits tall people without making them look like they are sitting in a clown car. I know this from experience as I would sit in my Cobra and my elbow would rest on the top of the door. I love Cobras but don’t love how I look in one.

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

Yeah those look just like the Hella 90mm lights that I just ordered. I also found a halo kit to use if I really wanted that look.

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

Davi said:

Beautiful design - very aggressive looking. I think it all ties together really nicely.

If you need the technical drawings for the Hella units I have them somewhere for my own project.

Could you tell me about the halo units you've found? (pressuming they are suitable for the hella's? )

Thanks, yeah if you have technical drawings that would be great please send.

Here is a link to the Halo kit… they are everywhere you just need to make sure you get the CCFL versions as they are brighter and more uniform in color. This site has them in all sized. If you have the 90mm Hellas then you would probably want the 100mm halos.

http://www.dreamka4u.com/m_mall_detail.php?ps_goid...

I actually found an Audio Sound company by me that will sell them real cheap about $20. They have all sizes and colors… They can even heat them up to reshape them. They use them for the out side of speakers (Pimp my Ride) kind of stuff. Not really my taste but they have a lot of cool stuff.

Email: [e-mail]

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

Gazboy said:

That's awesome!

I hope you can keep the side exit pipes over here.

Will be folowing this with interest.

Holy Cow!!!... 29,468 posts!! Man you’re a busy contributor... lol

Yeah I hope I can keep the side pipe on over here too… either way I have designed it both ways. Personally I like the side pipes but people have requested both ways. So I aim to please…

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

Hey Thanks Davi… I got your email thanks for the images.

Hey does anyone know of a good source to get nice stylish Tail Lights (Brake/and backup light)?

I have been looking at a few modern cars… like the Chevy HH and the Chevy Cobalt. I do not want to use the standard tail lights found on most kit cars as I really want something unique and modern in style. However it needs to be round and preferable one larger and one smaller. I looked at the new Corvettes too but those light are just too large. And it’s not really so much the light that’s too large but rather the light housing inside the trunk.

Thanks,

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com

[BladeX1]

Hey Jon, sure feel free to send me any info you get. Yeah when I started this project I thought getting round tail lights would be easy… and I guess if I wanted to use the truck style it would be. However I like to keep things unique and different… so it’s becoming a challenge.

- Neal
- www.BaileySpeed.com