Sylva Riot Coupe proposal by Fuoriserie/Tribbles

[fuoriserie]

A few months ago I had worked on a design for a mid-engine coupe based on the Sylva Riot/Mojo chassis, and Jason was so kind to work out the 3D skethes he saw in the magazine.

I hope you guys like them , and would like to thank Jason for his talent, and for showing me these renderings.......

Thanks mate
Italo

[fuoriserie]

A few more views......

[singlecoil]

Nice pictures, but the figure in the car is way too small. Sylva Riots are quite small cars, that figure looks like a 10 year old child incomparison

[Sam_68]

That's very nice indeed!

I'd buy one of those, if it had a Sylva chassis underneath. Have you presented it to Jeremy Philips?

I'd share singlecoil's concern about the size of the drive though - the Riot is tiny, so I'd want to try any coupe based on it for size before I committed myself. Small coupes are a bit of a bd to get in and out of, when you're 6'0" tall and 15 stone...

[tribbles]

singlecoil said:

Nice pictures, but the figure in the car is way too small. Sylva Riots are quite small cars, that figure looks like a 10 year old child incomparison

I'll have to measure it, but I think the figure is about 5'8". He is sat just off the floor though!

btw Italo, I did reply back to your last email, but I got a strange bounce back which looked like there could've been temporary problems at your ISP. You've just reminded me that I didn't resend it...

[Sam_68]

Jason,

At risk of being cheeky, you don't have a 3-D human driver figure in a format that can be read into AutoCAD , by any chance, do you? It would save me a chunk of work if I could scrounge one from somewhere...

[MartinDB]

It's a very nice design, but there's definitely a scale issue here.
The driver should have his back just in front of the roll bar.

My attempts to overlay the design with the side view of the R1ot.

Edited by MartinDB on Saturday 4th October 16:02

[tribbles]

Hmm - you're right. I didn't have any measurements to hand, so I had to guess a bit.

[Sam_68]

Here's a pic of a Riot with a real human being in it:


Top of helmet is about in line with the top of the roll bar, so on the basis of Martin's overlay, you'd need to saw the top of the driver's head off. Which is unlikely to make for a comfortable driving experience...

[singlecoil]

The big question here is, why on earth bother with the Sylva? It's far too small. Making a body like that is going to cost a LOT more than getting a chassis of a more suitable size made to order.

I've nothing against Sylvas, BTW, they are excellent in their class, but the body design shown incorporate many interesting and exciting ideas, and the Riot is just completely inappropriate.

[Sam_68]

Oh, I dunno.

I quite like the idea of tiny coupes - stuff like Abarths and the Costin Nathan really appeal as driver's cars - and the Sylva have a very competent chassis. Italo seems to be into styling rather than chassis engineering, so it makes sense to simply re-cloth a decent, tried and tested chassis.

[singlecoil]

Tiny couples have a tiny market, mostly fairly small people. I just can't see the point of going to that much trounble and then saying fk off to a large part of the potential market by making it so small. It's fine to do that with a spaceframe chassis body kit, and not many of those are going to be sold anyway, but quite a bit of investment is going to be needed to bring the coupe under discussion to the market, why make it smaller (the market, and the car) than it needs to be?

Just the windscreen and wiper are going to be quite an investment in themselves, going to need a specially made screen and a pantograph wiper system

[Sam_68]

singlecoil said:

Tiny couples have a tiny market, mostly fairly small people.

Again, I'm not sure, simply because there haven't been any really tiny coupes for a while. The (original) GTM did alright, as did the Europa. The closest we've had lately was the Smart Roadster Coupe, which was a flop as far as MB was concerned, but still managed the sort of sales figures most kit car manufacturers can only dream about!

I'm far from small, personally, and I fit just fine in my Elan Coupe, which is really tiny in comparison to most modern cars - it makes an Elise or MX5 look like a huge lardy whale of a thing if you park next to one - so it's a matter of decent ergonomics and packaging.

Not having to chop the head off your driver is a good starting point, though.

[jamesG20V6]

Hi,
Interesting, but having been in a Riot this ain't going to work. Bigger chassis needed as a starting point for a coupe.
Interesting how the ginetta g20, which is a fairly roomy car by kit car standards becomes tight in coupe form, as did the stylus.

[singlecoil]

Sam_68 said:

I'm far from small, personally, and I fit just fine in my Elan Coupe,

Depends on what you mean by "far from small". Fitting just fine in an Elan would suggest to me that you are not very big either.

[fuoriserie]

singlecoil said:

The big question here is, why on earth bother with the Sylva? It's far too small. Making a body like that is going to cost a LOT more than getting a chassis of a more suitable size made to order.

I've nothing against Sylvas, BTW, they are excellent in their class, but the body design shown incorporate many interesting and exciting ideas, and the Riot is just completely inappropriate.

I agree that a custom made and wider chassis, better if bespoke would have made for a better choice, but I was asked to recloth a Riot/Mojo chassis.....so I made the best of it, with what i had, and still think it turned out pretty well......

I worked over picture overlays, and the styling works, unfortunately for Jason, he didn't have the correct dimension to work from, because he made a design out of what he saw on the magazine, so it's the best guestimate rendering I've seen so far.

The project was going to use a Stratos windshield, and is available from a supplier in the kitcar industry, and the headroom, if this ever became a reality, would need a slight bubbleroof to fit the exhisting chassis.

In a perfect world, you would have a custom designed chassis to fit your designs, but these were not the parameters given for this project....but if i had an Elise chassis, it could look even better....

These renderings fit the chassis, if only Jason made the windscreen design(Stratos Replica), with the correct height, I will send him better renderings to work with in the future with people on board.......

[fuoriserie]

singlecoil said:

Just the windscreen and wiper are going to be quite an investment in themselves, going to need a specially made screen and a pantograph wiper system

Windscreen is readily available(Stratos Replica unit), and it would be such a simple fit to the exhisting chassis...........but we would need an availble chassis and winshield to prove our respective opinions......

I think that any kitcar manufacture would sign on the dotted line, if they could have the poor sales of a Smart Roadster Coupe......I'm sure you would too, if you were a kitcar manufacturer!

What doesn't make sense for Mercedes Benz, could make a lot of sense for a kitcar manufacture, it's really about numbers, and they would have to add up.....

With the impending economic world car sales crisis, I believe we will be seeing more citycars in your drivevay in the years to come, than you would have ever thought just a few years ago......
Will wait and see, but I can see things changing drastically in the industry, and smaller cars willbe back with a vengeance........

Edited by fuoriserie on Saturday 4th October 22:19

[rdodger]

Italo, have you considered applying your talents to a GTM Libra restyle? I expect the tub can't change, but it would be interesting to see what a professional could come up with for the front and rear.

[fuoriserie]

Sam_68 said:

Oh, I dunno.

Italo seems to be into styling rather than chassis engineering, so it makes sense to simply re-cloth a decent, tried and tested chassis.

Sam you're right, it wouldn't make much sense for me to tamper with the tried and tested chassis of a Sylva, or any other proven chassis in the kitcar industry for that matter.

I'm no engineer, I'm just a stylist, that tries to make something look good, with what is on offer in the kitcar industry.

You have so many good chassis out there, why would I redesign a chassis ?, you have some very good chassis engineers in the kitcar industry, but what I feel is needed, is more variety in body shapes.

Edited by fuoriserie on Saturday 4th October 22:30

[fuoriserie]

rdodger said:

Italo, have you considered applying your talents to a GTM Libra restyle? I expect the tub can't change, but it would be interesting to see what a professional could come up with for the front and rear.

..........