Okrasa Special

[Pandora]

so the side view would stay almost the same, but the rear lid would nestle down in-between the rear wings a little more, giving a bit more shape / interest in this area?

Sounds something like the top of the rear (if you see what I mean) of a Ginetta G4

[Rustbucket]

HI Barry,
Yes, that sort of thinking - just a bit 'racier' and more sympathetic to the styling you already have nailed. It also fits nicely with the period styling of the time.


It would really help I think. It also would change very little of the overall shape of the car, a poor example being this Hornet , where the extra detail is lost within the outer shape of the car/ silhouette.

[Lightweight_911]

How about the rear end styling of the early '60's mid-engined Matra Djet (obviously without the rear bumper) ?

[steve wright]

Hi Andy. the Matra has the same problem as the Special at the moment I think: the valance ends too high (i.e. above the axle line) and curves in too aggressively towards the centreline of the car, so it looks like the chassis is sitting up on tiptoes with the wheels, although in reality this is an illusion caused by your eye being drawn to the the wheels.

I reckon Macauleys photoshop version is almost spot-on. all he's done (without wanting to sound like I'm trivialising the work!) is give more weight to the rear valance in the corners and extend the valance down.

Sorry I haven't done this thread justice recently, been too focused on the 356. Time to chop that horrible exhaust box off and get to with the cardboard and then wire so we can sort the arse of this thing once and for all!

[BAHumbug]

Steve, Barry

Vraiment, c'est une miracle!
Just win this auction and use 200 mph duct tape (or airplane rivets) and Voila!

http://www.auctionzip.com/aflive.html?m ... D93A&seq=5

(credit to Adam Wright for finding it)

Missing the continuing saga of one of my favorite threads.

Cheers.

[Barry]

Oooh, tempting: that would save some time .

As it happens, we have had something of a breakthrough, and hopefully will progress things some more tomorrow. Suffice to say, we've now subtly modified everything from the centreline of the rear wheels back. Same food, different flavour .

Update, no doubt, to follow ....

[steve wright]

oooh, fascinating bit of Porsche history. I didn't think Porsche experimented this early with long tails - maybe that's where they got the idea?!

Yes major breakthrough with the rear (so to speak). Just a few tweaks but I think we're onto cracking the problems we had with the original mock up. more pics tomorrow on the revisions....

[911hillclimber]

Hope progress is still being made on all fronts?

[Barry]

Hmmm, yes-n-no: actually yes, on the whole. We've made some real progress around the back end, which has involved widening it still further, plus some other changes.

They have improved it no end, but it's still not right.

I didn't go to CLM in the end, so Steve was our sole researcher for the trip. We're meeting up at the workshop in a fortnight (I think) to discuss his findings, and see if we can wrap this whole design thing up. It's safe to say we're both well past the point of wanting to get over this phase. Having said that, we keeping tripping over rules that seem to work, whereas in the beginning we were just trying things pretty blindly in retrospect. We were fine all the time we could work from Macaulay's rendering . Bit by bit the shape is getting more mature, and we keep making improvements. Trouble is that it's just sucking up time, none of which was allowed for. To give an idea, I'm into this by way more than 300 hours (a medium / serious 911 shell), and frankly there's almost nothing within that time that can be used: everything (literally) has been changed a number of times, and we're still not there. It's not a moan BTW, just a statement if people are wondering why we're not currenly bombing around in it .

The one thing I would say is that we are definitely heading the right way, and had we seen what we had now at the very beginning, we'd have been delighted. Doesn't work that way though: now we've seen what's possible, we want to push harder to get it better. Nevertheless, I'll be very pleased to arrive at a shape we both love. I think that's very important, as there's an awful lot (700 hours+) of fairly tricky fabrication work to go, and if we had a dark feeling that the shape wasn't good enough, it'd be very hard to keep motivated (work-wise for me, money-wise at the very least for Steve).

I'm pretty sure I've got some pics that need uploading: a bit behind with everything at the moment, especially with pictures . I'll have a look at what's on the memory cards ....

[911hillclimber]

Good to see the brains are ticking over. today, I saw this and thought of you!
I have never seen this level of quality before esp on a race car:

[Pandora]

Is that Rod Jolley's ex Ecurie Ecosse 'Monzanapolis' Lister Jaguar single seater?

[911hillclimber]

Yep.
Someone there knows a thing or three about working aluminium alloy.

[Pandora]

yes, Mr Jolly is rather a talented tin basher!

[Ren]

Jolly fixed my squashed GT mirror. Great job too.

[Barry]

Managed to miss this when first posted: that's insane . Perhaps I can cling to the hope they started off with 1/2in thick material and sanded / polished it to that? Perhaps not .

Truly inspiring stuff, and surely genuinely world-class. Having said that, we do have quite a collection of very experienced and talented coachbuilders in this country, a very great % of which trained through Jolleys, went on to Roach's, and then left in a large dollop to set up Vintage Cars dot Com.

Currently waiting for Mr Wright to return from his vacance, as he left me an e-mail saying that he'd had a bit of a breakthough at CLM (I didn't go in the end), so hopefully we can start to move things forward. Can't wait to see if he's cracked the code . If so, it could be the breakthrough we need.