22-09-2020, 10:13 PM
A couple of years ago at the Scottish Club's AGM weekend in Blair Atholl I passed three sketches around as we sat at the bar in the evening. The consensus was that top left was a non-starter - too prosaic and unimaginative. Top right was also discounted as looking too simplistic at the back. The bottom one was favoured but the running boards and tool box were not popular. I'm not one for "design by committee" but it was interesting to see a general sense of agreement.
We decided from the outset that it would be fabric bodied. I don't have any facilities to make compound curves in metal and it made sense to capitalize on my timber framing skills.
Once back in the workshop I scavenged some parts of an old Dixi scale model and put together a very rough sketch model. At this stage we were thinking the body would be narrow enough to fit between the rear wheels (as with an Ulster) to keep the cost and weight down. The model sat in the workshop and various visitors had a say in what they liked and didn't like. I also began to make measurements and realised the body was too narrow to be practical - Ulsters allow elbow room outside the body but a closed car wouldn't.
The first model was discarded and another equally rough second one put together. With this one I played around with types of wings, boot, colour schemes etc. The roof line was eventually changed to mirror an Austin saloon shape.
The lump on the back is a boot (with access through into the main body) as there is plenty of room under the bonnet for a petrol tank! Doors are suicide because of the sloping screen and, although we considered a vee-screen, on balance thought the aesthetics didn't justify the time involved. The wings will be similar in section to a G.E. Brooklands, the rad shell will be a '29-'30 type and the wheels 19".
That's pretty much what we are building. I now have a set of quarter-scale drawings and detailed sketches of the construction. I find I work more efficiently when all the decisions are made in advance so the drawings are as comprehensive as I can make them.
We decided from the outset that it would be fabric bodied. I don't have any facilities to make compound curves in metal and it made sense to capitalize on my timber framing skills.
Once back in the workshop I scavenged some parts of an old Dixi scale model and put together a very rough sketch model. At this stage we were thinking the body would be narrow enough to fit between the rear wheels (as with an Ulster) to keep the cost and weight down. The model sat in the workshop and various visitors had a say in what they liked and didn't like. I also began to make measurements and realised the body was too narrow to be practical - Ulsters allow elbow room outside the body but a closed car wouldn't.
The first model was discarded and another equally rough second one put together. With this one I played around with types of wings, boot, colour schemes etc. The roof line was eventually changed to mirror an Austin saloon shape.
The lump on the back is a boot (with access through into the main body) as there is plenty of room under the bonnet for a petrol tank! Doors are suicide because of the sloping screen and, although we considered a vee-screen, on balance thought the aesthetics didn't justify the time involved. The wings will be similar in section to a G.E. Brooklands, the rad shell will be a '29-'30 type and the wheels 19".
That's pretty much what we are building. I now have a set of quarter-scale drawings and detailed sketches of the construction. I find I work more efficiently when all the decisions are made in advance so the drawings are as comprehensive as I can make them.