thebeerbaron

I apologize for the lack of updates. Honestly, I've been swamped with this design contest. It consumed every free moment of my time for the last several weeks. It also took over my apartment. By the time I turned in my entry on Thursday evening, I was ready to be done with the whole thing.

These are images I sent in as my entry, resized for the forum and anonymized (I don't need my address and phone number floating around out there!)

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I hope you can see enough in these small-ish photos.

A few points I'd like to discuss - the clay is basically draped over my foam buck, with as little build-up as possible. As I narrowed down my idea, I realized that there was no reason to have a body which did more than cover the frame in an elegant fashion. If this is to be a lightweight, minimalist car, I don't think it's necessary to add body where the frame, engine, and wheels do not require it. The nose, side, and wheel arches are probably where I have the most clay on the buck. The nose has extra clay because I was guessing at the height of the frame and suspension bits there and planning (vaguely) for a radiator. The side has lots of clay because I don't think the clay buck accurately reflects the actual dimensions of the frame (since we've never gotten those!). Realistically, I don't think there's too much extra body there. And finally, the wheel arches. Let's talk about those...

I think one of the most striking features of this design is the flare that runs above the wheels. It actually starts at the radiator opening, turns a sharp corner in front of the wheels, then continues to a peak over the front wheels, then flattens and dips down to its nadir somewhere around thee driver's elbow. From there it quickly climbs to another peak above the rear wheel, before sliding down to the tail, where it tapers into the very tail of the car. From the front or rear, this has a flying shape, the vee of a hawk's wings, the flare of a stingray, something sharp, aggressive. It is a distillation, in my mind, of the flared edges of the Mazda Furai. From the side, this is a classic shape ripped from the profile of the Miura, the Birdcage Maserati, the D-type, and many others. It's a sensual shape, suggesting the hourglass shape of a Victoria's Secret model.

[IMG]http://www.qualityautomotivecincy.com/files/Muira.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/smokey600x402xv1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.idcow.net/idcow/products/aa2010.jpg[/IMG]

The tail gave me fits. With the exception of one re-work, the nose came together fairly easily. But that damn tail. Hiding the bulk and length of that gearbox was no easy task. I had an epiphany a while back and carved out something evoking the tail of that Birdcage. After serious contemplation, it looked massive and heavy. I originally dropped the fender curve to a tough behind the rear wheels, the curve directly following the radius of the wheels. That made for a long slope up to the tail and contributed to the weight back there. By extending that curve to finish further behind the wheel and under cutting it in the style of [URL="http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/entry.php?121-Defining-Style-(a-hopeless-endeavor)"]the 917 I talked about earlier[/URL], I eliminated a lot of visual weight from the tail. The exact curve as the fender twists back into the body was a devil, but I think I got it right.

One last design element that I am very proud of is the intercooler intake. I blame this one on having purchased my donor and spent so many hours looking at that cursed engine. The intercooler on the WRX is in a beautiful place. Not in the aesthetic sense, but in the turbo-engineering sense. There is not a lot of excess plumbing involved. After the turbo, the air goes about six inches to the intercooler, and then about three inches to the throttle body (measurements are WAG). Compare this to running plumbing from the turbo to a side or even front mount intercooler - that's several feet of tubing, all of which contribute to pressure drop and decreased throttle response, nevermind the added expense. So my side-mount intercooler idea was out (and I really, really hope the final 818 design retains the top-mount intercooler). This left me with a problem: how to get air into a top-mount intercooler. On a speedster or other completely topless, windshieldless car, that's as easy as putting a scoop on the rear deck. But listening to the persistent whining and moaning on the forum about how this car had to have cup holders, seating for five, brass *** scratchers and the like, I knew that I had to make concessions for at least the option of a top. Which would block the simple deck scoop. Back to the drawing board. Roughing in a center pillar to reach the roof and draw fresh air into the engine bay, I realized I was just adding bulk. A third, center pillar really ruined the side profile and made that critical area behind the driver both busy and "full". I went all architectural here and borrowed from cathedral design with a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_buttress"]flying buttress[/URL]. That curved intake mirrors the airiness of the supports that allowed Gothic cathedrals to be so enormous, yet full of light. It emphasizes the fact that there is very little behind the driver, creates an interesting visual focal point, and serves a very important purpose.

[IMG]http://www.student.chula.ac.th/~52407679/FlyingButtressND.jpg[/IMG]

Finally, some notes on the construction and finishing. The body is not as smooth as I would have liked it. I'll happily admit that I am way out of my element here - this clay is nothing like what I'm used to working with, I don't generally aim for flawless and ruler-straight finishes on my usual ceramic work, and honestly, I had neither the time nor the patience to perfect these surfaces. The silver paint made it worse and the lighting I used for the photographs didn't do me any favors either. But the model looks pretty good in person, and I think the judges are smart enough not to focus on some lousy surface smoothing when there's so much more to the entry. I solved my wheel issue by finding some 3" diameter model airplane wheels online. I happened upon these white wheels which are actually very sports-car like for an airplane wheel. Sure, the correct 1:8 scale diameter would be 3.125", but I'm not going to sweat over 1/8 of an inch! I had to double them up though, as the goal was a 1" wide wheel and these were 0.4" each. I smoothed out the "dualie" look in Photoshop.

Painting the model in a city environment was not all that much fun, but had to be done. I didn't want to pack up my model, carry it outside, spray, wait for it to dry, then bring it back in. Too much room for disaster. So I bought some plastic sheeting and set up a spray booth inside my studio apartment. It worked, but I was very glad that I had plans for the day I sprayed it. I got up early, opened the windows, sprayed the model, and then left for dim sum with friends. The place still stank when i returned (did I mention I have no cross-ventilation?), but it wasn't too bad. I had to paint on the flat black shadows by hand. If anyone needs an almost-unused pint of flat black sign-painters enamel, I've got exactly what you're looking for.

For your fun, here's a picture of what my workspace looked like for this project. One shot where I'm in the carving phase, one where I've turned the area into a paint booth. Conclusion: I'm nuts to take on this project in such a cramped space!

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The photo taking and editing process is another time-sink I could whine about, but I'll spare you the details. :)

I'm going to be finding little slivers of this clay around my apartment until the day I move out, and I've sunk far more time into this than any sane person should have, but it's been a fun trip. I hope you've enjoyed following it!

I'm out in Connecticut now and later this morning I'll be moving the [URL="http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/entry.php?126-The-Donor"]dead Subaru[/URL] into the shop so I can get started on yanking the engine. I'm not sure if I'll start any real work on it or just get it in the air and ready to go. Next weekend is my scheduled time to extract this lump from its electric blue home. I came up with an appropriate name for the Subaru earlier this week: The Blue Beast. It's violently blue. It's made my life miserable. It's a blue beast.