Bugatti Type 50S a factory Le Mans race car I had the pleasure of painting back in the 1980's. One of the most original cars I ever got to work on, it still had the original fabric and upholstery, that we put a top dressing on to preserve it. It lives in England now. Bob
Google Dr. Mudd Dusenberg and get the History and photos of my favorite closed bodied Duesenberg. Bob
Ah, yes: lovely. Though apparently the actual Blue Train bet was won with a far less dramatic 6½ saloon.
In the sixties a kid brought his mother's Packard to show the guys in the high school auto shop, the front fenders were covered in black leather. It was well done and we thought it looked pretty ritzy.
Still being done - I saw this replica of the Woolf Barnato Bentley "Blue Train" Coupe at Essen Techno-Classica last year. I think it may have a modern V12 BMW engine.Wouldlove to build one - a decent old 7 series BMW with a V12 is very cheap here.
There was also a brief fashion in the early-'20s USA for angular "military" fenders constructed of various combinations of wood and leather. From jimi'shemi291's extinct cars thread, c. 1924 Dagmar: Wooden fenders, in this case. Others had wooden horizontals combined with leather "sails".
The Weymann system doesn't seem to require any great woodworking skills if the joints are mainly done with metal plates. Some laser cut stainless plates, a quantity of suitable ash planks, a band saw and a router and you're there ;-)
Or you could go "Superleggera" style and make the framework out of conduit tubing and angle iron welded together. Superleggera bodies were made in Italy in the late 30s with a metal framework covered in aluminum panels but I don't know why you couldn't use vinyl or Fabrikoid.
I'm impressed by the moldings, hinges, hardware etc. Is that stuff available from antique repro specialists? Did they find old parts and restore them? Or make them from scratch?
You guys in this thread probably won't be happy to hear this, but the title of the thread reminded me of some cars I saw in Toronto Canada in about 1965 or 66, which were brand new Chevy Impalas that must have been covered with a 3/4" to 1" pile shag carpet over the entire outer body work. I think this must have been a dealer installed option since I doubt even GM would do such a thing. In hindsight all I can think of is Canucklehead.
Fabric covered bodies are common in homebuilt aircraft and canoes/kayaks. It's easy to do using nylon or polyester fabric. For boats it's called SOF (skin on frame) construction. A couple of examples. http://kudzucraft.com/ http://gaboats.com/ http://yostwerks.com/index.html
Many UK sources, of which Holden is possibly most promising: http://www.holden.co.uk/displayGroups.asp?sg=2&sgName=Hardware See also http://www.completeautomobilist.com/categories
I work in theatre and traditional flats (walls and other vertical surfaces) are built this way. They are really quite tough. We use muslin and paint. I would dare to venture a guess that if one used something a bit heavier than muslin, say canvas, and painted it with a watered down latex paint (to let it seep into the fabric) it would hold up really quite well. The latex paint shrinks a bit when it dries and would pull the cloth even tight than it was installed. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
here is something i built a few years ago ,, there are more details on the cyclecar thread on here i used the modern stuff , i built the wooden structure for the tail then the fabric is glued on once this is dry a warm iron is used to shrink the material to get it taught. then it is covered in non shrinking dope which seals the surface,, due to the plastic nature of the fabric it doesnt accept paint easily so i mixed some wood stain in with the dope and painted it on it worked very well and 5 years later it is still good , sadly the car is now sold to finance my next project
I believe there is a tradition of special-building in NZ (e.g. this one on this thread) and that has always included fabric open tourers. Perhaps worth going into the history a bit?
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