I've long had the idea of using a VW Beetle from the cowl back as the rear half of a front-engined '30s/'40s-esque GT. My thinking had revolved around grafting a front clip to the VW floorpan to create a Lotus-like backbone frame of considerably longer wheelbase, with a DeDion rear axle carried by the VW arms and torsion bars, and a beam front axle. In my mind the Beetle provenance would be slightly clearer, the detail somewhat more traditional, and the overall character something between an early Bristol and, say, a Gordon Keeble. Welcome, VOOV, by the way.
Bristol 400: Gordon Keeble: A Jensen 541 or CV8 might also work, character-wise: DeDion is in this case a suspension type rather than a manufacturer. Here is a fabricated DeDion axle: See also the thread, DeDion axles on hot rods. I did a drawing of the VW idea many years ago and fear that I can't put my hand to it. That prompted me to redo it in Photoshop (or rather Gimp):
The Bristol certainly announced their connection to BMW in an unmistakable way. The Gordon-Keeble, as I recall, was a predecessor to the Iso Rivolta -- whether there was actually any design in common, I don't know, but the concept was nearly identical. Too bad that so few G-K's were built, because they are very neat looking cars (aside from the headlights) and were apparently very nice drivers to boot.
Hey Tony, I don't remember a connection between the Gordon Keeble & the Iso Rivolta other than Giugiaro penned them both, and Bertone built the aluminum prototype, but The Peerless and the later Aluminum Buick V8 powered Gordon GT did , however spawn the square-tube space frame that would become the Gordon-Keeble. The early 283 c.i.d. and later 327 c.i.d. Chevrolet powered Keebles were kinda ''kitcar like'', with their fibreglass bodies, but were fun to drive "if'' ya could keep them running & together.
This is a local friends 35 Chevy Master sloper (All enclosed coupe), totally unique to Australia. A sedanette before GM built them in the US. Not in the same vein as others in this thread. While I'm at it here is another local car, a genuine all aluminum 32 Chevy speedster.
A number of years ago, I saw Phil Hill run one of those teardrop Talbots at the Monterey Historics. Now, Phil could get around a race track quickly in a school bus, but the Talbot was cookin'! Definitely a sporty car, despite its boulevard style.
i bet some of the collectors nowadays would turn around in their skin seeing a picture like that though... id really get a kick out of it tho
It has, and they are. Here's a picture of a very early Tatra type 77, and I think it's just about as swoopy as cars get:
3 1/2 hours later.......whew !! most enjoyable !! I realize there is more to life than gas mileage,,,,
I just did an article on the Walter Wyss W2, streamlined hand built car from the early 1930's. Lots of neat photos in the ARTICLE
Very interesting- especially the front fenders and extensions. Anybody know of other 2-piece streamlined setups like that?
I picked up on that for the Pre-Streamline Art Deco thread (see post 159). It looks like I should do the same for the Backbone Chassis thread.
There was a wild-looking Bugatti T57 roadster with a similar arrangement. A white one was shown at Pebble Beach 20 years or so ago, but as I recall it was discredited as a fake. I don't know if the fake was a copy of a lost car, or a figment of somebody's imagination. Brumm made a 1/43 scale diecast model of it, and I have one. The articulated front fender isn't obvious in the model, but it was that way in the fullsize car. Edit: This is the car I was talking about. I believe that there were one or more of these originally built by Bugatti in the '30s, although I understood that this one was a later fake:
The Impala concept car is kinda interesting. The overall size and layout are pretty typical '50s 2-door hardtop, but it appears to be quite low overall -- more like an Iso Rivolta or other later 4-seater GT car. I would have preferred the grille lips painted body color, and better looking wires.
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