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I think this build is going to be 'non-traditional' even though i'm still gonna use four wheels and i started all of this inspired by the locost theme.

My build starts with the donor. it's been the determining factor on the design so far. i picked it up from a friend on a whim.

Its a 2002 Maserati Cambiocorsa. 4.2L drysumped with a 6speed sequential transxle (sort of) and irs

as you can see; a few defects and a few obstacles to overcome.

The first of which was to get it into the shop! two suspension arms and two shocks were broken... and a cpl of these too.:

I decided I would first make a dolly that i could slip under the car, then i could pull it into the shop. after looking at the materials i had on hand, i ended up making it out of 2x1x.1 tubing. i had just enough to pick the car up by it's jacking points. i also had some plate blanks a friend gave me. 3/8 700 grade steel. sometimes i enjoy a little overkill


with a little bit of work i managed to pull the wreck into the shop.

Yo, Mach-
Yup, I'll give you "Non-Traditional" on this one! That donor car should make for an interesting build. Hell, it's interesting now, and you've only just got started! Good luck, and keep us posted!

JDK

Why mock? It *is* a Maserati

last shot of the dolly.

i was originally worried about the dolly twisting. the heavy gussets sure eliminated any possibility of that. even though i was pulling the car over fairly uneven gravel to get it into the shop. the car itself was twisted by about three inches at the jacking points. i had to throw in some wood blocks on two of the corners in order for it to sit firmly on the dolly.

this turned out to be pretty interesting.

this steel frame is what they call a bull bar. its the north american version. the european versiondoesnt have the top horizontal bar. this seems to be the initial point of impact on the car. its actually a fairly light piece and it really did absorb most of the impact. unfortunately it also seems to have launched the car up in the air.
underneath the car are blanks of that high tensile steel i had. they were cutouts from a crane. a friend gave them to me in exchange for an art piece i did for him.

And, here is the inspiration for my design for this build:



obviously my dimensions are going to be very different. I've decided, at this point, to keep the maserati's torque tube intact. so that means the distance from the engine to the rear axle is set. i'll also be using the maserati's rear axles so the rear track is close to being set.
the wheelbase on the maserati is 104.7" already pretty long, but i'll be increasing it to about 112" The point of stretching it is to move the engine back a bit in relationship to the front axles. think in terms of a riley mk XXII chassis, but front engined.

The Maser pictured looks better than the drawings. A few of the dimensions must be different. I hope you'll rethink shortening the torque tube. I can imagine that's a big effort but still, 112", that's a real stretch, about 20" more than a book Locost. Think about chassis stiffness.

just one thing, the side cutouts on the cockpit, these will cause conciderable buffeting at any speed, so if you can, fill them in.

Amaze everyone, build a widened 250F 2 seater.

I did consider the 250f and others... Including the birdcage. I originally wanted something I could take down south for Mr Shelby to possibly sign unfortunately I'm too late now but I still plan on honoring the gentleman.

Right now, all my body design stuff are on napkins, so I can't post 'em yet. I will say this though; I'm only 'inspired' by the old maseratis. My design will be modern. Having driven bikes and verts for a long time and now starting to get longer in the tooth, I don't enjoy the wind beating the hell outta me as much. So, I'm leaning towards having a targa or t top roof structure built into the chassis, with removable panels.

I tormented on the long wheelbase...still do...but, as I progress I'm becoming more comfortable with it. Reading over this site for so long now has been awesome and I hope to build a real locost some day. Hopefully this build goes well and I can keep it low-cost.

Like many others on here, I am not an experienced welder, so I figured I needed lots of practice. I ordered 120' of 1" sq. tubing and started. The first thing I built was a rack to store the steel. It's 8' tall and 4' wide. I have a 16' ceiling and I always buy my sheet steel cut 4x4. The back side of the rack has cubby holes to store the sheet steel and the front half stores the shape steel upright. Welding 16ga. Tubing has been interesting and I think I'm getting the hang of it.

The next step for me was to build a build table. Again, here I had the attitude that I needed to use what I had as well as practice techniques that I will need to build my chassis. I started with the dolly I made to drag the car into the shop. It will make my build table portable and still be removable when I need it to move other stuff around. It's dimensions presented me with the challenge of making a table bigger than the base. I designed a space frame chassis ( of course) to sit on the dolly. I'm heading out to the shop now to do some finish welds on that frame. Afterwards I'll be adding fixture plates that I'll cut on my plasma table. I'll have a series of fixture plates on the top of the table and along the four sides.

here's a picture of the 'art work' that i did in exchange for those steel blanks. it was cut from one of the blanks and is in primer now but will be painted flat black with a glossy clear coat. the end result is a semi gloss black that i like and will contrast with his white garage wall that he will be hanging it on.

I couldn't help playing around. table is upside down on sawhorses ... looking a bit like a locost hummer eh?


And here it is, upright. the skeleton all done. Now, i just have to cut and add the fixture plates. they will go on both ends, the sides and the top, allowing me to add clamps and fixtures wherever i want.

Mmmmm, sporty ...

hmm similar headlight configuration too ....

I look forward to seeing your build come together! It looks like it will be a neat project.