As probably thousands of people have done before, I've been thinking about a "wide body" variant. Make the chassis wider ahead of the rear wheels and you can use a narrower track or get more cockpit room. Aerodynamics could be improved a bit if you were lucky, etc.
I'm thinking mid-engined here, for what it's worth.
The middle and back part of a widebody is easy enough - you pull the chassis out to the outside of the tires instead of the inside, put a small flat filler panel between the back of the cockpit and the tire, then another behind it, or wrap a flat section around back from tire to tire, just something to close off the back of the car below the beltline.
On the deck, just bend a flat piece of sheet metal across the top like Kurt's Midlana, except all the way across. No compound curves anywhere, and it looks pretty good on the Midlana; it ought to look about as good done wider. Basically, just toss the Midlana's fenders and pull the back out wider to cover the back of the car.
That gives you a full-width body from the scuttle to the taillights, in one fell swoop. And all single curvature, nothing unusual for a Locost builder.
Up front, of course, is where it gets rocky. I was looking at one of my old picture books the other day; it was about the old CanAm racing series. Some of those cars had front body sections that just sat on top of the frame, no more than a foot tall, sort of like C4 Corvette clamshell hood.
My sketching skills stink, so imagine something that looks sort of like this in the front, with flat Locost sides and a single-curvature Midlana-style tail:
Attachment:
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The problem is that even at Locost scale, that would be a really big fiberglass panel, and the bigger and flatter they are, the more likely they are to show the slightest warp, sag, or imperfection. Bodywork isn't one of my competencies, and since I hate it with a passion, it's not likely to become one, not at that level, anyway. I could make a mold off a buck and make a panel from a mold, but making a buck isn't nearly as easy as it looks. I know this from trying to make simple things like hood scoops.
In the old days you'd make a buck from stringers, lath, and chicken wire, then work in plaster or clay. In the not-so-old days you'd draw it on the computer, use the plotter to print patterns to cut foam slices, glue them together, and then use body filler or plaster. In modern times, you'd build a big CNC router or a CandyFab, and sanding and finishing would be minimal.
I admit the big CNC router idea is appealing; I could borrow the controller and steppers from my milling machine, and I probably have enough "stuff" laying around the shop to do the rest.
But then one of the Voices suggested something else... back in the *really* old days, automobile builders borrowed some techniques from the fledgling aircraft industry. Rather than beating a metal panel to fit, they'd make some wooden bulkheads, pull some thin strips between them... and cover the whole thing with cloth. Which would work great as long as you were working with a single curvature, anyway.
Hmm. Most of the stuff the Voices come up with has at least one major flaw. Now I'll have to start haunting some of the aircraft sites to see how that sort of thing is done.
Yes, you'd have bumps and ridges showing across the support structure. Yes, it would make painting "interesting." Yes, it would probably move with the wind, and I expect the tautness would vary with humidity and temperature. And it probably wouldn't last forever, either. And with my luck, it probably wouldn't work with the kind of curvature I'd want. But I'm keeping the idea in mind...
One downside that does come to mind is that with a normal height front tire, bump clearance, plus curvature over the fender, the hood would be quite high, in Locost terms, as well as going all the way across. It would probably feel a lot different to drive than a cycle fender car.
edit: I found this thread, from 2008, discussing basically the same thing. "What goes around, comes around!"
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