1968 Fiat 500 Breadvan, K1200RS, Spaceframe Race Car.

Intriguing, since you´ll have a dedicated race car and a road going version already. Look forward to seeing where it goes.

Haha...

Sure, that works.

Or Shapey , like teaboy said.

When I was making the airdam for my Capri, my buddies called me resinshapes.


You can always count on your friends...

For clarity,

There will be several molds.

One for the front ( everything in front of the cowl in one lift off piece)

One for the roof ( cut off at the area where the main roll cage tube is )

And one for the bradvan rear ( including the rear fenders and backside, also in one lift off piece )

I already have molds for the doors.

The only part that will be permanently fixed to the car will be the roof ( including the windshield surround )

All the other parts will lift off or unbolt.

I might hinge the breadvan rear.
But I'll have to keep in mind that to get the cornering balance right it may need a wing on the back...


Hopefully, all those separate molds can be 1 piece...

Thanks

If you made the same body from ally or even steel, how would they compare weight wise ? I have a body to do and think ally would be lighter than fibreglass but likely beyond my skills to do it.

Aluminum wouldbe a lot lighter.


But it work hardens, cracks, dents, takes a lot longer to make, and still needs to be body worked & painted ( unless you leave it bare )


Steel would be a lot less work ( specially since you wouldn't have to replicate the entire surround & lip to hold the windshield ), but heavy.

When I lifted the steel body off ( all single layer, but bodyworked and painted several times), I was surprised at how heavy it was.


Another advantage of using fiberglass is that if any panel gets damaged badly ( it could happen, its a racecar ) I have the mold and I can make another.

Weight wise it will fall between steel and aluminum.

Cost wise its probably the most expensive ( not counting bodywork and paint , If you'd count that, the aluminum one would be the most expensive )


The cheapest and quickest would have been to use fiberglass parts on part of the original steel body.

Which was the original plan.

But I couldn't bring myself to throw away that much away of it.

Basically, all I'd save would be the top part of the cowl, the A pillars and the front 1/2 of the roof.

I can replicate that with 1 fiberglass mold ( plus I can make some more changes to lighten & simplify it )

Might as well tell about some of the plans...


The roof and door area.

When the car ran before ( in Europe), it had lexan in the doors.

The racing organisations here ( Southern Arizona ) prefer if you race with the windows down, so I took those panels out.
With 110deg F. heat its nice to get some air in the car too...

I plan to also put a window net in for safety.

Since the doors are no longer holding lexan panels, the top of the doorframe really doesn't need to be there.

There is a Custom Car trick known as Hard Topping, where the tops of the doors get welded to the roof.

To get from this.






To this







I'll do the same thing with the fiberglass mold.



The lower 14 or so inches of the sides will be air exit out of the front fenders, which will go into the air intake for the side radiators.

So with the tops cut off the doors, and a big slice taken off the bottom, there is less than a foot of vertical door left.

So it makes sense to hinge them at the bottom, like a Lotus 23.






All this should really simplify and lighten that whole area...

A coat of primer, black guidecoat, and then sand with 320 wet & dry till the black marks in the scratches are gone.

The nicer the buck is, the nicer the mold will be, and the nicer the body will be.

So hopefully I can use it as is, straight out of the mold.

With just some trimming of the edges.


Don't know if that is feasible or not...

We'll see...

i love this, it still has Fiat character in there even with all of the modifications.