Chris F's build ....
 

This arrived ...... ex HSCC car ..

https://i.ibb.co/92z2gcf/IMG-0449.jpg


Then this happened ...

https://i.ibb.co/GnZg2qS/IMG-0301.jpg

leaving us with this .....

https://i.ibb.co/pPRgFcM/IMG-0453.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/Yb1Wsm4/IMG-0455.jpg

probably the nicest chassis I have started with to date .....engine has gone away to be rebuilt , its a 3.1 with a couple of tweaks ...was good for about 190 bhp according to owner ...

Frame is being made this week and a visit to the laminators today revealed they have started Chris's body ....being moulded in concrete grey , which is actually a pale sage green type of colour ....

Car is going to be finally painted Aston Martin Chiltern green and is getting 16'' XK140 wires and fully radiused arches ....

https://i.ibb.co/Wx5SHMG/IMG-0456.jpg

More pics over the coming weeks as she progresses ....

Shame, sorry but the Scimitar looks far too good for a donor.

I get what you are saying and it is a nice chassis , does it help if I tell you the reason the body was removed as sympathetically as possible is because it's going on another chassis and being put back on the road ?

Some donors will be controversial , some decent MX5's and Z3's have given their selves to the cause over the years as well ....builders choice I guess.. ...

+1.

Love those Alan Mann colours, let's hope it finds a good home.

Regards, Mick

Its going back on the road and probably track too .... the bodyshell has an average quality hand painted paint job if that helps make you feel a bit better !

Z3's are pig ugly and chopping them up is the kindest thing to do.
Just have a soft spot for Scimitars, I'll let you off so long as it goes back on the road!
Seem to always be some very sad Scimitars for sale on eBay that are probably past saving as a restoration project.

While I understand the reluctance of some to use a good quality donor I think is makes a lot of sense.

Especially if you are paying someone else to build the car for you.

As every hour Gary has to spend repairing a rusty chassis must be added to the donor car cost.

So at some point you could actually end up paying more a poor donor that needs repairs than the cost of a decent donor.

My donor was bought purely to build my car, I didn't want a Spitfire.

However, I made a lot of Spitfire owners happy when they could buy all the bits I didn't need.

Each to their own I guess.

Cheers, Paul. :)

AGREED ...But as Paul says , economically it can make sense sometimes to buy the best you can afford ......

I told the customer what type of donor to buy , he bought this one !

Chris Farthings build on the HSCC Scimitar has made some progress ....chassis outer rails boxed , some repairs done , engine and gearbox moved back about 4 inches and propshaft shortened ...frame going on on Monday , collecting body on tuesday ....

https://i.ibb.co/jHjHbZ7/20190125-164419.jpg

Gary, I do like the 120 (and I love Scimitars). Did you move the engine back for it to fit the shell or to improve weight distribution? Not that I am thinking of my next build at all...

It's primarily to get the gearstick in the right place approx 48'' from the centre of the rear axle ...its not fixed in stone ..47 / 49 etc are ok ...the engine and box move back quite easily on the Scimitar , easier than the Vitesse ...

Also , as you say there is the advantage of getting the weight back a bit too ...

SOME MORE WORK DONE ON CHRIS'S CAR ....

I collected the cement grey body and fitted it to the frame and started to fabricate the bulkhead area etc... Triumph pedal clusters have been fitted and early Land Rover brake master cylinder , a shelf for Servo , battery etc. has been made on passenger side too ..

As the influences are definitely going to be Aston Martin inspired , Chris turned up with some 16'' Jag XK140 wires powder coated in black gloss and 3 eared spinners

https://i.ibb.co/yfDzB0T/IMG-1896.jpg

Using MWS 52mm wheel adaptors drilled to suit the Scimitar , these were eventually fitted ( powder coaters managed to coat some of the splines resulting in about an hour of filing and cleaning out with a needle file ! )

https://i.ibb.co/s3psSK4/IMG-1895.jpg

These are the same wheels as used on the Survivor F-120 GR but have larger tyres and the Aston has huge wheel arches , so I opened the arches right up and split the top and pulled them out to cover the wheels ... ( same as Car 121 ) ... As the front is wider than the rear on these , no mods are necessary to the front wings ...


https://i.ibb.co/P1wGmBh/IMG-1892-1.jpg

Fuel tank going in today and some general fabrication ....

I'm liking the look of this one already.

Gary, would it be worth your while taking a mould of the finished rear end so you could offer a "standard" wide option ? It would open up more donor options, this isn't the first time you have had to cut up a body to go wide.

PROBABLY LUCKY ...It would mean moulding both sides and the rear to achieve it ...I'm kind of on hold waiting to see what needs to be done to get the Norwegian examples fully underway ...there will be some re-moulding involved in those bodies due to a slightly wider track ...I'm hoping I can achieve my options in one go as , my laminators are very good , but not the cheapest ....

When Chris chose his gelcoat colour , my initial thought was ...oh ... but he wants a greenish base for the chiltern green paint and the green options weren't cutting it ...but now it's here , I actually like the colour , with the black wires , it looks really good and I wouldn't rule out a similar colour for a future build ...

I must confess the first thing I thought when I saw the body was nice colour as it appears very period looking. :cool:

+1 to nice wheels too.

Apparently grey was the most popular colour choice for new cars in 2018.

Ford do a lovely light shade of grey which would look stunning on a period looking car like this one and it would match the black wheels as well. :nod:

Just ordered an aluminium Spitfire tank for the car ..not had one before , looking forward to seeing one ...anyone used one ?

Some progress ....

Fuel tank framework with removeable cross brace in place , rear body mounts and seat belt anchorage points ...


https://i.ibb.co/yfpwKV0/IMG-2005.jpg

Steering column , throtttle pedal and centre tunnel arrangement .. Chris has an early gearbox with the remote shifter arrangement , so high at box , but dropped down to give space between seats

https://i.ibb.co/txDj4sV/IMG-2009.jpg

Door hinge pivots ...

https://i.ibb.co/F6MHt23/20190209-101635.jpg

SOME MORE PROGRESS ... Bonnet framework is done , radiator mounts and extended hoses ..everything is bolted to existing holes in the chassis so it can all be removed easily to get Engine etc in and out ...I welded 8mm nuts into the inner arch tubes to allow bonnet frame to come off easily and lower mounts are utilizing the bottom anti-roll bar mounts ...keeping it all simple .... I welded a bracket on Graham's car that stopped the radiator coming out , so try to think about dis-assembly as well as assembly whilst putting these together nowadays !!

https://i.ibb.co/4YVGCBw/20190216-124704.jpg

Bonnet fitted , face cut out and some inner wing/brace bits glassed into the nose to stop flexing ... I'm going to make a jig today to enable me to radius the 4 arches for clearance on the 16'' wires today ...

https://i.ibb.co/gdn5qbc/20190216-144946.jpg

SOME MORE PROGRESS ... Bonnet framework is done , radiator mounts and extended hoses ..

https://i.ibb.co/4YVGCBw/20190216-124704.jpg

Bonnet fitted , face cut out and some inner wing/brace bits glassed into the nose to stop flexing ... I'm going to make a jig today to enable me to radius the 4 arches for clearance on the 16'' wires ...

https://i.ibb.co/gdn5qbc/20190216-144946.jpg

Just thinking out loud, will the Scimitar based cars allow for a much longer engine ? I'm thinking BMW straight six or V12.

DQuite simply ....Yes ...I have a customer in Swindon using a BMW 6 cylinder and I have a customer looking at putting an XJ40 engine in one and it will also fit ..

That would be sweet with a BMW 6 cyl.

Sorry, I just remembered the 121 car you built that had the straight six engine. The old ebay ad is still available to view and it clearly shows how much room there is under the bonnet. Even with that engine fitted there seems to be plenty of space around it and to the front and rear.

Yes space is no issue at all under the bonnet , even the 3.0 V6 looks a little lost when they are set back a bit ... I will post pics of the BMW one in Swindon when he has progressed a bit ...

I love the idea of larger engines going in ...

The chassis would be far more capable of handling a powerful engine compared to the light weight Triumph unit. From memory the rear axle was pretty beefy too, wasn't it also used in one of the Jaguar cars ?

AGREED ...It's a Salisbury rear axle , so a version of MK2. JAG , ROVER , WESTMINSTER etc... Drag Racers used to love them , they are very strong ...

Started to radius the arches and stretch the lower wing section on the car today ...

https://i.ibb.co/MNdLmS3/20190219-131547.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/DYkbMjX/20190219-131619.jpg

I've done virtually round rear arches cut quite high into the wing and stretched the front ones back a bit to look similar to the Aston DBR1 examples ....kind of !!
Driver's side rear wing had a slight twist in it from all the cutting and pulling about , so I took the opportunity to slice through its peak and put a splint across to correct this at the same time....

https://i.ibb.co/r0rLh4f/20190219-162613.jpg

I also trial fitted the doors with their braced hinges using my set up door skins ..

https://i.ibb.co/vPGLH42/20190219-153755.jpg

I make sure I am happy with the door frame fit and hinge location etc. before I fit the correct door skins ...this will be done once I am finished with taking the body on and off ..

https://i.ibb.co/D4Tn1YG/20190219-153846.jpg

Managed to finish glassing the front areas before I left , so tomorrow it's body off , flip it over , glass a few bits that need finishing and then back up the right way on tressles so I can go inside the rear to glass the rear arches ...

Looking very nice, Gary. I do love the style of the internal frame and hinges, very period racer.

Thank you ... This one is actually going to have a full aluminium interior , so a lot of the framework will be covered ...

Managed to glass the rear arches upside down using small strips and some metal formers I made to create the inner lips when I cut these bodies ...

https://i.ibb.co/jVrPkkf/20190220-130020.jpg

Did a couple of small repairs to boot area etc. at same time ...

Hopefully body will stay on when it goes back this time ...

https://i.ibb.co/k97DHd9/20190221-162453.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/kB14v2D/20190221-162642.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/V91CVDn/20190221-162545.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/wgq63HC/20190221-162521.jpg

Ooh! Looking fine..

The bigger wheels really change the proportions of the car. This is the extended version right ? The 121 car looked a lot longer with the smaller wheel and tyre combination.

YES THIS IS A LONG NOSE ...I agree they change the look considerably , she still looks long in the flesh , 99'' wheelbase , but the 16'' wires and larger arches really lower the body visually ......

I think it's a great look , starting to shape up as my favourite one so far ....

It is a great look. Liking it the best so far!

I really like the proportions with the bigger 16" wheels, it does look the part, that's for sure. It goes to show how adaptable the Formosa design is, a few tweaks here and there creating a bespoke look of individuality on every build. Because its not a replica you are not tied down to a particular formula to make it correct, I think that is why I like it so much.

I really like the car so does my wife so much she said can we get a hard top version? and then said you have a donor car outside so you can make me one like that with a hard top I can take off !!!! thanks Gary just need to finish the first one I am still building !!!

:rockon: bravo, gonna be a cracker!