Time for an update I feel as I have been making progress on my doors.
Just to recap, I wanted something different in the way of doors but my attempt to rear hinge them for the suicide door look failed. I wasn't too worried about that as I didn't feel it was going to give me quite the look I wanted anyway.
I've always thought that the doors on the 356 Speedster are a bit big and a bit of an odd design. Quite a bit of their length protrudes forward way beyond the door opening with the hinges about a foot back towards the rear. When you open the doors a big chunk of them just disappears into a large recess in the front wing, so that part of the door doesn't provide any better access.
I also know from experience with very low cars that having a full height door doesn't really help you get in and out any more gracefully, it just means you're closer to the pavement when you sprawl out of it on your hands and knees.
I did rather like not having any doors at all on my Spyder, heaving yourself up, standing on the seat and stepping over the side was actually very easy and looks pretty cool to boot. On this car, though, I am toying with the idea of making some perspex side-screens to wrap around the cockpit from the front screen to just behind the occupants in 718 RSK style, so some sort of hinge mechanism or door would be necessary to clear them out of the way before you step over the side so you don't end up kicking them off -
I'm also quite a fan of the small 'racing' doors on the 718 and 550 Spyders which start about a third of the way up the body. I think they look really business like and mean you don't have to lift your leg quite so high to climb in, which is good when you're ticking on a bit in years...
So, as I'm taking my Speedster down the 'Concept car built by Wendler (who built the 550's and 718's for Porsche)' route, I thought why not make the doors smaller?
After lots of measuring, pencilling in possible shapes, several pots of tea and not a little head scratching, I settled on a design and went at the doors with my angle grinder, dremel and a hacksaw blade -
I formed some aluminium sheet to create a new sill and door pillar inside the old door with a recess for the (MG Midget) hinges, which was then fibreglassed on the underside so the gelcoat is where I want it -
Once the 'glass had cured it was very easy to pop the aluminium former away leaving a rather nice new door recess -
As you can see, the doors open out to almost 45 degrees which should make access really easy.
Next job is to fit the catches and their slam plates (MG Midget again) then fabricate the front and lower door 'inners' to match the recess.
As I retired for good just over a month ago I now have the time to get on with it, so I should have some more progress soon...