Thread: The Roofus Special

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Originally Posted by ScooterCO

Certainly,...... you have vision!

Using as many "found shapes" as possible is kinda getting out of hand, but it is fun. ...and it makes for good conversation at car shows.

All of our cars have interesting stories behind them. We usually drag pieces and parts from all over the country to build something. A 500 mile roadtrip to pick up parts is common.


Back to this one.

I'm debating on sticking headlights above the pods or in the pods like this Mercedes from the same era, except I would use smaller lights and move the grills outboard a little.



The pods may help me speed up the build quite a bit too. I may be able to modify the jag front crossmember enough to fit in the pods. If I can, I will be able to use the jag steering and lower control arms (save lots of headscratching time). I think I can get away with cutting off the upper mounts and the spring pockets and then make new upper arms and mount a transverse leaf spring (maybe 2 quarter eliptics) that runs between the upper and lower a-arms. The barely exposed leafs will give it that old racecar feel that the rear leafs have.

If I do the Miller inspired front suspension, everything between the spindles will have to be fabbed from scratch.

I cut the caddy hood apart and mocked-up the front end (I'll post pics tomorrow night when I get back home). It really changes the look of the car. I think it is cool.

I also realized the low seat/high & wide dash thing sucks for visibility. The cowl is going to be a little slimmer.

Overall, I think the car is moving from the late 20's to the late-40's - early 50's sports racer feel. I need to figure out how to take a little length out of the nose/cowl...right now it looks to be about a 115-120" wheelbase.

Death to the Caddy hood!

I'd vote for flat, but it's hard to get a good mental picture. It's looking great either way. Man, them are some serious I-beams holding that garage up.

Originally Posted by falconvan

Man, them are some serious I-beams holding that garage up.

Actually they are independent from the building. The building has it's own posts.

When dad built the shop, he had the idea that he wanted to get a 50ft wooden boat to restore. He started building a hoist so that he could lift it up out of the way when he wasn't working on it

Those I-beams are actual railroad bridge I-beams.

There is a second cross beam at the back of the shop. They are on rollers so they can go front to back. He has bigger chain hoists, but they are a pain to deal with. We normally use 2 ton hoists for everything.

Wow; that is too cool! It doesn't get much more heavy duty than that.

Nice building! Did he ever do the boat?

Originally Posted by stovens

Nice building! Did he ever do the boat?

Nope. After he did the shop, he lost intrest in the boats...or at least in what it would cost to have one shipped to his house.

It is a great place for working on cars.

Here are a couple more pics that show the overall shape of the body a little better.





I gotta spend a day cleaning up, the shop looks BAD in pics.

All of the sudden, I think rounded cowl and hood tops may be the way to go.

I don't know exactly what this car is, but I love it.

That one would be my vote; what's the handle on the drivers side?

I came to the realization that I need to work out some of the function details before I get too much farther with the form. I need to figure out the mechanics of the front half of the car.

I slid the back end of the car back a couple of feet so that I would have room on the table for the motor. I ended up making a saw horse out of a suzuki samurai roll bar.

Originally Posted by falconvan

That one would be my vote; what's the handle on the drivers side?

Its the brake.

Rather than completely trashing the car to try and get the motor to fit under a track nose, I amgoing to stick to the original idea for the car and copy the little blue/gray 1930 RALLY that was pictured earlier.

Here is a front view of a similar car.

I enjoy following this thread. Great project, huge project. Building and designing as you go is tough. This requires alot of time. How do you do it?