I'm a big fan of people building vehicles - I do - but there's a hot rodding expression 'beautiful deathtrap'.
People build aesthetically attractive vehicles, often with very powerful engines, spend a fortune on paint and visuals but there are lots of potentially deadly mechanical single points of failure.
Some of these vehicles are mostly trailer queen show cars, but the ones that are driven a lot often need some safety work. I know of a socal shop that fixes high end customs designed by TV show car personalities so they are actually driveable
For every genuine safety hazard there's dozens of people complaining about stuff that just isn't. Seems like safety is just the trojan horse that the "you shouldn't have modified anything it was perfect the way the factory built it" people use to get past the gate these days (not saying you're one of those people).
I skimmed the video. I didn't see anything particularly out of line. Their metal fabrication wasn't great but it's fine for what they're building and frankly where they're building it (don't get me wrong, that suspension is a kludge but they probably don't have enough car to break it).
I like to see stuff attached to fiberglass anchored better and over more area but I'm no expert on fiberglass so I don't have a good feel for what you can get away with and what they did was as good as what you see on boats.
I think you missed my broader point. I wasn't particularly criticizing this Bugatti emulation, I was making a broader point about people building aesthetically pleasing vehicle, because looks are everything to most people, and skimping on the mechanicals.
This emulation looks like a film prop vehicle and they were very clever in how they created it. I did a metal bashing workshop with Gene Winfield (now 94 years old and going strong) last fall, a famous car customizer and builder of a lot of Hollywood vehicles including the Bladerunner vehicles. He was very clear on what was for visuals and what had to actually work and go down the road.
This will go down the road just fine though. The tiny little diesel will make it go but won't break their ghetto CV extension. Those small car calipers and plate brake rotors will let it stop just fine (probably better than you'd think since they're so big). The structural stuff is ugly, overbuilt and heavy. The design isn't the greatest (lol what even is triangulation) but they make up for it in metal well enough that they probably won't be able to hurt it. What it won't do is perform as well as it looks. Don't expect to track it with that tiny little engine and questionable (in the most literal sense of the word, they probably don't even know their numbers) suspension geometry.
I had red hot metal flake land on my eye once. Even while wearing safety glasses (the type without the side shields). When I went to the hospital, the nurse was extremely concerned if I could see anything because of how red/puffy my eyes were.
After a 12 hour wait, the doctor had to use metal tweezers and dig it out of my eye. Absolutely terrifying. He said there was rust residue that needs to be removed and would need to go the specialized eye center where they would need to use a specialized drill.
After that, I double up on everything. Not worth it.
Yeah that is pretty upsetting to see, they are potentially doing permanent damage to their eyesight. Presumably someone is paying for all of this but isn't paying for eye protection?
The best practice IMO is to modify cars (or components of cars) that have already gone through that testing. I use first gen Jaguar suspension modules that work in most project cars and provide superb ride, steering geometry and brakes for example. I am very opposed to restricting vehicles to those the authorities have rubber stamped because there are some truly awful and dangerous mass produced cars out there.
Really great series on making fiberglass molds from a live pattern/part to crank out laminate (carbon fiber or fiberglass) copies. Seems like they could do that with this pretty easily, not sure if there is a market but it's a great start:
(The channel is fantastic if you have any interest in making carbon fiber parts. The guy does great and very practical demos and they have some very good products for small batch/hobbyist projects. I just wish they would sign with a distributor in the US)
Very impressed by the tolerances achieved, it's inspirational. The headlamps also look exceptional. Given that these guys are working with pretty primitive means of fabrication, this is a great attempt!
The video shows them unboxing the pair of headlights out of a box with Chinese characters on it[1]. It made me look on AliExpress to see if they sell knock-off Bugatti headlights. Actually they sell look-alikes for other cars, e.g. a Honda Civic [2], so I guess these guys looked hard to find shapes that match the original.
It includes all plans and instructions on how to build a Lotus 7 style car from scratch using a Ford Escort Mk 3 as the donor car.
Always dreamt of one day doing it.
I believe it created a whole mini industry of workshops manufacturing components for amateurs to buy if they wanted to skip a step. There was/is a racing series for them too.
Love the Caterham 7, one day when the kids have left home the plan is to convince the wife building one is a good way to keep me out of the house. Amazingly our house has an inspection pit in the garage crying out to be used.
This is very similar to how car body design prototypes were built until the mid-1980s, when CAD become the master of prototyping. A quick photo search for "car body design clay" yields fascinating pictures.
Great work. Why not wear gloves? Fiberglass gets in your skin and if epoxy is used, you might get sensitized to it. They might have used some other glue. At least they were wearing masks.
The last 2 minutes has a "walkaround". You can see some cracks near the door handle, guy opens the fuel filler cap and it's hilarously unpainted on the inside, and it's held closed using a cabinet door magnet.
I only watched part of it because it reminded me more of those cake-decorating videos than actually engineering and building a car.
If you actually want to see someone (re)build a car from (nearly) scratch, check out Bad Obsession Motorsport. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get the funk out.
I'm going to engage because there's nothing pathetic about these guys.
I bet many people said people like "Thomas Edison", "The Wright brothers", and "Steve Wozniak" were "sad and pathetic" like you say as they tinkered on their projects.
I was aware they used fiberglass. I was not aware that they removed the clay from under the fiberglass. This makes the car far lighter than it would be as I imagined. However unless a Bugatti is made out of fiberglass this is still just a Facade. Even if they made the body out of the proper material, does this have a Bugatti engine? What about it makes it a Bugatti?
People build aesthetically attractive vehicles, often with very powerful engines, spend a fortune on paint and visuals but there are lots of potentially deadly mechanical single points of failure.
Some of these vehicles are mostly trailer queen show cars, but the ones that are driven a lot often need some safety work. I know of a socal shop that fixes high end customs designed by TV show car personalities so they are actually driveable
Uncle Tony's garage showing some scary hacks video: https://youtu.be/a-DfxrEnDsI