LocostUSA.com

Hello all, First Post here

I'm looking at building a locost eventually and started thinking about a full body redesign to slick the aerodyms up a bit. What do you guys think? The ass end might still needs a little refining, but the overall shape of the body is pretty much there.

I borrowed a 3D model of the chassis from SketchUp, not sure who drew it, but it was an excellent model. With some tinkering i was able to get it converted for Blender 3D and then i took it from there. Both of the programs are free btw.

anyway, i have a few projects to finish up first, but the locost is officially on the bucket list... also, just curious, but would a 232 V6 be a possibility, there are thousands of these drive trains laying around in stangs for DIRT cheap!

It's already a trick to climb into a Locost. This is worse. Maybe doors.
Not sure what kind of engine access you might have.
Not sure how the body supports would look.
Grill opening needs to be bigger.
Provision for exhaust.
Provision for roll bar.
Provision for headlights.

Nice work, keep at it.

Looks like a Panoz to me.

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I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

Yup, my first thought.

It isn't difficult to improve the aero on a traditional seven. There are a lot of small changes you could do to this without drastically changing the look if this is what you are after. Grill opening is big enough if it is divergent to and far enough from the radiator core.

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Open wheels are the worst thing of all.

I like the look you've come up with. I think the flat-top front fenders suit the style and spirit of the Locost. From the artwork, I'm presuming a composite body, but it carries on the look and feel of simple fabrication from sheetmetal, which (even when we're faking it) suits the circa 1960 vibe. As MiataV8 pointed out, it's easy to improve the aero of a Se7en...but to improve the aero without losing the spirit can be a challenge.Well cool! My hat's off to you. blender.org is currently can't-be-found ("Firefox can't find the server at www.blender.org. "safari can't find the server") but as soon as it's live again, I'm gonna download Blender for Mac.

I recommend you take your model of the chassis and overlay the wheels in full jounce and droop at full right and left lock, and see where the tires might contact the body. Bodies that look good with the wheels pointed straight often have interference issues when suspension travel and steering are added to the mix. Unfortunately, modern race cars are poor inspirations for real world street cars, because modern race cars tend to have limited suspension travel (as aero is now more important than suspension) and steering angle.

I am way impressed by what you're doing with a couple of free software programs and some research, and of course your own skills and talent. Welcome to LocostUSA and I hope we hear lots more from you.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

I like the covered rollbar and it leads to being able to use 2 slightly smaller roll bars spaced a bit apart and then linked. I dont know if that will eliminate the need for rear diagonals for it but it is the way I plan on doing mine.
Dale

Head lights need to be 23" from the deck to centerline. Perhaps on the roll bar?

Hey Jack they are back up and running, but I suppose that is where you are right now.

Not less than 559 mm (22 inches) nor more than 1,372 mm (54 inches), according to the feds (and most states), and not rearward of the front axle (ditto).Yep, downloaded and running. I wouldn't call Blender intuitive, but neither would I call any other 3d program intuitive. Blender has powers far beyond what we locosters want to use (want to animate your car? make its body out of jello so it wobbles when you brake too hard? cover your body with hair? me either) but it looks like we can ignore those and get to the meat of body design. Hopefully clifton_76 will lead us by the hand here. If Blender has outputs that will suit the various G Code translators (and if clifton_76 didn't spend four months modeling that body) this could be quite a find.

Another thing I like about his body design is he didn't tart it up when rendering. That's what I want to see--the shape of the body, not an artful rendering with glossy paint and matt metal logos. Such artful renderings have their place, but it seems to me that the crowd at locostusa wants to build things.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

I'll start off by saying beautiful work and I love the body lines.

I'll add my 2 cent if you gents don't mind. Maybe it's just me, but if I was to build a full body "locost" I would start by widening the passenger compartment of the car. Your covering up this section of the car with panels that run in plane with the front and rear tires. Why not have something to bolt those too? Not only that but I see so many people having issues with little to foot room and basically having your arms hanging out the side of the car. Use all that dead space to spread out.

Thoughts?

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30 years old, not sure what I want to be when I grow up…

Hello all,

Thanks for the responses and checking out the concept. Yes, Blender is a mighty powerful program, rivals some that cost in the thousands imo. It can be daunting to learn, you WILL do a lot of this ( ) but it's like anything else... practice, practice, and MORE practice. I probably spent 2-3 months at first just learning the tools and how to move about the program. After tons of models that...lets just say, were probably on par with what a 3 year could do... it did eventually click and started coming together. I learned on the original, the new UI is far better. If you start digging, there are many tutorials on blender and several that are geared only to modeling cars. To date, i've been using blender for about 5-6 years now and the model posted took every bit of 30 minutes to draw. It still never ceases to amaze me what a free 8mb open source can do.

Also, just for fun... Sculptris Alpha 6 - just download it... basically a free ZBrush

I'll keep tweaking on the design and probably draw several more, if you guys start getting into blender i'll be more than happy to pass on all the tips and tricks i know to speed the learning curve.
there are now several tutorial books on Amazon for around 10 bucks or less, would be a wise investment to save you tons of time if interested.

thanks again,
Clif

Consider uploading some of your work to our site. Giving something to people to go hands on with can be a big help.

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Cliff
Is it possible to slice the surface with 2D planes that you can use for buck building.
Tim