LocostUSA.com

Saw these fenders on Top Gear the other day. Are they just cut up tires? Helps the period correct car look and still road legal. Could be locost if you got used ones to cut up ?

Wouldn't get beat up either.

Probably only take 2 tires to do 4 fenders.

But then you end up with tread mismatches when you change tires,.

Use slicks!

1/4 of an old tire: 5 pounds

bracketry to keep tire from flapping like a bird: 50 pounds.

I thought it was one of those transfer graphics on a film. The kind you float on water and lift the part into?

I wonder if you could use an old tire to make a mold so that you could make light weight fiberglas fenders that would look like the picture?

They are probably composite material:

diskojoe says:
March 7, 2008 at 9:13 am It’s interesting to see that the fenders look like tire treads. Was that done to give the illusion that it doesn’t have fenders?

Reply David Traver Adolphus says:
March 7, 2008 at 9:16 am Yes. I suspect, given Vanwall’s composites expertise, that they’re something interestingly exotic, too.

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/03/07/its-loud-its-brutal-its-mad/

At 3:47 in this video you can see that the tread pattern is molded into the composite.

http://vimeo.com/7047009

Here's a better picture as well.

That's a beautiful video McCheese. That car is very close to my dream machine if I were British especially. So nice to see that he got to see his wish come true.

As for the fenders, I'm not sure. In my opinion, they ought to be a bit wider to hold back the spray; nice idea though - a required item but designer doesn't want it visible - Hmmm.

I aggree; they should be a bit wider and I would make sure they looked exactly like a tire that is rolling, not at rest. On second thought, then they would look funny when stopped. Cool idea nonetheless.

Tom

- apparently that's the common choice!


There's another point missed here, they are stronger too when ribbed (treaded). Very clever idea and been wanting to do it myself.

Invisible fenders? I went the 1/2 way [real] route.

No front fenders!

How 'bout making the front wings out of Lexan? At least you could see when the supports are starting to crack.

They would be a beach to keep clean on the inside though

I saw one somewhere, where they had a fender molded to shape, smooth much like the one frequently used on the LoCost, but it had the photographic image of the tire on the visible side. The car was red, and I believe it was Clarkson driving it.
944Tim

Having been in a few NASCAR, Indy, GrandAM, etc paddocks, I recall that most of the "car paint" these days is a good quality of peel-and-stick vinyl. So I assume that one could simply have the local people, the ones that wrap buses with advertising, print out some vinyl that would be put on regular ole fenders?

And yes, I have some ideas on how to use that stuff to finish off my locost.