Originally Posted by
Dave Smith
Maybe I can help.
The images above from the video are incidental images from our VR project that affects the GTM, The Gen 3 Coupe chassis and eventually ALL our designs, or at least the ones that need to evolve. One of the projects I've committed a ton of resources to is VR design. Not just drawings, but rather full CAD design that goes all the way from dimensioned chassis/suspension/engine/drivetrain etc to full surfaced shapes. Problem is that drawings, renderings and even scale models are absolutely NOT a useful tool to determine what a car will look like. I know people are going to disagree, but this is coming from personal firsthand experience. All the cool drawings in the world have a vague connection to what the end product looks like after real world math and real-estate management arrives. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that car drawing you fell in love with is a true mirage.
The 818 process where we did scale models proved that. A company that I am one of three founders of record in (Local Motors) has definitively proven that making cars from design sketches and crowd-sourced designs is an abject failure. Almost ALL (and maybe all) of the cool drawings and cocepts that Local Motors collected were really not manufacturable in some way and worse yet, IF made, they actually never closely resemble the original concept, which angers the original sketch/designer who had made things look cool but without rules of time and space that apply to this dimension. "They messed up MY design is the mantra but the blame lies in the difference between flat paper or monitor and reality. Remember when they made a Barbie doll in life size with exact dimensions? The life-sized girl was a cartoonish freak with massive 60" bust line and a 10" waist (said for effect, but it was all wrong). It's not linear with proportions and what looks good.
My personal feeling is that you really cannot know what something will really look like.. we've learned thru so much work that the ONLY way to determine if a car will look good is to make a full-size, ride height, correct proportion body shape. Even then, without wheels, tires, glass, trim, etc, it STILL is hard to make a call and really know what a car will look like. VR is the experiment. Can we make the decision to go forward with a design/shape without spending 2 years in shaping. The VR design is dimensioned, so it is a print-button away from full size dimensionally correct body shape plug (from which molds can be made immediately). Without this tool, the body shape will always be a long term laborious process and will limit what we can do as a company since chassis always outstrips body in the process. Frankly everything else is faster even when added all together than time in shaping. Some of the leading car companies like Ferrari, etc are obviously doing this but with tools and resources far in excess of what we can afford. Our challenge is to be able to make decisions and shape in VR and if the output is close to the digital world version, we will have accelerated our ability to launch new and modified designs.
What you see above may or may not ever see production, but the process is the deliverable. Hope that helps.
And hell yeah I'm making a modern body for the Gen 3 Coupe chassis and it will be our own design fully, not the Shelby GR1, or anyone else's. The ONLY front engine supercar that I would consider an "exotic" supercar is the Aston Martin Vulcan. Wheelbase considerations among a million have to all work into this equation and Jim Schenck is the most talented guy in the world at making that work.