I am a very long-time subscriber of the magazine - even from "UMK", the issues of which I once looked for in kiosks. Files "M-K" and today give an impetus to creativity, are a technical encyclopedia and reference book, so I keep almost all numbers.
Since my school years, I have always made something: at first, models of ships, airplanes. Having matured, he began to create working machines (about some of them there was information in "MK" No. 5 for 2005).
For all the time I made about two and a half dozen homemade products. Some of them still benefit and facilitate labor in household... This is a walk-behind tractor with a VP-150 motor, with the help of which I process my personal plot: plowing, cultivation, milling, planting, hilling and harvesting - all with the help of it. A mini-tractor and a mini-car “work” on the farm, on which I transport goods. On the go and a scooter with a cabin - for trips in bad weather.
1 - frame (ash beam 50 × 50); 2 - decorative headlight (tin can, 2 pcs.); 3 - steering chain transmission (from the bicycle); 4 - cardan joint of the steering control; 5 - engine control knob ("gas"); 6 - control lever (pedal) tension roller(clutch); 7 - parking brake handle; 8 - engine; 9 - driven double-grooved pulley; 10 - the driving sprocket of the chain transmission and the rolling axis of the rear axle; eleven - drive chain; 12 - driven drive sprocket; 13 - front axle; 14 - steering rod
In recent years, he has assembled a three-wheeled velomobile (two front wheels - steerable; rear, larger diameter - leading) with a voluminous trunk for economic transport. I made a glider simulator, but, unfortunately, it hasn’t taken off yet: it’s either heavy, or the wind in our places is weak.
But after retiring, he created a design "for the soul and for age" - a car in retro style.
The vintage car presented in the article was assembled not so long ago - in 2014. I really wanted it to look like the first cars - more like strollers with a motor. Therefore, he took the spoke wheels, bicycle, and decided to make the car a single, walking one.
Vintage car cab: on the right - engine control lever (throttle lever)
Rear axle: right - drive sprocket, left - brake drum
Actually, drawings for their homemade cars I don’t, except for the parts I order. If necessary, I make a model at a scale of 1:10 in order to have a three-dimensional representation or templates.
But this time I drew "X-ray" side and front views at a scale of 1:10, and then I drew the nodes and adjusted them in place. The only drawings for this car were for the drive and fastening of the rear wheels, since turning work was necessary there.
The frame of the car is assembled from maple beams 2000 mm long and 50 × 30 mm cross-section, which are fastened together with cuttings. A subframe is welded from steel pipes with diameters of 20 mm and 16 mm. seat and trunk frames that are bolted to the frame. Wing and cockpit frames are made of 5mm wire.
The front axle is suspended from the frame on single-leaf quarter-elliptical springs (from a passenger car). The front beam is made of a steel profile tube of rectangular cross-section 30 × 25 mm. Glasses are welded to the ends of the beam, into which bearings 6200 are pressed from below and from above. A bolt with a diameter of 10 mm is used as a pivot. A wheel fork bent from a tube with a diameter of 16 mm is attached to the kingpin using brackets. From the bottom to the fork there are lugs welded to fix the wheel axle and swivel levers made of steel sheet 3 mm thick.
1 - steering cardan shaft; 2 - chain transmission; 3 - bipod; 4 - short thrust; 5 - long (interwheel) thrust; 6 - lever steering knuckle(2 pcs.)
1 - fork of the right wheel (left - mirrored); 2 - bracket (corner 50 × 50, 4 pcs.): 3 - washer (4 pcs.); 4 - glass (2 pcs.); 5 - bearing 60200.4 pcs.); 6 - spring attachment platform (2 pcs.); 7 - pivot (bolt М10); 8 - kerchief (4 pcs.); 9 - right rotary roar: - transverse thrust; 10 - short thrust pivot arm; 11 - left swing arm of the transverse link
Control pedals (near - clutch, far - brakes) and steering mechanism with cardan joint and valuable transmission
The intermediate shaft of the transmission: on the left - a two-groove block of driven pulleys: on the right - a chain drive of the drive of the driving rear right wheel
Steering. Tie rod ends - from kart, with spherical bearings. The rods themselves are made of steel tubes with a diameter of 12 mm. The long rod connects the wheels, and the short one is connected with one end to the bipod - a connecting rod with an asterisk (from a teenage bike), the other - with a swing arm (left). The pedal carriage is welded to the frame. Above the carriage, a wooden block with a hole (oak) is bolted. A shaft passes through the hole, at one end of which a small sprocket from a bicycle is fixed, and at the other end there is a cardan assembly. The sprockets (small and large) are connected by a bicycle chain. Gear ratio 1: 3. The cardan assembly is connected to the steering wheel shaft (from the stroller).
Rear axle with part of the frame - from the card. The rear axle shaft rotates in three bearings. Clamping flanges are at the ends of the shaft for fastening the wheels. There are two more flanges on the shaft. One is for attaching the brake drum, the other is for attaching the driven sprocket. The rear axle is suspended (movably fixed) along the intermediate shaft axis and sprung by two shock absorbers from the scooter.
Engine and transmission. Forced motor air cooled with a power of 6.5 hp. - from the walk-behind tractor. Rotation from the engine to the intermediate shaft is carried out by a V-belt transmission, from the intermediate shaft to the right semiaxis of the rear axle - chain drive from the bike. On one side of the intermediate shaft, a block of two pulleys of different diameters is fixed. With a larger pulley maximum speed car - 30 km / h, with a smaller pulley - 40 km / h. Pulleys - one aluminum from washing machine with a diameter of 220 mm, another with a diameter of 180 mm, homemade, machined from textolite. The engine has a three-strand pulley block, from the "Neva" walk-behind tractor, too, of different diameters (changing the belt takes a few seconds). At the other end of the shaft is an 11-tooth sprocket. There is a 60-tooth sprocket on the rear axle shaft. A V-belt transmission is used as a clutch. The belt is "engaged" with the pulleys using a tension roller. The roller is connected with a cable to the clutch release pedal in the cab.
Brakes. A brake drum from a moped is attached to the rear axle shaft using a clamping flange. Drive to the drum using a cable from the pedal in the cab. Parking brake- tape.
A rubber-cloth tape is thrown over the brake drum. The tape is clamped using a handle on the left side of the cab.
1 - nut and locknut; 2 - centering washer; 3 - landing sleeve; 4 - flange (steel); 5 - locking plate; 6 - M8 bolt (4 pcs.); 7 - axis (screwed into the end of the shaft); 8 - clamping flange; 9 - shaft (Ø25); 10 - wheel hub
1 - nut and locknut; 2 - conical washer; 3 - bicycle overrunning clutch; 4 - axis (welded to the flange); 5 - bearing 104; 6 - flange (steel); 7 - stepped washer; 8 - clamping flange
The car body is wooden, made of 3 mm plywood, with the exception of the floor, dashboard and seat base, which are made of 10 mm plywood. The plywood is coated with linseed oil and painted twice with enamel.
The awning of the cab is sewn onto a black wire frame. The foam seat (and the back, too) is covered with brown leatherette. There is a small trunk at the back. Decorative lights - paint cans. Lighting - two battery-powered LED flashlights. Rear brake light and turn signals, bike electronics. In the cab there is a bicycle speedometer driven by front wheel, turn switch, steering wheel and on the right - throttle knob. The headlights and radiator surround are finished in bronze.
A retro car does not stand idle like an exhibit. Last summer, I drove it on country roads for more than 500 km. I made a "Medvedka" -type trailer for it, on which I can carry up to 100 kg of cargo. There were no breakdowns. The attitude of others to the car is the most friendly.
N. KURBATOV, Belgorod region
I bring to your attention a prefabricated wooden model retro car MG TC, from the British company MG Cars specializing in the production of sports cars.
The work is difficult, but you should not be afraid of it. Wooden model retro car consists of 42 elements. Such a model will serve as a good interior decoration and will take its rightful place on your shelf.
1945 MG TC Roadster
Plywood car
In order to assemble such a retro car with your own hands, you will need the following tools and accessories:
Preparation of the workplace
As usual, the first thing you need to do is equip your workplace where you will be working. The rules are not complicated: there should be no unnecessary things on the table, the entire instrument should be in its place and be at hand. Not everyone has their own desktop and you probably already thought about creating it. Making a table is not difficult - it is more difficult to choose a place for it in the house. A good option- this is an insulated balcony on which you can start working on your craft at any time. If you have a specially equipped room with a workbench, then you are lucky. You can read about the preparation of the table in a separate article where I tried to describe the whole process of its creation in as much detail as possible. After you have completed the process of creating a workplace, you can proceed directly to your future crafts. 
Plywood selection
Estimated dimensions of a car model made of plywood (10 cm x 26.5 cm x 10 cm.) The drawing is based on the A3 format, the parts can fit on two sheets of plywood 38x23 cm in size, the thickness of the plywood should be from 2.5 to 3 mm. Before transferring the drawing to plywood, sand the workpiece with a coarse sandpaper, and finish with a fine one. It is more convenient to grind with a wooden block wrapped in sandpaper. Sand the finished plywood along the layers, not across. A well-sanded surface should be even, perfectly smooth, glossy-matt in the light and silky to the touch. Pay attention to the location of the fibers, knots, dents and other defects. Quality and color. 
Transferring the drawing to plywood
You need to translate the drawing accurately and accurately: fix the drawing with the buttons or just hold it with your left hand. Check if the drawing fits the dimensions. Arrange the individual parts so that you can use the plywood sheet as economically as possible. You should not rush, because your future craft depends on the drawing. To speed up the translation process, you can use the technique of fast translation of a drawing, for this I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the article: You can download a file with a drawing of a car from plywood at the end of the article.
Sawing a car with a jigsaw
There are many rules for cutting, but you need to be based on the most common ones. First, you should cut out the internal elements, then proceed to sawing out the contour. There is no need to rush when cutting. The main thing is to always keep the jigsaw straight at a 90 degree angle when cutting. Saw parts along precisely marked lines. The jigsaw must always move evenly up and down. Also, do not forget to monitor your posture. Try to avoid bevels and irregularities. If you get off the line while cutting, don't worry. Such bevels, irregularities can later be removed with a flat file or "Coarse-grained" skin.
Recreation
We often get tired when sawing. Fingers and eyes, which are always tense, often get tired. During work, of course, everyone gets tired. In order to reduce the load, you need to do a couple of exercises. You can watch the exercises here. Do the exercises several times in the process.
Assembly diagram
Detailed diagram assemblies:
Assembling the parts of the craft in this work is not very difficult, my son, 6 years old, was assembling a model of a retro car, with my tips and not much help. Such exercises develop fine motor skills of hands, imagination, imagination and patience is also trained. 
After the parts are assembled into one common craft without any problems, then proceed to gluing them.
To make it more similar, you can add a few strokes in the form of lines using an electric burner. It can be very difficult to beautifully burn out a pattern, but there are not many lines here and it is quite simple to make them. First you need to draw lines with a pencil, then slowly go along these lines with an electric burner. You can read how to work with an electric burner and add patterns in a separate article.
Main types
Side view: 
Back view: 
Isometry: 
Varnishing crafts
A collectible model of a retro car, if you wish, you can varnish or paint, it is not necessary to do this, but it will give a lot of individuality to your craft. Try to choose a good quality varnish. Perform varnishing with a special brush, take your time. Try not to leave visible streaks of bubbles and lint from the brush.
Nowadays it's hard to surprise some new model car, but a self-made vehicle has always attracted attention and excitement. A person making a car with his own hands will face two scenarios. The first is admiration for the creation, and the second is the smile of others at the sight of an invention. If you look at it, then there is nothing difficult in assembling a car with your own hands. A self-taught engineer is only required to know the design of the car and the basic properties of its parts.
Historical facts
Certain historical conditions preceded the start of car construction. During the existence of the union, mass production cars. They could not meet the individual needs of the consumer. That is why self-taught inventors began to look for ways out of this situation and did it by designing homemade cars.
In order to make one car with your own hands, three non-working ones were required, of which all were removed necessary spare parts... If we take into account the people living in remote villages, they most often improved various bodies, thereby increasing their capacity. Cars began to appear that had high cross-country ability and could even overcome water. In short, all efforts were devoted to simplifying life.
A separate category of people attached great importance to the appearance of the car, and not just its technical properties. In addition to beautiful cars, sports cars were made, which were not much inferior to factory copies. All these inventions not only amazed others, but also became full-fledged participants in the road traffic.
During the Soviet era, there were no specific restrictions on homemade vehicles. Bans appeared in the 80s. They concerned only certain parameters and technical characteristics of the car. But most people could get around them by registering one vehicle with the relevant authorities under the guise of a completely different one.
What you need to assemble a car
To proceed directly to the assembly process itself, you need to think over everything in detail. You need to clearly understand how to do future car, and what technical characteristics it should have. First, you need to determine for what purposes the car will be used, and then implement the idea. If you need a frank workhorse, then in order to make it yourself, you will need special materials and parts. It is also important to make the body and frame of the car as resistant to loads as possible. When a car is made only for driving, the question is only in its appearance.
How to make a car with my own hands for a child, you can learn from the following video:
How to make drawings
You should not trust your head and imagination, it would be better and more correct to think about what exactly the car should be. Then transfer all available considerations to paper. Then it is possible to correct something and as a result, while a drawn copy will appear future car... Sometimes, for complete confidence, two drawings are made. The first depicts the appearance of the car, and the second shows a more detailed view of the main parts in detail. Before drawing, you need to prepare everything necessary tools, that is, a pencil, eraser, drawing paper and a ruler.
Nowadays, there is no need to draw a picture for a long time using a regular pencil. To facilitate this task, there are special programs with ample opportunities and with their help you can make any drawing.
Advice! If there are no engineering programs, then the usual Word test editor will help in this situation.
With a strong desire, you can make any car with your own hands. If there are no own considerations, then ready-made ideas and drawings can be borrowed. This is possible because most people involved in the creation of homemade cars do not hide their ideas, but, on the contrary, present them to the public.
Kit-cars
In the vastness of the countries of Europe and America, the so-called "kit-cars" have become widespread. So what is it? This is a certain number of different parts with which you can make a car with your own hands. Kit cars have become so popular that many options have appeared that allow you to fold any desired car model. The main difficulty is not in the assembly, but in the registration of the car obtained as a result of the assembly.
To fully work with the kit car, you must have a spacious garage. It also requires toolboxes and knowledge. If you do not have certain skills, then the work will not give the desired result. If the work is done with the help of assistants, the assembly process will be faster and more fruitful.
This kit includes everything from small screws and instructions to large parts. For a full-fledged work, there should be no serious difficulties. It should be noted that the instructions are not in printed form, but presented in a video master class, where everything is considered to the smallest detail.
It is very important to assemble the vehicle correctly. This is necessary in order for the creation to comply with all the standards and norms prescribed in the regulations of the traffic police. Since the failure to comply with the points leads to problems with the installation of the vehicle on record with the relevant authorities.
Advice! If possible, then you can consult with experts in this field.
You can learn more about what kit cars are and how to make them from the following video:
Designing a car using materials at hand
To make the task of assembling a homemade car as easy as possible, you can take the base of any other car that fully functions as a basis. Best to take a budget option since it is never known which direction the experiments will take. If there are old worn parts, then they must be replaced with serviceable ones. If possible, you can make parts with your own hands on lathes, but this is if you have professional skills.
First of all, you need to start assembling the car with the body, instruments and necessary interior parts. Modern inventors use fiberglass for the bodywork, and before that there was no such material, and plywood and tin material were used.
Attention! Fiberglass is a sufficiently elastic material that allows you to implement any idea, even the most unusual and original.
The availability of materials, spare parts and other components makes it possible to design a car that, in terms of external parameters and appearance, will not be inferior to the car models of the most leading car manufacturers in the world. This requires ingenuity, good imagination and some knowledge.
DIY supercar:
Fiberglass car construction
You should start assembling a car made of fiberglass from the moment you select a suitable chassis. After that, the selection of the necessary units is carried out. Then it is worth moving on to the interior layout and seat mounting. Upon completion of this, the chassis is reinforced. The frame must be very reliable and strong, since all the main parts of the car will be mounted on it. The more accurate the dimensions of the space frame, the better the fit of the parts.
For the manufacture of the body, it is best to use fiberglass. But first you need to make a base, that is, a frame. Foam sheets can be attached to the surface of the frame, as closely as possible to the existing drawings. Then, as needed, holes are cut, and if there is a need, the parameters are adjusted. After that, fiberglass is attached to the surface of the foam, which is putty and cleaned on top. It is not necessary to use foam, any other material with a high level of plasticity will be useful. This material can be a continuous canvas of sculptural plasticine.
It is worth noting that fiberglass tends to deform during operation. The reason is exposure to high temperatures. To maintain the shape of the structure, it is necessary with inner side strengthen the frame with pipes. All excess parts of the fiberglass must be removed, but this should be done after it is completely dry. If everything is done correctly and there are no other works regarding the design, you can proceed to the interior equipment and electronics fasteners.
If in the future it is planned to re-design, then a special matrix can be made. Thanks to her, the body making process will be faster and easier. The matrix is applicable not only to make a vehicle with your own hands from scratch, but also to improve the condition of your own car. Paraffin is taken for manufacturing. To get a flat surface, you need to paint it on top. This will increase the convenience of fastening parts for a new car body.
Attention! With the help of a matrix, the entire body is made completely. But there is an exception - this is the hood and doors.
Conclusion
In order to implement the existing idea and make a car with your own hands, there are a number of suitable options... All sorts of working details will be helpful here.
You can do not only with your own hands a car but also larger and powerful truck... In some countries, craftsmen manage to earn decent money from this. They make cars to order. Cars with various original details body.
How to make a Porsche with your own hands:
Making a car with your own hands is a task worthy of a real man. Many ponder, some take, only a few bring it to completion. We decided to tell the stories of machines made, as they say, on the knee. We'll talk about the work of professional body shops, including type A: Level or ElMotors another time.
The case of the masters of the East
Most of the homemade people are in the so-called developing countries. Afford expensive car not everyone can, but everyone wants to. And copyright in these countries is looked at, shall we say, in a peculiar way, not in a European way.It's easy to find a video on the web about a whole factory of self-made supercars in Bangkok. These are ten times cheaper than the original. Now it is no longer working: apparently, the German journalists who filmed the video about the self-made people did them a disservice, and the local authorities started thinking about the missing licenses of the “craftsmen” and the safety of the cars they riveted. Of course, these crafts were not specially crash tested.
It is interesting that, in principle, the Thais could withstand supercars - they made space frames from metal profiles and pipes and “dressed” them in fiberglass bodies. In most cases, home-builders simply take old cars, cut off the "extra" body panels and hang their own. For example, this replica of the Bugatti Veyron from India is built using this technology. An ambitious project, right by the saying "to love - so the queen, to steal - so a million." The author and owner used the old Honda civic... And he tried - outwardly, the copy turned out to be worthy: it's not for nothing that the audience is so attentively examining it.
Another Indian, former actor, current social reformer, concocted a parody of the Veyron from the Honda Accord. It turned out creepy. Another took the Tata Nano as a basis. Let me remind you that this is officially the cheapest production car in the world with peculiar proportions. Very weak and slow. However, the author of this project is clearly not devoid of a sense of humor, because Veyron, on the contrary, is one of the most expensive, powerful and fastest production cars.Landfill Supercars
The Chinese do not lag behind their Thai and Indian colleagues. The young worker of the glass factory Chen Yanksi did not begin or parody someone else's design, but made his own, author's. And even though his car looks decent only from a distance, and only drives 40 km / h (the installed electric motor no longer allows), I don't want to laugh at Chen. Well done, that went his own way. More often it happens otherwise.
Three years ago, 26-year-old Chinese property manager Li Weilei was so impressed with Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" Batmobile Tumbler that he built it. It took him and four friends 70,000 yuan (about $ 11,000) and only two months of work. Lee took the steel for the body from the landfill, shoveling 10 tons of metal. To compensate for the costs, he now rents out his Toggle Switch for photography and video filming, for only $ 10 a month. But tenants must be ready to roll the replica manually. The car cannot drive, since it does not have any power unit, no functional steering. In addition, in the PRC, only cars produced by certified manufacturers are released on the roads.
Another Chinese craftsman, Wang Jian from Jiangsu province, made his own "copy" of the Lamborghini Reventon from an old Nissan minivan and a Volkswagen Santana sedan. And he also dragged metal from the landfill. I spent 60,000 yuan ($ 9.5 thousand) on this case. The car has a carburetor engine, it smokes mercilessly, it lacks an interior and even glass, but the author himself likes the result, and the neighbors believe that Jian's car quite accurately copies the Lambo. The author claims that he is able to accelerate to 250 km / h on his supercar. Nobody risks reassuring him.
As you can see, most DIYers love to copy Ferrari and Lamborghini. Externally. Inside this car, designed by Mr. Meath from Thailand, is a Lifan motorcycle engine with a volume of a quarter liter.
The funniest and most touching creation is by the Chinese farmer Guo from Zhengzhou. He made a Lambo for ... his grandson. The car has children's dimensions - 900 x 1800 mm and an electric motor that allows you to accelerate to 40 km / h. Batteries of five accumulators are enough for 60 km. Guo spent $ 815 on his brainchild and six months of work.
A Vietnamese car mechanic from Bakjiang province has created a kind of Rolls-Royce, using a "seven" for this. I bought it for 10 million dong (about $ 500). I spent another 20 million on "tuning". Most of the money went to metal, electrodes and a Rolls-Royce grille, ordered from a local workshop. It turned out roughly. But the guy became famous. A real Rolls-Royce Phantom in Vietnam is worth about VND 30 billion.
Samavto-2017
In the vastness of the former USSR, the traditions of self-construction are also strong. During the Soviet years, there was a movement called "samauto" that united enthusiasts of home-made cars and motorcycles. And there were a lot of them, since in those years it seemed that it was easier to assemble a car with your own hands than to buy - despite the total shortage of spare parts and bureaucratic obstacles. And what interesting projects were born in those years! JNA, Pangolina, Laura, Ichthyander and others ... Yes, there were people. However, they stayed.
Several years ago I wrote about the brainchild of a Muscovite Yevgeny Danilin called an SUV that resembles the Hummer H1, but significantly surpasses it in cross-country ability.
Immediately I remember my old acquaintance with Alexander Timashev from Bishkek. His workshop ZerDo Design in the 2000s created a whole series of interesting homemade products, the first of which was the "Barkhan", also a kind of Hammer based on the GAZ-66. Then there was the Mad Cabin, a type of American hot rod made from the cab of the ZIL-157 army truck - Zakhara. ...
The "Frenzied Cab" was followed by home-made products in retro style - the so-called replicars, speedster and phaeton. And for them, Kyrgyz craftsmen made not only bodies and interiors, but even frames.
Looking for community content kak_eto_sdelano
I accidentally stumbled upon a blog in which the author was describing how he created the car. This was not just some kind of car, but a legendary car with an interesting history - Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing". I became interested in the history of recreating a car rarity and plunged into fascinating reading about how they made a copy of a legendary car from scratch, and not just a copy, but a car assembled from original spare parts.
Later I managed to meet with Sergei, who made his dream come true and find out some of the details of creating a car. He allowed me to take text and photos from his blog and make a post for the community readers.
In the process of creating the Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing", the suspension from the Mercedes W202 and W107 was used. Keeping in mind that the best is the enemy of the good, we install adjustable shock absorbers. Special attention it is worth paying attention to the rear axle gearbox, usually it is with it that the biggest problems arise, which is why customizers are so fond of non-split axles. On a Mercedes, this unit, together with the drives, is assembled on a stretcher, which greatly simplifies the work with it.
The stainless steel exhaust system complies with the Euro 3 standard, and fuel tank- a real work of art: baffles and overflow pipes are installed in it so that the fuel does not splash. In one of the photos - the steering wheel lock
In the "Gullwing" project, it was decided to use the next generation of M104 engines with a volume of 3.2 liters and a power of 220 hp. paired with an automatic 5-speed transmission. The choice of the engine was not accidental - it is more powerful, lighter and quieter. The gearbox is primitive, with a torque converter, many of these units are familiar from Mercedes W124, W140, W129, W210. A hydraulic booster was also installed, all units are new, so there should be no problems.
We make the body.
Back in 1955, Daimler Benz produced 20 cars with an aluminum body and 1 with a composite one. We decided to try a composite.
After making the body and assembling the chassis, the crossing of the body with the frame begins. The process is so painstaking and dreary that no pictures or words will convey it. Assembly and disassembly, fitting - all this takes more than one day. Many parts are finalized on site, and the body is attached to the frame through special dampers with bolts in 30 places.
All body parts are installed and adjusted - doors, hood, trunk lid. There is a lot of trouble with glasses - they are attached to rubber seals, and since all seals are original and designed for steel, it is necessary to strictly observe the thickness of the frames of the openings. Each part is removed, adjusted by hand, and only then installed in place.
Many parts for the most popular vintage models are still produced in small batches in some workshops, which is actively used by all restorers. But what a sin to conceal: the factories themselves forge their rarities, especially in this "Audi" and "Mercedes" have succeeded.
In many museums there are explicit copies. So recently, a lot of "Horchs" have bred. This is especially interesting considering that all the factory documentation was lost during the war. Dozens of workshops on the equipment of those years stamp forgeries, passing them off as carefully restored products. The devil is in the details.
So we just bought and collected all the details that could decorate any rarity for 500 thousand euros. I assure you, every nut and bolt (I'm not talking about rubber bands) are correctly marked in 1955. Everything is original, even the seat rails.
The body is already primed, and this is the most important point, because composite is a special material for painting, because plasticizers and all sorts of other complex things are needed here. The secrets of the primer are cherished and no one will ever tell you them. But it looks beautiful.
A small video from the painting process
In the meantime, the body is being painted, let's start preparing the units for assembly. As I said, the devil is in the details, and there are more than 2 thousand of them in the car! Dashboard, they were looking for her for a very long time.
We also find devices and relays, of course not everything turns out right away.
But with enviable patience and perseverance, you will have the opportunity to get a completely authentic dashboard consisting of 80 (!) Parts.
The main thing is that it also works later: the devices are all expensive. Good is not cheap.
The body is covered in 6 layers of varnish, it is very beautiful and it will not be necessary to paste over the film under chrome. Yes, shagreen is a must, and the grain is fine. Now they don't paint like that, they dilute everything with water, they have the ecology, they take care of nature. By the way, paint 744 (silver) is the most difficult to paint, any painter will tell you.
Finally got married chassis with a body.
They installed the doors. It would seem that this is not a tricky business, but I want to tell you a story. Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing" had many design flaws. One of them was the doors themselves: they were steel, heavy and hinged to the roof of the body, and were fixed by a spring enclosed between the hollow steel tubes with hinges at the end.
In the extreme upper position, the spring was compressed, and when the door was lowered, it stretched out with a crash and slammed the door. When opening, it was necessary to overcome the resistance of the spring, which simply pulled out the door along with the brackets (at 900 euros per piece).
Experienced owners of "Gullwing" know that if used incorrectly, this will inevitably lead to deformation of the roof, besides, the brackets themselves simply break. A rod with a spring assembly over time became a frantic shortage and its cost increased to astronomical heights. Each owner of such a rarity repairs these units once a season. We decided to go the other way and put gas shock absorbers.
It would seem that what is easier, but it was not so. I had to develop the entire unit, it took 4 months of hard work. Fortunately, a workshop was found that brought ideas and drawings to life. With complete external authenticity, the doors open today like the tailgate of a German SUV. The knot turned out to be so successful that it immediately became the object of desire of all owners of rarities, I think that soon all "gulving" will have doors that open very effectively and smoothly, without knocking. Now this process has really become like the flapping of a seagull's wing - gracefully and smoothly.
This is just one, and the simplest example of the tasks that had to be solved when building this car.
By the way, the door lock mechanism has also undergone changes. Despite the cost of 1,500 euros, he very often jammed and did not fix the door, but that's another story.
At the very beginning of the project, it seemed that interior trim was the smallest problem, since at every step there are workshops for changing salons, so what, but now any craftsman can handle leather. Business is to sheathe a bunch of details with leather, but as it turned out, this is a HUGE PROBLEM!
After four attempts to create interior details in tuning studios, I realized: everything is much more complicated.
The created products did not want to look like the original in any way. Everything looked like a cheap fake: the skin was bristling, traces of heat treatment were visible, the texture did not match, and no one could pick up the material. In short, I began to delve into the intricacies and found out that modern masters do not know how to work with felt, wool and other materials used at that time. They bluntly warmed and stretched the skin, used foam rubber wherever they could, actively worked with an iron, in short, mercilessly destroyed materials, depriving them of their naturalness and nobility. I'm not even talking about durability.
After suffering for six months, we came to the conclusion that only restorers are capable of such work. They have special paralon and felt. In general, they found a company, guys - wolves, guys, about 60 years old, who have been restoring only Mercedes for 40 years. What they showed and told us is just a novel about leather, and they guard their secrets in much the same way as the secret of making paper for the dollar.
The video shows an approximate course of the process.
Interior details for my baby were done for 4 months. The skin is just like living.
I will also add that the leather that manufacturers offer today is chemical bullshit with impregnations. No wonder all the owners of Mercedes and BMWs after a year of operation go nuts - the salons look like those of old redvans: not fresh, the skin stretches, peels off. As I said earlier, the devil is in the details.
I'm not talking about vinyls widely used by the Japanese, and by all manufacturers in general. Now in a Mercedes there is not enough leather for a jacket, one bullshit, that's why there are options - "design", "individual", "exclusive". Leading manufacturers, at least for 10-15 thousand dollars, will offer you real leather, but what they sew for you for 50 thousand rubles does not even dare to name leather.
Wheels are one of the most important parts of a car. So for our handsome man, there were two types of wheels. The first ones were put on the civilian version.
The latter were offered as an option. They came from sports - real, with a central nut. Of course, it's nice to have chrome wheels, but the price of 5 thousand euros per wheel is somewhat annoying.
How can you then hit the nut with a hammer, knowing that it is golden? The original disc for the classics is also not cheap - 3 thousand euros. So I think I really want to save 8 thousand euros.
One of the main factors in the operation of the engine is the removal of exhaust gases (combustion products). I do not want to recall the laws of thermodynamics here, I will only say that the last 150 years exhaust pipe is a symbol of progress. Remember the steam locomotive pipes, steamers, blast furnaces. Remembering my love for detail, I want to assure you that it was the pipe that received the utmost attention. This is a masterpiece of engineering.
The exhaust system is made of stainless steel, which no manufacturer can afford, and represents the most complex system of thick-walled and thin-walled pipes mounted one into the other, this made it possible with complete authenticity appearance pipes solve the problem of "gulving" - noise and heating of the cabin. And the main thing is the sound of the exhaust, it's just a song. The problem was solved by using resonators installed inside the system.
If you want to understand what kind of car you have - look at the exhaust pipe!
Do not pay attention to the date in the photo, just bought a decent camera. They snapped it off, but the instructions were not sorted out, and the date was wrong. Well, to hell with him, all interested, enjoy.
We made many changes to the design, we are trying to do everything as authentically as possible. A very cunning handbrake.
The tank is a separate song, they made their own from stainless steel, slightly changing the location of the neck, but this is a separate story.
There is a good saying - it's better to see once than read about it a hundred times. Everyone who reads and watches my blog knows my favorite expression - THE DEVIL IS IN DETAIL. It is these details that I will show you today. It makes no sense to write for a long time, you yourself will understand everything.
Braided harnesses and wiring, well, I think you just haven't seen this yet, a two-tone horn, in short, just look, it's all called TECHNOLOGIES.
The main task facing the implementation of this project was to create a complete authenticity of all interior details. It would seem that it could be easier than copying an existing sample, but as they say, everything is not so simple, and much more difficult than even restoring.
So, we needed to make all analog devices work, and work correctly with electronic units modern units; put a bunch of additional equipment into a cramped little car, such as an air conditioner, a hydraulic booster, a brake booster. All this should work from standard toggle switches and switches. The stove dampers used to have mechanical drives, like on the Volga Gaz 21, so the stove had to be thoroughly redone. But the biggest challenge was the manufacture of the gear selector.
The whole difficulty lay in the fact that the car was originally built for sports, it was small and very low, even the engine had to be placed at an inclination of 30 degrees so that the silhouette of the car would not be disturbed. The box was located in the tunnel and had a direct articulated drive.
There was no more than 2 cm of free space between the box and the box itself. I have already said that the car itself was cramped and very noisy, and this problem had to be solved as well. Since the standard engine-gearbox pair was taken, the task became even more difficult, because automatic transmission much larger and has a completely different control principle.
After much torment, a hinge and a linkage system were designed, which made it possible to completely simulate this unit, as you can easily verify by looking at the original.
And the most interesting thing: if you carefully study the photos, you will see that the seats are much lower than the original, this is also a trick. The fact is that the car was so cramped that a person with a height of 180 cm rested his head against the roof and was forced to sit hunched over at the steering wheel, but I like to ride with straight arms, so I had to change the angle of the steering column in order to ensure comfort and not violate general form... How this was achieved is a whole novel, from the manufacture of the unique sled to the reworking of the floor and seats.
I'm not the first to choose to recreate legendary car... Back in the late 70s, similar attempts were made in America, the farthest advanced was Tony Ostermaer, a former mechanical engineer from Gardena. He managed to build about 15 cars in 10 years using units from Mercedes of those years. Today these cars are rarities themselves.
I saw them, of course, these are far from such high-quality products as we would like, but this is the best thing that has been done. In the 90s there were attempts American company"Speedster" using Tony's matrix to implant it on the nodes of "Chevrolet Corvette C03". Only 2 cars were manufactured. One of them is now in Ukraine, and the other is in Moscow. The cars were sold for $ 150,000.
Actually, that's all. True, there were attempts to put the shell on the SL and there were many more loud statements, but all this is nothing, people were running ahead of the locomotive, as with our ё-mobile: there is nothing yet, but already 40 thousand applications have been submitted.
By the way, working with a composite is very difficult. Only its high-quality painting costs about 10 thousand euros. And most importantly: FORGING AND COPYING ARE TWO BIG DIFFERENCES.
They say that everything in the car should be fine, both the engine and the trunk. On the first car, they decided to use gas shock absorbers to open and fix the trunk lid.
We have slightly altered the filler neck, reasonably considering that if it will fit tightly to the trunk lid. This will reduce the risk of spreading the smell of gasoline inside the cabin in the event of a spill.
I didn't like the idea. On this machine, they made it closer to the original, changing only the shape of the filler neck (a steel funnel around the lid should prevent fuel from spilling onto the carpet).
Of course, the collective farm was not without: they built a leather condom around the filler neck. It seems to look nice, and they abandoned the shock absorbers, putting the native mechanism (stick) for fixing the trunk lid. You could, of course, get confused with the springs, as in modern cars, but I think it will kill the very spirit of the machine. The trunk looks very nice when open.
And from the back everything looks very cool. Considering that today everyone uses tubeless tires, we decided to free up space by placing a stowaway in the trunk instead of a regular wheel. Now at least the string bag is where to throw.
Actually, the matter is inexorably moving towards its logical conclusion. Of course, it's nice that everything ends so quickly, all that remains is to smear it with a little roll and stick on the wheels.
The wheels are temporary, so as not to guess the original.
That's basically it!
Let's go around the car.
I can only add one thing: before you start doing something, think carefully about whether you have enough strength to complete what you started.
After arriving in Russia.
Video from the inside of the recreated car.
In this video you can see how the Germans are restoring the hero of the reportage, the very "gullwing".
