Sounds essentially like a good idea - if you can find enough customers!
When Daffy failed her MOT (annual roadworthiness test) last year with more
rust than I could cope with, I thought long and hard about replacing the
body with a Hurricane tub - after all the chassis and mechanics were good,
it was only the body that was not. Two things stopped me - while I didn't
believe that the #3000 price for the body was unreasonable, I just didn't
have that amount of money available to spend on my car. Secondly, the most
recent (as far as I am aware) company to make the Hurricane body,
http://www.caburn.demon.co.uk/Contents/CaburnEngineering/Hurricane/, didn't
respond to my (one) e-mail, suggesting that they may not be around any more.
Daffy was eventually sold as a parts car :-(
If Hurricanes are not being built any more (and I could well be wrong about
that), it may not be a good sign for the success of your venture...
There is one other company doing something similar that I heard of recently:
www.triumphspitfiret6.com. They are producing a tub in fibreglass, with
steel reinforced sills and cross-members, that (pretty much) represents the
Le Mans Spitfires, for #3850. This looks like quite a recent venture, so
what their long-term success will be only time will tell.
Interesting that both these ventures went along the route of creating
something with styling that was a bit different, rather than a
straightforward replica. Of course for you to do that would involve a lot
more work! Whether customers would prefer a straight replica or something a
bit different you can only guess. I love the basic Spitfire styling, but
I'm not married to it, and I do like the tail of the Hurricane, and the side
bonnet vents (but I'm less convinced by the nose, which looks a bit too long
and heavy to me). Of course, if you went down the straight replica route,
it may be possible to produce slight variations (eg flared wheel arches to
accommodate wider tyres) without too much effort. You could also be in the
business of selling individual parts (bonnet, boot lid) as well as whole
bodies.
One issue might be the windscreen. I have no idea whether the existing
windscreen seal would work as well on a fibreglass windscreen surround, or
whether the reduced strength would be a problem. Could the hood fixings be
made to attach to a fibreglass screen surround? What about the additional
load imposed by the hard-top? The Hurricane bypassed this issue by re-using
the complete windscreen frame from the round-tail Spit, which of course
unbolts easily from the body, rather than being welded in as the Spit frame
is.
Another issue is the radius arms. Would a fibreglass body be strong enough
to take the loads that these put into the body? The Spitfire T6 guys solve
this by adding steel re-enforcement at that point.
Well, I'm sure there will be many more such issues to address! Keep us
posted on your progress, and if I still had Daffy's remains (and you were
this side of The Pond), I would be thinking pretty hard about placing an
order (at least until I looked at my bank statement again!).
Richard
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