Trakon's new C28 to be at SEMA.
 

I posted this at PT.com, thought I'd share it over here in case anyone didn't see it. Matt King in Hot Rod is reporting in October's issue about a company in Sterling Heights, Michigan called 'Trakon' that is going to be building '68 Camaros mated to C5 suspensions with exterior ground effects and powered by a GMPP 572. They hope to have a prototype ready for SEMA this year. Keep an eye out for this one. If you haven't received the lasted Hot Rod, pic one up. There's a rendering shown...looks killer.

Here's their website: Trakon

The link to the 'Customs' part of the site doesn't work yet but the other link does.

See....somebody out there loves us '67/'68 owners. :D

Sounds like another rip-off off of 50/50...

*edit* It doesn't make it any less cool I suppose, but it must be a pain for Tyler...

the link does not work for me!

Kris...I doubt that.

The '68 model was probably preferred due to it's open wheel house.

I'm going to try and get a scan of the sketch in here so everyone can see what it looks like. It was designed by Dave Ross at GM. I'm going to go up to Design North to talk to him about it tomorrow. Hopefully he can get me into Trakon for a sneak peek. Or hell...maybe I'll knock on the back door and they'll let me in with my GM identification. They do a lot of prototype work for GM.

Tony,

That's cool. Should be better than the 50/50-style 69 that Hot Rod magazine did last year...

Actually, it looks a bit like some of your renderings of "future" F-bodys.

car
 

I saw the pics...I was hoping to be the first out with a C6 wheel, but I can't seem to get my car finished. Oh, and I have a c5 front suspension as well.

You have to move a lightning speed anymore in this hobby to try and come out, or up for that matter, with something a little different.

Ed and the boys over a 21st Century has the C5 rear in a 69 right now...looks like they might get beat to the punch as well.

With all of that being said, I can't wait to see their finished car. The picture looked pretty slick.

Tony, I saw the article and have the same hopes that it is at SEMA.
W.

Oh man. I might as well put 50/50 on the shelf for good. I've been into this damn car for 6 years, and was praying to be the first 68 with full C5 drivetrain and a body kit, but it's all slipping away from me now. I do have to say, that the rendering of the car reminds me of a mustang on the front end.
Will you guys still remember that I did the C5 drivetrain 'way back when' after it becomes standard issue?
I'll keep my eye out for it @ the show this year. We've been too busy making KICK ASS new pro-touring parts to even finish 50/50, but when you guys drop by the ATS booth, you'll understand.
Tyler

I think it's gonna be a killer car. I think the C6 side styling on the 1st gen Camaro will look really good. I like how the lower part of the front leads back into the lower shape of the side scoops.
Hmmmm...a chrome rear bumper - body color front bumper? Other than the front bumper i like the overall look. I think it will be pretty wicked.
It's actually nice to see somebody else doing something with the exterior styling on these PT cars.

John

Tyler...if you do that, then we might as well all throw in the towel. Don't let this get you discouraged, your car is still going to be killer when it's finished. Trakon does a lot of prototype work for GM so they have a ton of cash and resources, It's easy for them. What will make your car unique is that it was done by a young guy with a small upstart company who handled all the design, engineering, and fabrication work himself while at the same time developing and testing performance parts for his company on the side. That speaks volumes. If I'm a magazine editor, I'm MUCH more intrigued by your story then yet another comglomerate trying to capitalize on the street machine market (i.e, Unique Performance, Baldwin Motion).

C'mon, who doesn't love a good dog fight. I say, "Bring it on". :thumbsup:

Tyler,
Build your car. Who gives a rip who has done what and when? 50/50 is your vision, you had it years ago. Dosen't matter if it takes you 6mos or 6 more years to make it happen. When done it will still be your car, that you built, the way you wanted it.

If someone dosen't like it, then screw 'em, they don't get to ride in it.

As for the business implications of the whole deal...ok, you weren't first. So what? You still have the opportunity to be better.

I know the feeling Tyler. hang in there man.

At least you are involved and known in the industry. I would surrender ole Lefty to be in the industry. I'm just a money broker that loves cars. You guys on the cutting edge, making up new innovative stuff (a lot of you on this site whom I consider the best friends I've never met), you guys are the stuff.

To those of you that Rock...I salute you. :hail:

Tyler,

That is exactly how I felt when I saw the Year One Innov8ter car in the magazines....I started mine first, but Kevin King could afford to have all the kings men working on that one, and finished it in less than a third of the time it took me...and while it does have far more technology in it than mine ever will, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference, people still appreciate a nice car, whether a company builds it, or an individual, and I got a large magazine feature as well....your car will be appreciated...believe me. :yes:

I still cant find any pictures of this look alike. Does someone have a picture?


Tyler...keep it up man, it will still be amazing in our minds.

Tim

*enter* Rob Schnieder from 'The Water Boy'....

"Yewww can doooo it!!!"

same here, I'm not doing something right i guess :_paranoid

trakon camaro
 

I would not expect to see that car at sema this year, I saw it today and it is not much further than the hot rod photo.

dont sweat it tyler we all know what you have done for pro touring.

barry

Where's the pic of it on the site?

I guess it's a secret.

I look at that site everyday when i get to work and during my lunch and nada :_paranoid

Scott,

I spoke with Harvey at Trakon, he e-mail some pics of the C/28 along with another completed project. He said it would be ok to have you post them. I will forward the pics to you. Harvey seems like a really nice guy. Perhaps you can send him an e-mail about adding project C/28 to the project section.

Thanks Al! I'll drop Harvey an e-mail.

Here are the pics that Al sent:

Tyler, We all can't wait to see your car on the road. I'm sure lots of people had the idea to do it, but only a few brave souls like you get the credit for actually trying it. Just because their car may hit the road first, you still get credit in my book! (Also there may be some neat things to learn by watching their experience with doing it!) :thumbsup:

usually i wouldnt say anything negative about how somebody does something... but i gotta say the way they tied the factory subframe to the new suspension is damn near the ugliest thing i have ever seen. its the little things like that... that kill a car in my book. i think it was troy who said... the quality of the finished product should be seen in every detail and stage of the build... when you look at tylers car.... you can tell the quality is way nicer than this car. so even if this car hits the streets first...just remember who initially came up with the idea...and who is doin a better job of pulling it off.

What are they doing with the doors Looks like they are making new bodylines near the bottom?

Yeah...... reminds me of G/28.

What's the deal with G/28? I hear you mentioning it from time to time. Did PHR steal the name or was it just a coincidence?

Kris

They must have stolen it. The name is such a stroke of creative genius that no two minds could have possibly fathomed its brilliance.

Let's see: GEE rhymes with ZEE, so instead of Z/28: G/28?

See? There's no chance whatsoever for coincidence. Now what else rhymes with Z? Ummmm......... C? Yeah, C/28!

Wow! Shinoda would be blown away by the boundless creativity. :hail:

I will be very intersted in the finished project. There are so many issues and potential sacrifices that must be accepted to do the C5 install, I will be very curious to see how they deal issues. It looks like they raised the suspension in the front, to lower the body. Which means they would have to do the same thing in the rear. Which makes the torque tbe very high in the body making for a very tall hump. I wonder if they strteched the torque tube, or set the motor under the dash. It appears they are using the original Corvette front k member which requires the engine to sit behind the wheels, which put's the engine under the dash, which creates it's own issues and sacrifices. I spent a lot of time thinking about a C5 install, it was the original plan for Prodigy. I'll be curious to see how someone with their skills and engineering abilities deals with things.

If anyone gets anymore pictures I would love to see them. This is probably the car I am most interested in seeing at SEMA

I think what irks me the most (and this is in no way directed at you, Tyler), but it seems like all of the late-comers to the market feel like they need to use Corvette parts to make a superior car. It is actually a bit humorous, and in my not-so-humble-opinion, really shows the lack of creativity, or more importantly, the lack of engineering prowess by these folks. While it is true that the Corvette is a very well engineered piece, and one can't argue too much with the nice weight distribution, there are still lots of compromises to the setup. Think about it, it is "still" an American built car, and the last time I looked, with the possible exception of the new Ford GT, and the yet to be released Z06, the big three have never built a full on no-compromise car. Certainly not one in volume. To make things even worse, I have yet to see one of the 'vette derived setups done "right," though the 21st Century setup seems to be a lot closer than the others.

I suppose it is tough to argue with the marketing appeal of such a deal though, most folks assume that if there are Corvette parts on the car, well, it'll handle just like a Corvette. The only way that the performance questions will be answered is with a head to head competition, I'd guess that most of these folks would not stick their necks out in such a venue.

Tyler, you guys are on the right path, don't change a thing. There is always going to be someone that will rip off your ideas, not a whole lot you can do about that. I'd suggest that you build YOUR car, and enjoy it as such, as you guys can fit it in. It will be a real treasure when it is done, and it will still be the "first" of the breed.

Mark

What would such a head to head competition entail? We could be interested in trying out luck. I think it would be cool to get some different designs together. And if we got our ass kicked, at least when the dust settled we would all know what works.

We are no rocket scientist on suspension. We just went with some simple logic. Make it very rigid so the suspension can work, get the center of gravity very low, put on a LOT of tire with proper front to rear stager with good aspect ratios, use light weight unsprung components and make the car light with good weight balance.

I see tyler with his 50/50 doing that!!!!! He seems like the only guy being down for testing his car to the fullest. I hope he can get his car done next year :thumbsup:

Thank you guys for the support and encouraging words. We are trying to do the no-comprimise effort on doing the C5 chassis with 50/50. We did all the items Frank thought about, like the 6-1/2" engine setback into the firewall, making the pedal assembly an interesting problem, the use of full fabricated perimeter frame that makes use of the F/R aluminum cradles so we wouldn't change the susension geometry at all, you know, stuff like that. Last few issues to resolve are to widen the rear 1/4 panels, and re-work the innder frame rails.
The way I see 50/50 emerging is- late to the party, but still years ahead in terms of build quality and creativity. We have to test my car out on the track, it was meant to drive the twisted roads of Laguna Seca, and tear up the Pony Express.
I hope to have some updates of us moving along with the car after SEMA.
Tyler

I spoke with the builder "Harvey" at Trokan, seems like a really nice guy. He was kind enough to e-mail me the pics which I forwarded to Scott. If you look at the latest issue of Hotrod, There's a rendering of the finish project. I think the concept is that of taking allot of the styling cues from the new C6 and incorporating them to the project, C6 door handles, front fascia, the concave side section witch is what your seeing on the bottom half of the doors, etc.
Frank, the car wont be completed for this year SEMA. Harvey will bring some other cool projects. I think Prodigy is going to be one of the cars to look for this year!
Tyler if you car gets complete by next year, you might still be the first to complete a C5 Camaro. Either way, it's still an awesome car!
One last thing, This is one of the friendliest environments that I have found on the internet. For that I congratulate you guys. I invited Harvey to join this site and bring some of his expertise to the mix.
I hope this last comment is taken in the light that it is meant. Not for anybody to take offense but, as a suggestion. Ask yourself if you were him and read some of the comment posted, would you want to join? I think that one of Scott objectives is to grow this site. It makes it tougher when..... Remember that no status was ever erected for a critic, "Here, children is a guy who found something wrong with everything". People have different themes and goals with there projects. Not for us to..... :)

The Hot Rod feature said it was being built to be there. Well it is disappointing it will not be there.

Frank, it's a great question, and one that I have been thinking about for a while. There are some pretty good first attmepts out there, some of the shoot outs that some mag's did in the past were pretty good. I think the issue is that the variety, and specific "influence" or intended use of all of the projects would make it difficult to level the playing field?

While our primary goal is to build the best performing cars on road courses, we also recognize that civility is important for the majority of customers, well, at least "moderate civility." As such, there'd probably have to be some form of subjective, "ease of driving," or something of note like that. I don't follow closely, but some of the drag events that feature max effort street cars require a 25 mile cruise, something like that would be good to incoporate.

From a performance standpoint, well, I think you'd have to have all of the usual suspects (1/4 mile, slalom, 60-0 braking, max steady state G's), but it would also be important to include a road course, or at least, cone course that ties all of the performance elements together. Scoring would be interesting too, how do you scale such an event? Normalizing points to the top performer of each event is one way, but this would not work well with a "long" event such as a road course (what I mean, is if one guy pulls a 10 second pass in the quarter, you could figure pretty closely how to scale the others, but on a 2 minute lap, a few seconds is a HUGE advantage but doesn't show up as proportionally significant). It is not obvious how to pull all of this together, and invariably, there would be differences in the cars that would sway the results (and form excuses...). Maybe a new thread to gain people's ideas on how to do this?

Depending upon how things go, we are strongly considering taking one or two cars to the Open Track Challenge, it seems to be about the best yardstick for the types of cars my outfit is intent on building, although they did not run it last year due to lack of participation.

I can assure you, he is not the only guy interested in doing this.

Sorry for the highjack, and I too hope the gentleman building the car will join the forum to add his insight.
Mark

So RSE basically? If we really want it to be on the cars suspension and handling merits, it seems it would require a hired gun pro driver to level the field, otherwise, drivers could play into the results big time. I do not know if the open coarse or 1/4 mile would be a fair as HP could vary those numbers. Now on a tight cone coarse, HP would not be as significant a factor.
I will talk to Steve. I bet Johnny would be all over it if we could get all the players / deisgners / builders that offer retro fit sub frames and suspensions to participate. Wayne Due, DSE, Martz, Fatmans, 21st Century, Lateral performance (you guys), and builders like Prodigy Customs, ATS and others.

Off Track
 

I know we are heading in a different direction now than what was orginally posted so before I get off track as well I would like to say/write that my orginal statement holds true in that you have to move pretty fast to be the first or the freshest. But, it does not take anything away in my opinion for the cars the come later.

I an not sure I would throw too many stones at other's designs. When you go the build the first of anything or trying to break new ground and someone steps in from the sidelines and states...I would not do it like that. Unless you have done it, made it work, I would not be so quick to judge. Building these cars or any cars, there are plenty of obstacles. Ask Tyler, If I remember he was or still is having a hell of a time running an exhaust on that car. I applaude anyone that tries and build a car better than it was. I don't care if they are bolting on a set of DSE uppers or putting a C5 running gear in any car. Obviously, the tricky stuff is more interesting.

As far as the competition goes....I am in. I am running the 21st subframe