Look what I have done to my little hot rod!
I am winding down my little operation in the community workshop. They're moving to a new building around the end of this year and I am not going with them, as a tenant. I plan to continue teaching classes, but won't be building vehicles there. I am in the process of getting everything in my studio rolling, and selling off everything I don't need for the next stage of my master plan. After a lot of soul-searching and planning, my electric bike came out on top as my "flagship", and all the other bright ideas don't really fit what I see in my future - so they have to go.
While sorting through all that, I was offered this Laser 917 Porsche replica body - free - and eventually decided to jump on it. What I am building now is basically a glorified tow vehicle for my bike. Same
guts, different wrapper.
The, revised, plan is to get it together and drive the snot out if it. The hot rod didn't make sense for transporting the bike because it was almost an open car, meaning only fair weather. When I get this thing sealed up, and set up with Vintage Air, it's ready to go anywhere, any time. We're still going turbo, but not reaching for 700+hp, and not a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio. 400+ is easily obtainable - my engine guy does that in his daily driver Civic, with the
weak Honda motor, so it will still be fun; and I still plan to do the hybrid electric front drive - it's all set up for that - but with two smaller motors in place of the big forklift motor.
Why go to all this trouble, instead of just buying a truck or van? I already have the chassis, couldn't resist the deal on the body, and it's more fun.
Imagine 400-500hp (combined), in a <2000lb vehicle, that gets 40+mpg, and looks like the Batmobile!
As for the new build plan: the Laser body fits surprisingly well on the mid-engine T chassis. The seating position is pretty much perfect, and the shifter even falls right into place behind the center stack of the dash. It's almost like I planned this, from the beginning. The narrow rear tires are also surprisingly close to the sides of the wide body. I thought I was going to need really deep dish rims and 295-345mm tires to fill it. I am going to build longer front control arms to get the front tires out where they belong, and eventually get a little lip and more rubber in back. The emphasis is just on making it run, and improving it over time, and driving it more, and more, and more. The over-the-top details are out (happening on the bike now), and I will strive for things like comfort more. For example, instead of absolute/massive power, I'd rather spend the money on a Recovery Room interior...
I hope to have the control arms sorted out and the vehicle rolling and steering in a couple months or so, then it's simply a matter of getting everything hooked back up to fire the motor.