Agree, it's nice to be a car owner. But it's even more enjoyable to assemble a cool car with your own hands.
Today we will share information about what you need to assemble a cool car in your garage.
Kit Car or "component car" is a set of parts from which the buyer can independently assemble the car or entrust the assembly to a third party. Kits can vary significantly in configuration, ranging from those in which the complete set + instructions and ending with those in which the set of parts is not complete (that is, for example, you will have to order the engine and transmission separately).
When assembling such a car yourself, it will not hurt you:
- spacious garage;
- a complete set of necessary tools;
- good knowledge in auto mechanics;
- a support team in the form of friends who will always help.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the team. For example, the guys from the video below assembled the car in just 7 days!
Kit Cars history
Basic definition Kit car is a car assembled from spare parts for sale. parts from a specific manufacturer. Most manufacturers usually sell a full range of spare parts needed to fully assemble a vehicle. Such kits are usually accompanied by detailed instructions and the model can be assembled in the garage on its own.
Essentially, a Kit Car is just as good as a factory-built car, but by no means can we rule out factors such as efficiency and safety, which are highly dependent on the person doing the assembly.
The first Kit Car was designed by Englishman Thomas Heiler White in 1896. As you can see, this species took a long time to gain popularity.
By the 1950s, Kit Cars had shifted to second gear and production had grown significantly. And in the 1970s, a real Kit Car began in the UK - a revolution associated with the fact that such cars were not considered a vehicle and were not taxed accordingly. Models such as the Lotus Elan appeared on the market, which could be assembled at home without paying purchase tax.
Most modern "build models" are copies of famous cars mid 20th century. With bodies made mostly of fiberglass and polyester panels, these models were lighter and easier to handle than a typical factory car.
What's in the box?
If you think, "Is this crazy?" - then think again!
Every year, thousands of assembly kits are sold around the world. that means when you read this article some guys are sitting in their garage and making their own car after work. Kit Cars are relatively cheap and typically cost less than $ 3000.
Most of the companies selling these sets expect you to come and buy your chosen set on designated days. Depending on the company from which you buy the kit, this interval can vary from 1 to 10 days a year.
Regardless of the model you buy yourself, the basic set will include: chassis, body parts, engine, radiator, transmission, clutch, brakes and shock absorbers. The kit comes with a huge bag of nuts and bolts and other parts depending on the type of vehicle you want to build. If you don't have an assembly guide, it will be quite difficult to figure it out.
On next step the most important thing is to correctly assemble everything, because people will drive in the assembled car and it is important that the car does not fall apart under them and is safe. Most of the kits also include a video tutorial where you can watch someone assemble a car.
If the instructions provided by the manufacturer are not enough for you, you can always consult with other experienced kit cars lovers for specials. forums and resources on the Internet, but it is better to meet them personally (if there are such guys in your city). If you are assembling a car for the first time in your life, then use this option.
Original taken from aslan
How to make a legend car with your own hands.
While looking for material for the community, I stumbled upon a blog in which the author described how he built the car. This was not just some kind of car, but a legendary car with interesting story- 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. Pay particular attention to the gearbox rear axle, usually it is with him that the biggest problems arise, which is why customizers are so fond of non-split bridges. 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 photos and 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 mounted on rubber seals, and since all seals are original and designed for steel, you have 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 counterfeit 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 has already been 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 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, there was a workshop that brought ideas and drawings to life. With complete external authenticity, the doors today open 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 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 a tuning studio, I realized that 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 craftsmen absolutely 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 options appear - "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 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 is a 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 weren't 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 have not seen this yet, a two-tone horn, in short, just look, all this is 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 the electronic units of modern units; shove a bunch into a tight little car additional equipment such as air conditioning, hydraulic booster, brake booster. All this should work from standard toggle switches and switches. Stove dampers used to have mechanical drives, like on the Volga Gaz 21, so the stove had to be thoroughly altered. 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 in size and has a completely different control principle.
After much suffering, a hinge and a linkage system were designed, which made it possible to completely simulate this node, 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 am not the first one who decided to recreate the 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 by the American company Speedster to implant it on the Chevrolet Corvette C03 nodes using Tony's matrix. 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 shells 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 there is a string bag 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".
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Are you planning to surprise others with your car? Unfortunately, it is unlikely that it will be possible to do this as a serial model that came off the assembly line of some factory, but vehicle hand-made will surely attract the attention of the crowd on the street.
A homemade vehicle can evoke two emotions in those around you - a genuine surprise at your skill, or an open smile at the sight of an invention. If you delve into the issue of assembling your own car, then there will be nothing complicated in the process. The main thing is to learn more about the main parts and assemblies of the car, to understand the features and properties of the vehicle.
Homemade cars in history
Mass production homemade cars started back in the Soviet Union. Then only certain models were released on the market, which could not satisfy all the needs of consumers. As a result, self-taught craftsmen appeared who designed their own cars, in accordance with their desires and financial capabilities.
The assembly of a new car was carried out on the basis of failed cars, on average, by one homemade car three non-working ones were required. Craftsmen filmed everything necessary spare parts, and implemented them in new body... By the way, bodywork was popular in the villages, the old body was specially removed from the car and replaced with a more spacious one.
In addition to functional models, vehicles were created that were simply attractive from an aesthetic point of view, which could not be distinguished from well-known sports factory copies. Such cars were full-fledged road users.
It is worth noting that until the 80s there was no ban on the design and use of homemade vehicles. After the ban appeared, the inventors had to get out, many of them registered a completely different vehicle with the traffic police, and then used their invention.
How to build your own car
Before starting the assembly, it is necessary to draw up a plan for future work, in which you need to indicate what the car will be like, what features and characteristics it will have. If the car will be used in the future, it is necessary to purchase high-quality materials and parts, assemble a reliable frame and an impact-resistant body.
Important! Depending on what kind of vehicle you plan to collect, you will need certain materials. Bolts, wheels and scrap metal in this case are unlikely to be enough.
You can learn about the direct assembly process from the training videos, which are enough on the network.
Drawings of the future car
Imagination and imagination will help to think over to the smallest detail in the head the appearance and structure of the future car, however, in order to realize what was conceived in reality, it is necessary to draw up a drawing of the vehicle.
It is better to make two drawings of the car: the first one will show a general view, the second one will show individual units and parts of the vehicle.
Before starting to create a drawing, it is worth preparing a pencil, a ruler, a drawing paper and an eraser. First, sketches are made on the sheet. thin lines, which, if necessary, can be easily erased. After all the details are drawn, and the resulting image is completely satisfactory for you - the drawing is outlined with a thick line.
It is not necessary to draw a drawing on a sheet of paper, modern designers are helped by software, which greatly facilitates the process of creating a drawing.
Assembling the car
In the countries of America and Europe, in the past few years, kit-car kits have become popular, which are a set of various parts that allow you to assemble a car with my own hands... Details are universal, so how it turns out finished car, depends entirely on the imagination of the owner of the set.
Anyone who has a weakness for cars will be delighted with the new " iron horse". But the car will bring him even more pleasant emotions. Most car enthusiasts believe that creating a vehicle on their own is something of a fantasy. However, it is not! We will tell you how to make a car with your own hands in your garage.
Kit-cars
Not so long ago, so-called kit cars appeared on our market, which have long been successful in Europe and America. These are sets of spare parts from which you can assemble a full-fledged car. Today, kit cars are sold that allow you to assemble. Abroad, this is a common phenomenon, so it is not a problem to register the assembled car there. But with us, registering a homemade vehicle can be a difficult task.
If you decide to buy a kit car, you need to take care of the availability of a spacious garage in advance. You will also need a set of tools and an excellent knowledge of auto mechanics. Assistants will not hurt either - working in a team, you can assemble such a car in just one to two weeks.
Typically, Kit Car is sold as complete set spare parts. It comes complete with detailed instructions with which to carry out. As a rule, the instruction is provided in the form of a disc with a video, which shows all the subtleties of the process.
Video about what a kit car is:
A bit of history
The very first Kit Car appeared in 1896. It was invented by Thomas Hyler White - an Englishman by birth. Until the fifties, sets were not very popular, but then their production increased significantly. In the seventies, many car enthusiasts began to buy kit cars, since they were not taxed.
Modern kits that are produced for "home" assembly are copies of the famous ones from the middle of the twentieth century. Their housings are made of polyester or fiberglass. The designs of such cars are much simpler than those of the factory models.
The video shows the history and tests of kit cars:
What's in the Kit Car
Regardless of the car model you choose, the Kit Car will include the following components:
- chassis;
- body parts;
- engine;
- Automatic transmission / manual transmission;
- radiator;
- clutch;
- brakes;
- shock absorbers;
- nuts, bolts and more.
The most important thing is to correctly assemble it so that the machine meets safety standards. When you put it in the traffic police, it will be tested according to various criteria. Therefore, carefully watch the video instructions and, if possible, enlist the support of specialists.
Kit Car Manufacturers
Today in the world market there are a huge number of companies that sell kits of kit cars. The most famous company is the British Westfield, which produces its own interpretations of such legendary models as Lotus 7, Lotus XI, XTR. One more large manufacturer- AK Sports company producing replica Shelby Cobra, GTM.
British firms are leaders in the production of kit cars. Sets for homemade assembly also available in the USA, Australia, France, Brazil, New Zealand and many other countries. To reduce shipping costs for the delivery of the kit, we recommend that you contact a European manufacturer. They usually require an advance payment of fifty percent of the total amount. Then they will begin to manufacture the components you ordered. The process will take about three months. You can purchase an already assembled kit car, but in this case its cost will reach 50-60 thousand dollars, while the set will cost you 25-30 thousand.
Most firms provide the client with the opportunity to choose spare parts for their kit. We advise you to order all parts except steering, brakes, automatic transmission and engine. It is better to remove them in advance from the donor car purchased for this purpose. You can include in your kit, an airbag steering wheel, traction control system etc.
The video shows a kit car assembled in Russia:
If we talk about the maintenance and repair of kit cars, then there should be no difficulties with this, since all parts are taken from ordinary cars. The exceptions are those made of plastic. In case of damage, it is rather difficult to repair them, so you will have to order new part from Europe. If you do not take into account this nuance, kit cars do not require specific maintenance.
This is not just some kind of car, but a legendary car with an interesting history - Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing". Below is a fascinating reading about how they made a copy of the legendary car from scratch, and not just a copy, but a car assembled from original spare parts. 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. Particular attention should be paid to the rear axle gearbox, usually it is with it that the biggest problems arise, which is why customizers love continuous axles so much. On a Mercedes, this unit, together with the drives, is assembled on a stretcher, which greatly simplifies work with it. 
The stainless steel exhaust system complies with the Euro 3 standard, and the fuel tank is a real work of art: so that the fuel does not splash, it has baffles and overflow pipes. 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 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 one 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 photos and 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 mounted on rubber seals, and since all seals are original and designed for steel, you have 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 to be honest, the factories themselves fake 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) is correctly marked in 1955. Everything is original, even the seat rails. 
The body has already been 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. 
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! The dashboard, they were looking for it 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 too. 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 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, there was a workshop that brought ideas and drawings to life. With complete external authenticity, the doors today open 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 "goolving" will have very effective and smoothly opening doors 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 a tuning studio, I realized that 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 craftsmen do not know how to work with felt, wool and other materials that were used at that time at all. 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 foam rubber and felt. In general, we 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. 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: stale, 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 Mercedes there is not enough leather for a jacket, one bullshit, and therefore there are options - "design", "individual", "exclusive". Leading manufacturers will offer you real leather for at least 10-15 thousand dollars, but what they sew for you for 50 thousand rubles, even leather does not dare to name it. 
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 is 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 can only say that the exhaust pipe has been a symbol of progress for the past 150 years. Remember 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 is a very complex system of thick-walled and thin-walled pipes mounted one into the other, this made it possible to solve the problem of "golving" - noise and heating of the cabin with full authenticity of the pipe appearance. 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 they didn't figure out the instructions, it turned out the wrong date. 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. My favorite expression, which I have repeated more than once, is THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS. These are the details that I will show you. It makes no sense to write for a long time, you yourself will understand everything. Braided harnesses and wiring, well, I think you just have not seen this yet, a two-tone horn, in short, just look, all this is 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 the electronic units of 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. Stove dampers used to have mechanical drives, like on the Volga GAZ-21, so the stove had to be thoroughly altered. 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 the automatic gearbox is much larger in size and has a completely different control principle. 
After much suffering, a hinge and a linkage system were designed, which made it possible to completely simulate this node, which is easy to see 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 disturb the general view. How this was achieved is a whole novel, from the manufacture of the unique sled to the reworking of the floor and seats. 
I am not the first one who decided to recreate the 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 not as high-quality products as we would like, but this is the best thing that has been done. In the 90s, there were attempts by the American company Speedster, using the Tony matrix, to implant it on the Chevrolet Corvette C3 nodes. 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 a 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, counterfeiting 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 slightly altered the filler neck, reasonably considering that if it fits tightly to the trunk lid, it will reduce the risk of the smell of gasoline spreading 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 casing 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. It was possible, of course, to get confused with the springs, as on modern cars, but I think this 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 there is a string bag 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 is left to do is to anoint 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! 
