Friday, November 25, 2016

Mercedes/Kurtis/Epperly/Watson

Photo From Here

So if I was going to build my masterpiece, how about a Mercedes-Benz W196? This one is ex-Fangio and is worth about $30 million. Even a simplified version of this thing (straight ahead hot rod chassis or modified sprint car) would still be a stretch of my abilities but I think I could pull it off with some more practice on my sheet metal work. 

Photo From Here
This too is Fangio. It's an Offy powered Kurtis that Fangio took his rookie test in for the '58 race but decided against actually racing it. 

Photo From Here

This is a Quinn Epperly chassis. The link has several construction photos of the car while it was being put together. I believe this is a "laydown" chassis where the Offy was tilted over on it's side some to lower the profile of the car. If I was actually going to build something like this, starting with a sprint car or champ car chassis would probably be the easiest way. Stretching the frame would be a lot easier than trying to locate all of the mounting points for the suspension, engine mounts, etc. 

Photo From Here

This is a Watson car of the same era. This frame doesn't look like it would be all that tricky to build if you knew where everything was supposed to go. A guy would definitely need to make some type of fixture to hold everything square and in alignment, however.

Photo From Here

But if you did, you could end up with something that looked like this. If it's good enough for Parnelli, definitely good enough for me.

I'll keep floating ideas around in my head. Maybe start sketching something up someday. Meanwhile, I'll get back to work on a few of the things I've got going already.



4 comments:

cuzzin ricky said...

just make sure there's enough room for a fat guy to go to breakfast!

cuzzin ricky said...

just make sure there's enough room for a fat guy to go to breakfast!

cuzzin ricky said...

just make sure there's enough room for a fat guy to go to breakfast!

Shop Teacher Bob said...

Must be important if you said it three times.