What I had in mind was a headlight assembly that would fit into the opening that we have to work with. We have found a light I like & we've already fitted one into the car. With the move into the new building going on, we haven't had time to work on the car for a full 3 weeks. In fact the car is sitting back in a corner of the new place right now. I'll take a picture of the light we are using when we get back on it next week. We had hoped to have the Roadster as a "roller" at Carlisle but that's just not going to happen. It will be tough to have it ready for the Dells.I don't think you guys really realize what all has to go into designing & making a Lexan cover for a headlight idea. Our GT40 replica didn't have any headlight or parking light covers & we had to design & make the tooling & we had to find a actually make the parts. You can't just melt a pc. of Lexan over the opening & expect it to come out ok.
Here are what the lenses look like on the GT40, then I'll tell you what all it took to make them........
Yes, the headlight & park light "Pockets" were already in our molds when they came off of the original car. We had to make an extra front clip, then fill in the headlight & parking light pockets to bring the surface up to be flush, smooth & flow well with the surrounding areas of the body surface. That area had to be smooth & finished up perfect, then we took a temporary mold off of the surface. We then had to take 2 parts out of that mold. Because of the curve of the front of the headlight cover, we had to have a "Female" mold. 1 of the pcs. from the temp mold was used to make the mold surface & the other one was trimmed to fit the opening in another front clip we had in stock. The that pc. was used as a template to put the "Trim Lines" into the mold, so the parts from the mold would be trimmed & would fit correctly everytime. In addition, a "Ledge" to set the finished lens into, had to be build all the way around each of the light pockets. It has to be just the right depth, so the finished lens & the glue that glues it in has the same thickness as the ledge, so it fits flush.
To top it off, we had to do this for all 4 openings. We also had to do the same thing for the GT40 side windows but they already had the "Ledges" ready to go.
How does all this effect the lights for the Finale front clip? Once you've designed the lens shape, then you have to make a new mold of the front clip with the "ledge" built into it. You have to find a vacuum form shop to make the parts. You have to consider if the lens is going to be glued in, how do you service the area under the lens if it has to be cleaned etc., How do you aim the headlights?, How do you mount the headlights?
There are a lot of things to be considered, a lot of money to be spent on developement, tooling & production & you won't know if anyone likes it until you're done.
Just a thought, it's very cool that some people are so good at putting forward designs in Photoshop. And a lot of people have some very good ideas but are no good at Photoshop. But the proof of the pudding is when someone comes along and puts the money & time into actually building something. a good Photoshop guy can put forward 100 design ideas in the time it take one actual builder to even get a good start on building a car.
Archie
