Yes you read it right, and yes this thread probanly should be in the mad house section!
Basically I want to build a batmobile similar to the one in the 89 Keaton movie, but no where near as big!
But...
I dont want to/cant build a car from scratch.
Instead I want to use either a finished/almost finished (road worthy) kit car, a mazda mx5 (mk 1 or 2) or a bmw z3 as a base for it.
I preferably wanna use an mx5 as they are cheap as chips! so lets base this on that, this is my plan:
- Get mx5
- make arches/wheel wells bigger to accomodate tyres on the fron of 28" diameter and 32" diameter on the rear (yes they are big)
- remove windsceen and frame
- build batmobile body AROUND existing one
- new headlights, tail lights, mirrors
- reloacte fuel cap
- windscreen is now a sliding canopy with perspex window
- custom wipers
here is an image to help illustarte my plan:
Possible problems I could face
- wheels wont fit without tampering with structural stuff
- engine/tranmission wont like bigger wheels...
- the dreaded legal tests O_O
Your thoughts
p.s.
no im not trolling
no im not 12 years old
yes i am serious!
I have to say that the Keaton bat mobile is my favourite of all the movie cars. But if you try to build one from a mx5 it just won't look right.
The wheel base is just to short by about ten foot. You'll end up spending hours of your time building something that looks a bit like a
squashed batmobile that people will laugh at. You should do it right or not at all. Just my 2p worth of course. Sometimes full size body kits do
come up on eBay.
I can't see there being much of a problem with using the original suspension, but I can see that you'd have to reposition it and a large
headache to go with it
Move in or out to account for bigger wheels, please elaborate
The reason i picked these donor cars is: they are relitivly cheap, the proportions (not dimensions) are correct. By that i mean i can have the
windscreen positioned at the centre of the wheelbase.
With standard cars the driving position is too close to the front wheels to get the desired look.
I don't really have anything to elaborate on, I just thought there might be a proportion issue, maybe something like the suspension's
designed for 16 inch wheels and putting 32's on will mess up the proportion. Really it's just something pulled out of my backside, a gut
feeling, nothing more
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Building: Stuart Taylor ST1100 V4 BEC (built)
posted on 11/3/13 at 11:02 AM
The good thing with your plan is that the chassis / drivetrain etc is maintained so it's really just adding the bodywork- a bit like those fugly
AudiTT replicas based on a Metro a few years back that didn't need SVAing as a result. Not sure whether this has changed though with the switch
to IVA.
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Building: Book (Ron's) 1300 X-flow Locost 7
posted on 11/3/13 at 02:44 PM
quote:Originally posted by morcus
As others have said, would you not be better starting with a bigger car? What you really want is Le Baron or something simillar.
Original Barris car was waaay better and the bit that those young Batmobile 'experts' forgot to mention, was that the '66 Barris car
also had a 750bhp Turboniques gas turbine driving into the back of the diff, as well as the fuel injected mill diving in from the front. That car
moved back in the day!
Apoarently there are two type of test, one for new cars, and one for already registered but now modified cars, and from what ive read the latter is a
lot more strict. Anyone know more?
Ive looked at various donor cars, and have been advised to use one with a seperate body and chassis.
Problem is the driving position need to be just in front of the rear wheels...
So, say i got a car that fits the bill, how (lets say a kit car) how hard a job would it be to extend the chassis si that the front wheels are two
foot further forward?
Some other points of concern:
- i want it to look similar to the 89 batmobile, the headlights are very low down... Problem?
- windscreen needs to be glass... Er yeah, where would i even start...
As for the 89 vs 66 thing, i think its just down to personal taste, the 66 is much more practical as a car, and as is would probably win a race. But,
the 89 just looks so badass, and with such a long hood a complete nutter could install two v8s giving it masses ammounts of power.
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Building: racing style pick-up with Vauxhall 2.0 'tec
posted on 11/3/13 at 04:48 PM
Regarding the mention above about changing suspension points, if your doubling the diameter of the wheel, to make it easy for my maths, say from a
15" wheel to a 30" the centre of the wheel will be 7.5" higher than before, and so your ride height will go up by the same.
You'd struggle to lower the car that much on the standard suspension, so your mountings will need to move up instead. Thats just the start of
it... diff and the rest of the rear axle would change too.
Car just getting a new body on it doesnt need an iva test, so if you took an mx5, all standard and dropped a new body on, thats fine
Any car, kit or standard, that has its chassis modified, either by lengthening a kit car, or cutting the tunnel out of a production car to change from
fwd to rwd for example, or lengthening, or moving suspension points, needs to go through iva
You need to go through iva then, you'd be as well building a complete new custom chassis for it, with all the seating, suspension etc all in
the right place from the start. Get an mx5 for the running gear, engine, gearbox, rear axle, cooling system, electrics, steering and front uprights
and brakes, use it as a donor. You could use most of it to get going.
Photo Archive
Building: racing style pick-up with Vauxhall 2.0 'tec
posted on 11/3/13 at 09:17 PM
Well, in theory, no you wouldnt need a test for, lets just call it a change of wheels, and the rest
But in practice, you'd need to cut away a lot of body and chassis to get wheels that size to fit, and even more to get the front wheels to
steer.
Don't know mx5s very well, but I suspect 17" wheels will be about the biggest you'll get without cutting anything away.
Clairetoo is the mx5 mentalist on here, have a look at her V6 mod she did
