Wooden car body questions

[jayd]

Hey Guys,
I'm designing a 1930's style Grand Prix car with a body that's aluminum up front and planked wood in the rear. The body will use a blend of aircraft and boat hull construction. I plan to use double plank construction but not sure of the best choices for wood, adhesive and finish. My only experience with wooden boat construction were models of a 1930's Chriscraft and a 3 mast schooner I built a few years ago.

Hispano Suiza built a Tulip wood car in 1924 the H6C Torpedo, the wood section of my design will have a similar shape as the H6C.

There's no way to keep the frame and body from flexing so I need to be sure the body is as strong as possible. There will be a light weight steel tubing frame that forms the basic body shape with wooden bulkheads that the planks will be attached to. I would like to use marine grade plywood for the bulkheads and 1/4" Birch plywood for the inner planks.

Here's some questions I have:

What type of wood should be used for the exterior planks?
I'm more concerned about structural integrity than looks.

How thick should the exterior planks be?

What type of adhesive should be used?

Should it be covered with glass, if so do you use standard glass resin?

What should the final finish be?


Any input will be appreciated.

[Glen Smith]

Have you seen the works of this gentleman?
http://www.liviodemarchi.com/

[Rick in Pender Harbour]

Talk to Rod Tait, of Orca Boats, I remember that he was involved in the construction of a lovely cedar strip car body a few years ago. As I remember it , it was yellow cedar with a stripe of red, very elegant, and
boat-tailed.

rgds

Rick

[Glen Smith]

I had forgotten about that. Here is a link to some photos of it: http://www.orcaboats.ca/photopost/showp ... mit=recent

[Rod Tait]

I did indeed assist with the building of a car body. It was all strip planked in yellow cedar with 6 oz. glass inside and out. It was built in my shop but was designed completely by John Black of LaConner, Washington. I was just the technical support as he had never built anything with strips or fiber glassed. It had ply firewall, backrest wall and floorboards coated in epoxy.