Buehrig replica

pprather

pprather

Member
I took these photos yesterday. Pardon the lighting, hard to get good photos this time of year with the sun so low in the sky.

Great little car. What can you share about this vehicle, or the original that was built in 1930?



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Found this site: Model A

But so far no pics of the original...
The replica body is great, but the top still needs some work on bow arrangement and padding. It must be very difficult to design a complex folding top that has to flow with the lines of the car. Even the rather simple top on my '32 is pretty complicated, and it is really a separate piece from the general shape of the car. On the Buehrig one shown, it needs to be fully defined as a continuation of the lines, and I cannot even imagine that process.
 
LOOKS like a 400A with a bad hair day.:eek:. Think this car or something like it was at the MARC Meet at French Lick? inside lobby.:confused:
 
Yes saw it at the Vancover meet, Dash looks like its from a 747. A credit to the builder must have been a huge job but not for me, Derek weather getting warmer in NZ.
 
As far as replicas or clones go that has to give a total new meaning to "That Sucks". Who was the top installer, hope he sticks to doing boats and camping tents. Barney Frank would love the color I'm sure.
 
Re: don't worry, help is on the way.

one of our fellow club members in N. Florida is building another of these which looks considerably more accurate than this salmon-colored one many of us saw at French Lick. he keeps getting distracted by other things but is making progress. paint is finished & he's working on top bows now. have not seen it lately so I'm not sure if interior is done or not.
 
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I'd say high grades om metalwork, back to the drawing board on the top. That will require a LOT of work and thinking, especially if it is kept functional/folding, and I certainly have no idea how one would engineer that! Perhaps a logical starting point would be to scrutinize some of the huge classics out there with that sort of body.
It's a shame the top was fully finished--it's a discard for sure.
I once saw a Nash, details unknown, with a body like that...it was in a famous huge junkyard full of antique cars in Rhode Island, in the 1960's. Even as a rusted hulk it was a memorable car, still stuck in my mind.
 
Bruce Lancaster said:
I'd say high grades om metalwork, back to the drawing board on the top. That will require a LOT of work and thinking, especially if it is kept functional/folding, and I certainly have no idea how one would engineer that!
Click to expand...

Solidworks and a good general understanding of how most folding tops work. I'd bet a good Solidworks guy could have the basic setup figured out in less than a day.


Deron
 
The top appears to be fairly faithful to the original, pictured in the link in post #3. It is also similar to the Dusenburgs of the era, pictured in the book in one of the earlier posts.

The top, however, does not look like today's hot rod tops, which is what most of us are most familiar with, where the portion behind the door would be more level from front to rear.
 
If you look at the two B&W photos of the original car, in replies 3 & 5, the original top looked a little "strange" in terms of the roofline contour ( the uppermost surface).

What's most disturbing on the orange replica is where the top meets the body beltline. That needs to get tweaked.

Also the rear panel of the top should slant slightly front-wards ?

Intersting effort though... notice the WWW tires on the original...;)

Update:



Well, I took another look at the photo of the original car ( scanned from a magazine?), and it appears the replica might be more faithful to the original than I first thought... the top / beltline meeting is "odd" on the original too, and the rear panel is indeed vertical... hard to tell against that light colored background...
 
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The design in the sketch is quite nice; I like the slant-back trunk...

The beltline / top junction is "right" in Buerhig's sketch; doesn't look like they got it "right" on the original car either...

The Landau irons do help to break-up that blank expanse of quarter-section on the side of the top...

Thanks for posting the sketch !

SC Frank
 
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That is fascinating...perfect roof lines on the drawing, same failures (though perhaps a bit milder) on the actual car.
OK--we need a serious top engineer here!
 
Bruce, You're the guy with the library, you must have some German Ford bodywork photos of this style, I've seen it on a lot of V8 Fiords from the 1930's. The German tops look like they fit nicely, but I'm guessing they look like a baby carriage when folded down. If this is the original, when was the photo taken. The tires look like something out of the 1960's.
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I've seen German custom bodies similar to that, a variety of big American Classics, and that poor dead Nash in a junkyard...the close-coupled body can be very attractive for sure.
Folded, those tops look like an Okie mattress heading for California...
I think even the original needs a bit more definition of its lines at the back of the roof, and clearly the lower edge needed a repair for certain and perhaps a little redesign...that lower edge is crying out to be made straight and parallel to the body lines, and the upper works need to be straightened or plumped a bit as well.
I think the repro one is on its way to being a beautiful car...I hope the owner bites the bullet and comes up with the $$ and design work to perfect the top!
 
Part of what some of you may be reacting to, besides the Conestoga wagon top features, is the body tub is somewhere around 2-4" too long compared to the original. This just "helps" to emphasize the boxiness of the rear top sides. Too much loft on the center bow followed by insufficient padding and squareish lines on the rear section just hurt it.

Shame to nitpick a brave endeavor, but when you try to emulate a master you set yourself up for that kind of critique if you don't execute effectively.
 
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