Building a GD427 Cobra Replica

We had a little trip to the UK last weekend. Flew into London Stansted and hurried to the GD factory. Indeed, my chassis was being manufactured at the time. It was almost complete, a couple of brackets were missing and its powder coating. Even without that I was seriously impressed.

Saturday was mostly spent at the Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground where a little circuit was available for the GD car owners to race their cars on and for people like myself to take a ride-along. Lots of goodies, like a very nicely done T70:

The Arial atom exoskeleton cars which the event organiser, Big Thunder was using:

And obviously, quite a few GD427′s

I had a ride along in both a GD427 (thanks Hein!) and Andy drove me around the circuit in their T70 demonstrator:

Sunday, we spent a day in Cambridge. Also nice, but erm.. different

GD is having an Open Day next weekend. As my chassis is probably in the jig right now i thought it would be nice to visit them. Combined with a small trip through the UK, sounds like a nice little holiday.

I hope I can get a look at my chassis there and shoot some pictures of it. Obviously the planned ‘ride-along’ in the GD427 is something i look forward too also.

The Garage is more or less ‘done’, just planning for some racedeck stuff on the floor a bit later

Oh, this is not how it actually looks at the moment (it’s full of stuff again), but for rembering how it looks empty and clean and all…

The chassis has been ordered, that is, Mischa is visiting Gardner Douglas on wednessday an will order on my behalf. We spoke on what type of engine I wanted for the car. (I managed to decide on the cubic inches, but not on carburated or injection yet, although i’m beginning to like the LS1 more and more) Apart from the fact that most decisions on differential, engine, gearbox etc. are all related and you can’t really decide on one at a time, I’m also seeing the whole car as a concept which should be balanced. If I should choose for a classic 350 cui carburated engine, for me that has an effect on how the interior should look too. Likewise, if the choice is for the more modern LS1 or LS6 engine, that should influence the rest of the looks too. So, the two decisions were really just:

1. a GM 5.7 liter v8
2. a limited slip differential of ratio 3.54 or 3.31

Those two are enough to get me working on the donor parts and the rolling chassis. Oh, the outer wall is a bit higher today too…