Well it never lived the first time, but what I mean is that I have a new plan for my ill-fated EV conversion project. For those of you just tuning in (where have you been?) I was building a 1955 Ford F1 pickup into a battery-electric vehicle. When I was laid off from my day job, I halted the project, since I did not know how far from home my next day job would be. I wanted to use this vehicle for commuting, and BEV’s are notoriously limited in range.
I basically had abandoned the project and sold off the F100 to recoup my investment. I still have the S-10 chassis, which I diligently POR-15’d, and I have a load of other S-10 parts to outfit the eventual vehicle. This got me to thinking: What was some other way I could make my EV? What would be simple, cheap, eye-catching, retro, and different? I am now going to go…dune buggy!
The original dune buggies were fiberglass tub-bodies put onto modified VW chassis. This was a very popular kit car conversion in the mid-60’s; cheap, easy, available, and cute. I will use the chassis I have since it will sturdy enough to support the battery weight. I plan to move forward with construction without actually buying any of the expensive electrical components, such at the controller or the batteries. I will just find out the dimensions of these components and use mock-ups of them, or just “leave room” for fitting them later. Not the ideal way to do design, but sometimes the necessary way to do it.
I plan to make a dune buggy-style fiberglass body myself from scratch. I plan to make the entire body in cardboard (!) first, and then cover it with fiberglass. The fiberglass dune buggy design has some advantages. First, it has no opening doors, this simplifies things greatly. It can be very light, I would save probably 2000 lbs over the F100 conversion I was planning. That’s a lot, and a big help to a BEV. The shape would be familiar, retro, and yet morphed into what I need to fit my plans. Finally, it is a fun vehicle. I am getting into the beach-y Jeep-surrey mode I spoke about before. Very cool.
I had settled on the idea that as a dune buggy, it would be a seasonal vehicle. So it’s a summer run-about, oh well. But after thinking even more, I thought about perhaps a removable canvas soft-top, with zipper-closing plastic side windows like you see on some Jeeps. If I did that, this would still potentially be a year-round vehicle, albeit one that requires the proper attitude to endure in the cold. Would I be up for it? I don’t know. But I won’t know if I don’t try, and at least I would be moving forward. The best part is that I think I can keep going in this direction without a big financial investment.
So, what do you think? Cool or stupid? Overambitious or easy? Let me know. Bye for now.
4 comments:
Woo hoo! Go for it!
I think that this is an excellent idea. It looks like it would be a whole lot cheaper than what it would have been with the F100.
I'll be looking forward as to how exactly you put it together.
Looks cool to me. That would be 'fun'.
Great job John! I think this is the most wisest action if one ever takes, when thinking of the gas prices even if it comes down there is no gurentee.And the cost of electric car conversion kits are also not that high I guess.
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