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An opportunity came up last year to have a 550 body built, so I jumped at the chance. My friend Wray is making the body and even teaching a class on how to do it, how cool is that?
https://www.facebook.com/profi...p?id=100006679607997
http://www.proshaper.com/



I will post pictures as the build progresses, so far the work is amazing!!!!

And if you have any interest in building your own, Wray is doing a class every month. How cool would it be to have a 550 that you built!

Happy New Year!

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Images (8)
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We (the local 356 club) did a tech session out there last spring.  Adam was there as well and, yes, they are using a fiberglass body as a sort-of buck.  Wray has developed a really clever process of taking a "pattern" of any compound curve surface and using that pattern/template to develop a piece of metal to match.  The template is very inexpensive to create and is very true to the original shape (it is NOT a fiberglass reverse mold).  I have it all documented on videos, but don't have his permission (yet) to publish it.  

 

Once the template is made, he then re-creates the same part from metal using a variety of tools from a big wooden block (made from the trunk of a tree with a pounding depression carved into it) to house-designed power hammers, to a large variety of house-built English Wheels and such.  The extent and variety of tools (both power and hand) at your disposal there is astounding, even for people used to seeing well-equiped shops.  He has total ability to stretch and shrink whatever metal he's working with to get precisely the shape and thickness he wants AND can show you (yes, YOU!) how to do it to build your own parts.

 

There is also another shop, in southern New Hampshire, that has obtained a real, metal, original 550 Spyder that they have completely dis-assembled and are tooling up to precisely re-create all of it's parts.  Last I heard, the initial 6 - 8 cars based on that process have already been sold (the first car has not yet been finished).  The owners have the option of buying a Carerra twin-cam reproduction engine (all parts reproduced by the same shop) that has been updated with crank-fire ignition that looks just like the original, but actually runs well under 5K rpm (unlike the original).  

 

Those cars will certainly be high-bucks reproductions.  The one's that are being done at Wray's Pro Metal Shaping I have no info on pricing...

 

gn

Sort of off-topic but I thought you guys might like to see a couple pictures of all aluminum Cobras. These are owned by guys that I know, all of them pro-built except for the 289 FIA...Don has over two hundred hours in polishing the body.

Thought it's give you some idea how a 550 would look polished rather than painted.

 

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KMS_9586_Medium_

CobraKirkhamMurphy_003

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Images (4)
  • Kent Bauer -- Kirkham 289 brushed w/ polished stripes
  • Don Murphy's Kirkham 289--polishing almost finished
  • Jamo's 427 Kirkham
  • Ron Bakerfield's Kirkham 289
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