Talked to Henry at IM this morning about my car and he told me it's a guinea pig for an interesting process. Most replica bodies are riveted and/or bolted to a frame or chassis.
Since the beginning of fibreglass usage one of the major problems has been trying to bond fibreglass directly to any type of metal as no checmical interaction is possible. There is a fairly new process which consists of special primers for both the fibreglass and steel, and a eurathane process to then bond the parts strongly together, the primers adhering to their "host" surfaces but providing checmical bonding properties of the surfaces they adhere to.
This is a lot of extra work - body is positioned on the frame, holes are drilled for rivets, body removed, frame and fibreglass surfaces meticulously cleaned and primered. Then the eurathane is applied, body repositioned and fitted, and the hundred and some-odd rivets installed then sealed to prevent corrosion.
I get the feeling Henry is taking extra pains with my car, perhaps partly because I'm a repeat customer but also because I think he constantly takes an interest in new processes and methods to continuously improve the quality of his cars. For instance, he thinks my Alex Bivens aluminum 356A wheels are beautiful and would probably like to see them on all of his cars, but around $3,000 for a set of five wheels is a bit prohibitive.
(Message Edited 5/12/2003 1:39:47 PM)
Original Post