Ferrari La Freccia

[Peter Lombardo]

Ferrari La Freccia ( The Arrow) Concept

Ferrari has a long history of allowing their chassis’s to be turned into spectacular “one-off” custom cars. Pinin Farina is the most widely noted of these builders, building some incredibly beautiful designs. Since I have always enjoyed designing cars, I figured that I could try my hand at designing one too, after all, the most I have to lose is a little time and a few dollars worth of plastic.

I few years ago I replaced the top on a 2005 Chrysler 300 with the 2 door coupe top from a Revell 612 Scaglietti to make a 2 door coupe bodied Chrysler. In doing so I have the engine, chassis and interior left over. The other night while moving a few boxes around in the workroom, I stumbled on the box and thought to myself that it was time to do something with the leftover parts

Having never been a big fan of the 612 as a stock bodied car as it seems too tame and boring to me, I wanted to design something a little more adventurous for that engine to power. Always being a fan of the 1970’s Pontiac Gran Prix’s long hood coming to a point at the front, I wanted to bring that design element into this car.

Now right up front I have to apologize for the fact that I am taking this to the Flickr set I have since I cannot move the pictures into this post…..it appears they are rebuilding their system and that section is not completed yet….so you will have to click on the link below and see the pictures there without any narration with them.

you may have to hit "control" click to see this link

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpl3k/sets/72157643776681113/

The first “doodle” is the first rough side view I did to get an idea of how it could look. The second (duplicate pictures) view is more refined with more of the body contours in place. As I was drawing this out, I kept thinking that the nose was long and pointed with a protruding tip……it kind of reminded me of an arrow point……then it hit me to call this design “The Arrow”….so I Babblefished the word arrow in Italian and it translates into Freccia, hence the name “La Freccia” which is The Arrow.

Next I took a piece of sign foam (REN), drew on the basic design shape top and side and began carving the body with my Dremel tool with a sanding drum. I had to use some Bondo on the rear end where I took too much foam off, but that was easy to correct. You can see I drew some of the design features on the master just so I could visualize how the shape would look as the windows and doors were added.

Next I had to vacuum form the body, but because of the multiple convex curves of the body and the fact that the bottom of the car was indented (narrower than the top) conventional one-piece vacuum forming would not work here. So I made two formed pieces, one from the top and one from the bottom. I then cut them at main top contour line and mated the two together, so that now it forms a completely closed shell body, kind of like how your chocolate hollow Easter Bunny is made, solid outside and hollow inside. Once the sanding is complete, I will remove the wheel openings and bottom, but for now the body has much stronger rigidity as it is that it is better for the rough handling now. Once the wheels are opened, I will add the wheel well flairs to the openings, open the doors and fit the interior and modified chassis. The wheelbase is set to the 612 chassis, so no modification to that will be necessary. I have a set of 20 inch BBS wheels, and tires for this in gold with chrome rim edges that will look great on it. I am planning a candy metallic pearl red with a blacked out roof and tan interior for this, after all, it is based on a Ferrari

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There you have it, this is my plan so we will all see how it works out together.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Peter Lombardo

[Belugawrx]

Nice start

Very cool lines

Cheers