1965 "Pontiac" Vivant 77

[MrObsessive]

A few days ago, I printed a car I had never heard of before in my life, but as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to find a 3D file of it. This is a 1965 "Pontiac" Vivant by Herb Adams. A one off car that he built while working for Pontiac back in the mid '60's and was recently discovered and restored, much to the surprise of us gearheads as a lot of us have never heard of this car.

I got the files from a fellow on CGTrader who goes by the name "Brunomcardoso". A very fine representation of the actual car, and he offered them in an .stl format which made things a bit easier on my end to not having to convert .obj files.

I separated the body into sections in the files, as I'm going to be brave and do opening doors on this. The frame will have to be scratchbuilt by me as the real car used some type of tube frame with a torsion bar front suspension. The front suspension to my eyes looks for all the world like something out of a MOPAR, so when the time comes to build it, I can at least find that in my parts bin. There are separate files included that do include the front suspension setup.......I'll have to see if that'll work with the scratchbuilt tube frame I have in mind.

Here are some pics of how it turned out in the printer, and then cobbling it all together to see how it'll look as a whole car.

As it was coming out of the printer............

I must have had a moment of CRS kick in as I thought I added enough wall thickness to the files, but apparently not. 🤯

Take II came out MUCH better................

Now with the body parts taped together.........

It was difficult to find out exactly how long this car was from nose to tail.......I had to guesstimate how long it was based on a Corvette of the era, and my scaling worked out quite well.

The real car...............

The real car used I believe a Pontiac 421 engine which I've got lying around in my parts box. Wheels were the traditional 8 lugs of the period.

I still have the hood to print yet, interior floor and all the other interior stuff, grill sections, and cowl section with another part of the rear deck. I don't know when this will become a full WIP, but I like this so much I may do this one next instead of the '77 Olds Cutlass I have planned.

We'll see.....................

Edited May 20, 2022 by MrObsessive

[keyser]

Cool Bill. There’s a 275 GTB 2 cam behind it in that pic at Villa D’Este to help a bit. 
Found this article has interior shots. Tempest wheel, seems started earlier than 65, with BAT influence. 
Good work as always. Enjoy going down a rabbit hole always. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/herb-adams-vivant-77.1074768/

[MrObsessive]

Thanks CL! I didn't know the car used a Tempest transaxle. That'll make things more interesting as far as the mechanicals. The article also mentioned that he used a Corvette suspension in the rear which would make sense. He would have been right there as far as getting parts off the shelf.

I've been trying to figure out where the gas tank on this thing might have been. It more than likely was right behind the driver and passenger, with the filler neck located under the flip up panel at the leading edge of the rear deck. I do wish the original file had a bit more taper to the upper edge of the doors where they meet the fins. No big deal, and when it comes time to build it, I can heat up the body panels a bit and "coax" them to be tapered a bit more.

[vairnut]

It's an interesting car and yours will be fantastic as usual. I just grabbed one of the curbside resin versions and it's pretty decent. Will need to come up with exhaust outlets though.

[bisc63]

What a cool "discovery"! The influence of the "Bat" is strong IMHO;  as if "The Bat" was designed and built by Dean Jeffries or maybe Darryl Starbird.