Ace-Garageguy Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 Corvette "Rondine" built by Pininfarina around '63.
Greg Myers Posted February 14, 2015 Author Posted February 14, 2015 Like I didn't know who would get this, first shot. I didn't know, and was guessing an early Iso Grifo
Rob Hall Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 Saw it at Barrett-Jackson a couple years ago...neat car.
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 (edited) Pretty car, but not at all Corvette-like to my eyes. More like the child of a '60s Maserati Ghibli and an Avanti...and that rising character line on the rear of the door showed up later on the Fiat 124 Spider... Edited February 14, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy
unclescott58 Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 As much I like early Corvettes and their "All American" looks. I've always like this one too. Not your typical Corvette from the time, but still gorgeous. Scott
Greg Myers Posted February 14, 2015 Author Posted February 14, 2015 same thing here, swoopy, but not for me. Don't mess with perfection. ok, maybe a little. Ooooops! Too much.
Tom Geiger Posted February 15, 2015 Posted February 15, 2015 Corvette "Rondine" built by Pininfarina around '63. was it fiberglass or metal?
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 15, 2015 Posted February 15, 2015 (edited) was it fiberglass or metal? Metal, in this particular car's case steel rather than light alloy, I believe. It would have been necessary to build an entire accurate full scale model of the body, in order to make molds, in order to make a fiberglass body with any sort of professionalism. You can't make a decent 'glass part without a mold, and you can't create a mold without having a full-scale model, or "plug" to start from. As this was a one-only project, the additional costs of building the car essentially twice would have been prohibitive. Pininfarina built the one and only body the traditional way, with sheetmetal panels hand shaped over a set of "stations" assembled into a buck, as illustrated below. After the body panels are welded together, they are removed and the buck is discarded (or reused if the car is to be series produced), and the body is reassembled on the bare chassis. A lot of highly skilled work. GM's intent with the f'glass production Corvette was to save a portion of the massive capital outlay required for matched steel dies for pressed metal panels on conventional cars, and fiberglass tooling is significantly cheaper than steel for a limited production run where the tooling costs can still be amortized over many copies. For a one-only project, it's still very expensive. I'm pretty sure the Corvette Rondine, though built by and credited to Pininfarina, was actually designed by the American Tom Tjaarda while he was working for PF. He's also the designer of the Fiat 124 Spider (that echoes the door character line), and the DeTomaso Pantera (which has a similar rising character line on the rear quarter panels). Edited February 15, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy
Snake45 Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 Pretty car, but not at all Corvette-like to my eyes. More like the child of a '60s Maserati Ghibli and an Avanti...and that rising character line on the rear of the door showed up later on the Fiat 124 Spider... Roof puts me in mind of a shortened '53 Stude roof. In fact, I've been thinking about trying to turn a '53 Stude into a sports car, or sporty car, and this thing gives me some ideas.
Draggon Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 That would have made a great kit car to pop onto a Fiat 124. With exception to the roof, everything in the middle sure looks like a 124.
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