Million Dollar Skunksworks Kirkham

[SP01715]

Originally Posted by David Kirkham

Our customer knows a few things about high-end performance boats! We decided on billet aluminum as it has never been done before and it is quite beautiful.

David

It sure is beautiful, I am sure he will love it.

[David Kirkham]

SP01715,

Thank you for your kind words!

We have put thousands of hours into the chassis--research, design, engineering, FEA, programming, proofing, checking, fitting, and tweaking. I told our customer I wanted to make him a "no excuse" car. So, I set the bar pretty high for myself.

"No excuse" means you don't need to explain anything to anyone if they ask you a question. "Oh, well we couldn't do this or that, or whatever, because of this or that or whatever." I didn't want any of that with this car. I just wanted to make a really cool car. Judging by the drool marks left on the car by customers who have seen it, I hope we have achieved our goal. (It is very, very hard for an artist to appreciate his own work so I DO appreciate the comments.) I would even appreciate negative comments so we could make the car even better.

David

[Maricopa]

The only thing negative is that I can't afford it.

[David Kirkham]

More pictures.

Sorry I haven't posted pictures in a long time. We have just been really busy around here--as usual. The pictures I am going to post will be somewhat out of order--sorry!

Here we are fitting the seat into the car. When you sit in one of these cars, the forward apex of the rear wheel is actually in FRONT of the head of the driver. The wheel base of 90 inches is extremely short. We didn't have much room to work with and so the seat area became a very difficult part of the car to design and engineer.

[David Kirkham]

Here you can see the front suspension box for the car. This is a really nice shot of the push rod activated horizontally opposed shocks. You can see the transmission tunnel parts laying on top of the frame rails getting ready to be put into the car.

[David Kirkham]

This is a shot from the right, rear wheel looking forward. You can see the enormous billet aluminum piece we had to use to "turn the corner." The 90 inch wheel base prevented us from using a rear bulkhead to carry the suspension loads forward. This was the best work-around we could come up with. This part was extremely difficult to make. Because of its size, we had to make it with a true 4 axis program. The block started out around 60 pounds (I don't remember exactly now) and ended up around 3 pounds when we were done.

[David Kirkham]

Here you can see we have started to put together the driver's foot box. We are also checking wheel clearances on the front tires.

[69boss429]

Originally Posted by David Kirkham

SP01715,

Thank you for your kind words!

We have put thousands of hours into the chassis--research, design, engineering, FEA, programming, proofing, checking, fitting, and tweaking. I told our customer I wanted to make him a "no excuse" car. So, I set the bar pretty high for myself.

"No excuse" means you don't need to explain anything to anyone if they ask you a question. "Oh, well we couldn't do this or that, or whatever, because of this or that or whatever." I didn't want any of that with this car. I just wanted to make a really cool car. Judging by the drool marks left on the car by customers who have seen it, I hope we have achieved our goal. (It is very, very hard for an artist to appreciate his own work so I DO appreciate the comments.) I would even appreciate negative comments so we could make the car even better.

David

Unfortunatly,most artists work is never appreciated until yhey have passed on.
You Mr Kirkham are now even more legendary and I wish you many more years to persue your artistic endeavors.
I would be happy to provide any negative feedback(but I doubt fault could be found) simply arrange a 2 week test drive for me when your masterpiece is complete.

[Hoofa]

Looks great, If it was mine, I'd "inside out" the side panels of the tranny tunnel to show off the machining. Only small creatures that you run over will appreciate all the work.

[David Kirkham]

69boss429,

Sometimes us "artist" types only see what we could have done better, smoother, stronger, lighter...I think it is an artistic defect. I do appreciate the kind words, however. The final judge of the car will be the customer. If he is happy, then I will pass out...and wake up happy.

hoofa,



I loved the bug comment. We did all that on the inside because it would be really hard to put carpet on those milled out pockets! We did, however, leave some cool billet parts bare in the interior. I will try to find some pics of them and post them soon.

David

[Hoofa]

It's sad that you have to put a body on it. Even if they are pretty cool, but carpet that tunnel???? Why don't you give me that I'll give you a carpeted Street Beast chassis.... Who would know? If ya got it Flaunt it!!!

[David Kirkham]

Hoofa,

I think there will be plenty of "flaunting" going on.

David

[David Kirkham]

Here we are fitting the differential into the chassis.