Million Dollar Skunksworks Kirkham

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by Don

David.........I may have missed, who are the personnel that are involved in the design, machining , fabrication, assembly etc. ?

To everyone's credit, if Detroit or the foreign manufacturers were to take on the task......would be years of committee meetings and a cast of ?

Hopefully, an auto /sports car magazine(s) will have a lengthy article on the major accomplishment. The " WOW " factor needs no further explanation.

Thank you for your kind words. I too agree Detroit could have never come up with something like this. Too much bureaucracy and no freedom of expression or artistic license. It is really a shame.

The people involved are just us guys here at Kirkham. The concept was mine. The engineering was done by my brother Thomas (with lots of modifications to the original concept, of course, as time went on). The design/machining was done by me and our guys here. All design, assembly, and manufacturing was done in-house and within the family. We didn't sub anything out.

The WOW factor was really the ultimate goal of the project. There really is no other billet chassis car on earth, (at least that I have found). It is really a unique, one-of-a-kind (and once-in-a-lifetime) project.

David

[David Kirkham]

Here are the 1/2 shaft parts getting ready to be hardened. Notice we are polishing to a mirror finish the 1/2 shaft axles. We don't want any stress raisers in those babies! The parts on the bottom are the hub end of the 1/2 shaft. The parts on the top are the differential end of the 1/2 shafts. We made a few extra parts as you can see here.

[David Kirkham]

The little parts in the above picture are parts of the control arms. Notice the 2 extra 1/2 shaft axles on the right side of the picture. They will be polished too.

David

[David Kirkham]

Remember the chassis was COMPLETELY taken apart on Wednesday? Well, here it is this morning. We hope to have the foot boxes enclosed today. Not sure if we will have time, however, as we have to deliver 2 cars today.

[David Kirkham]

Here is another view. Notice the firewall has been installed in this pic.

[David Kirkham]

Here you can see some parts that are about to go into the car.

On the far left, you can see the gas tank. It is made from stainless steel...like all of our gas tanks. We hate corrosion and boogers in our gas tanks.

Right in front of the gas tank are the insides of the foot boxes and an extra fire wall. On the very right of the picture, you can see the belly pan. The belly pan is the true secret to the incredible stiffness of the chassis. It closes the box. It is made from 1/8 plate aluminum. All of these parts were cut out on the water jet.

[David Kirkham]

will post more pics shortly