[Peter D]

More Progress at Last !
As my DRB was a very early build, things like roll-hoops & dropped floors were in the future when the car left the factory. Way back, I think I described the fun & games we had installing the roll hoop set-up – not easy after the spyder section had been permanently installed, but doeable.
The next major upgrade (after my engine disaster & rebuild) was the dropped floors. My car had the original DRB folded floor throughout – much like the real GT40’s – but this was a real pain (literally) – I got the seats made with the absolute minimum of seat cushion height, but even with this, I had to slide down in the seat to fit in under the doors. It was standing joke – whenever I had been for a drive in the 40, the family used to laugh, point to my flat hair on top & ask how things went in the Marines today !!

These days, there are 3 options for floors from DRB :

a) Standard full folded floor (like mine)

b) Dropped Floors – where a flat pan is welded under the seats which brings the floor in that area down to the level of the bottom sections of the folded floor & chassis rails (gets you an extra 20mm)

c) Super-Dropped Floors – as above, but the pan is about 20mm below the bottom sections of the folded floor & chassis rails (so, about extra 40mm of headroom).

Being a person who can’t help himself when it comes to re-inventing the wheel, I decided on a compromise between (b) & (c) – why make life easy when you can have a challenge !!

I was a bit nervous about losing 20mm of ground clearance with the Super-Dropped floors (& didn’t want to wind the car up too much more from its 125mm level), so a compromise of losing 10mm & maybe winding the car up 5mm seemed to be the answer.

I was lucky enough to have re-established contact with an old friend – Henry Neribecki – the race car "engineer’s engineer".

Pardon the digression here, but some background on Henry may interest some :

- I knew Henry from more than 25 years ago when he worked on my Mini Cooper S.
- After a long break, we caught up again, & I found a whole heap of weird co-incidences
- Henry worked with Eric Broadly on the Lola GT
- He designed & built all of Frank Matich’s stunning sports racers (SR1 to SR4) & open wheelers – all phenomenally successful in the 60’s & 70’s
- He is the acknowledged "expert" in Oz when it comes to racing a Lotus, and maintaining or restoring Lambos.
- His latest project is a radical clubman – all aly frame, WRX motor behind the driver, 500kg dry, +300hp, carbon fibre bodywork, and …. Registerable !!!!
- My daughter’s boyfriend is Frank Matich’s grandson !!

Back to the story :

Henry was happy to take on the dropped floor project, & designed a super-neat setup – all flanged into the existing folded floor & fixed with aircraft rivets & "F18" aircraft glue. Beautifully designed & fitted, and avoided the problems of welding so close to the carpet & fuel tanks !

The difference in driving position & comfort is just amazing – I might even be able to fit in the car with a helmet on (YIKES) !!

The following pic shows how the floors were done.

Kind Regards,
Peter D.