Chassis questions...?

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

OK,

I know that Abbey Panels stamped and welded the early GT40 chassis and then Tennant built chassis that were used for repair and new cars (including, I understand the last batch of Safir Mk V cars).

What I do not know is this: Abbey stamped the parts for FAV/Ford and welded the chassis, delivering a semi-complete monocoque unit to Slough. Tennant later did the same. Did Tennant make new dies or were the original dies transferred to Tennant? What years did Tennant make these chassis?

As the cost of matching steel dies is not insubstantial, I am hard pressed to imagine Tennant cutting steel dies for a run of what? 20 or 30 chassis at best? I understand that when Abbey did them Ford was paying the bill and cost effectiveness was not a great concern but I can't understand another company doing it without much chance of a return.

Did the original dies survive the Abbey fire? What year did Abbey go up in smoke?

I have seen a quote that Superformance has spent over "$75,000" to do the new chassis they are making, I will bet my life thst this is WAY low. I have had matched metal dies quoted and you can't make three parts of a GT40 tub for that amount much less over 50 pieces...

I do know that the early Safir cars had the steel roof spider made by Autokraft by hand (Brian Angliss told me how he had a falling out with Peter Thorpe and would do no more parts for Safir)and I know that P1116, the MK V I was familiar with had a hand formed spider.

Perhaps Chris or one of the other board memebrs in the UK can fill me in on this issue.

Understand this is not an issue of "originality", I am only curious and interested.

Rick [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[roy snook]

Thats interesting MK1V,
I have a folder of dimensions and drawings that were used to assemble some of the Safir cars and they seem to vary, on some, the doors used to have to be altered substantially to fit the roof.
The A pillars and roof, it appears, were hand made so if Brian Angliss produced them then I guess they were rolled.
The radius rod lengths were differed also.

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

Roy,

Yes Autokraft rolled the steel roof and fit it to a "buck". That would explain the variance in the dimensions, no way to hold true like a stamped steel part. Autokraft also did the trimming on the early Safir cars. Angliss had words with Peter Thorpe when Peter hired a workman from Autokraft. Peter claimed he came on his own, Brian contended he was "stolen".

I have always wondered about the timeline for the Abbey/Tennant chassis, when did Abbey stop and when did Tennant start up GT40 tup production? Do any of the original dies survive?

Rick [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[Chris Melia]

Hi

My take on this is that the stamping tools went to Tenants and then they were sold to Holman Moody.
What I want to know is were does Bob Ash in the USA get his parts stamped, does he have his own stamping tools or is there a deal with Holman Moody?
Holman offered Larry Dent a post production Tub made by Holman Moody for around $70,000 for P1005.

Regards
Chris

[Shadow]

Post deleted by Shadow

[roy snook]

Shadow,
The chassis that Chris owns is definately not fabricated,
the panels are pressed, take the lower windscreen surround, it has the small indent running along the top centre from side to side.
Where does your information come from?

[Fran Hall RCR]

Shadow,
do you have direct access to both unmolested types of chassis.....just asking so as to narrow down who you are...???Care to elaborate??

[Chris Melia]

Shadow
The MKV(GT40 MK1)Safir car has a monocoque chassis fabricated by Adams-McCall, they did not have Tennant panel chassis at all. the last batch of 7 litre Safirs had Tennant chassis, but the Safirs have authorised
continuation chassis No's so are classified as original MKV cars not replicas.
I have a Tenant panel chassis and can confirm that they are pressed and not fabricated.
I can also say that for a fact the pressing tools went from Abbey panels to Tennants to make accurate monocoques, Brian Wingfield supplied original Ford drawings to Tennants and oversaw production.
Several original cars have been re built using Tennant monocoques.
Tennants sold all their pressing tools and fifteen monocoques to Holman Moody, I think Lee Holman will be upset to find out they sold him replica chassis, as his $500,000 MK11 is based on one.
Regards
Chris.

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

"Only the Shadow knows for sure...."

My comment about some of the later Safir cars having Tennant chassis comes from John Allen's book where he states that some were used by Safir. I know the early Safir tubs were fabricated and not stamped. I remember Len Bailey doing some design updates and redesign to allow use of fabricated pieces and multiple pieces where Abbey had stamped a larger, single part.

Gee, I didn't want to start trouble, I was just curious if the original dies had survived the Abbey fire and if they were still around.

I understand Lee Holman has tubs stacked ready to build MK IIs if someone ever buys one!

Rick [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Chris Melia]

Hi Rick
Lee Holman told me at Goodwood that all the tubs he has are currently being built for a European race series in 2006

Regards
Chris

[Jim Rosenthal]

Here is my understanding of all this, some of it based on visual comparison of the various chassis types...
The first runs of cars had Abbey Panels chassis..these were indeed welded up from stampings. My impression is that the Abbey dies were either lost in the destruction of the Abbey facility or what dies were left were sent over to Tennant, which is also a metal-stamping company. When Lee Holman bought the last remaining Tennant chasses, he also got the dies. Along with that, I've heard, a statement from Tennant that they were done with building GT40 tubs.
The Safir Mark V chassis are NOT stamped- the tub was redesigned by Len Bailey in order that it could be fabricated from sheet metal parts that were easy to make; the feeling at the time was that the original tub was over-engineered and that an equivalent structure could be made from pieces cut and pressed with sheet metal working tools instead of huge presses. This is evident if you look side-by-side, which I have done, at a Tennant chassis and a Mark V chassis. They are similar in overall size- and in no other way. All of the pieces are different and none of them interchange. The Safir Mark V chassis are made by Adams-McCall in the UK- they are a professional race-car restoration and metalcrafting shop and turn out very nice work indeed. No new Mark V chassis are available- if they make a replacement tub for a car which is damaged, the old tub has to be sent back.
I have never seen an Abbey Panels tub by itself, only in cars in one state of completion or another, but it strongly resembles the TEnnant chassis I have seen. To look at this another way, it may be helpful to recall that the entire series of all vintage GT40s is rather less than 200 cars, that several chassis suppliers were involved at different times, and that essentially all these cars were handmade with a fair amount of custom work in every car. When taking bits from one car to another, which must have happened quite a lot when they were campaigned as race cars, there was a lot of fitting to do at the time. So, all of them are individuals with their own histories and to some extent their own peculiarities, albeit they share basic dimensions, structure, and perhaps some interchangeable bits.

[Shadow]

Post deleted by Shadow

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

[ QUOTE ]
I hope everybody love their forties, but it does´nt help people out in the search of facts and truth to continously spread all kind of believes and even straight on lies !


[/ QUOTE ]

HUH?

I guess I am more out of it than I ever thought. Could someone be defending a posistion that has not yet been attacked?

I just wanted to know what the differences and time frames of Abbey/Tennat were...

Guess I opened a can of of....

Rick [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Chris Melia]

Hi Jim
just like to say how well you put it, I could not agree more. Its also nice that we know who you are.
I dislike the ability for people to hide behind false names here, we had enough of that with "Meat"
I would also like to confirm that the largest panel on my Tennants monocoque the floor is pressed and so is the roof inner and outer.

Regards
Chris

[Shadow]

Post deleted by Shadow

[Bill Bayard]

Meat,

Are you back? Under a new nom de plume? A "new Meat", maybe???

Bill

[Ron Earp]

Shadow just registered on October 6th although he might have been reading here for long before that time. That information is available to anyone by checking the profile.

R

[Chris Melia]

Hi all

As Shadow seems to be attacking me for some reason or other I will let him get on with it until he finds another victim. He's not worth the ink, hope this is not another Meat episode.

Regards
Chris.
PS. Jim I will be taking my tub down to Kerry's place tomorrow.

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

Chris,

Perhaps "Shadow" is the guy you beat out for the chassis?

I'm just sayin'

And I stil would like to know the time frame when Tennant built chassis?

Rick [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Shadow]

Post deleted by Shadow