The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The engineer says the glass is twice as big as required. The GT40 owner just wants to know if the glass is the same size as the one A.J. Foyt handed to Dan Gurney at 2:47AM during a driver change at the 1967 24 Hours of Lemans.
Admittedly even the most authentic replicas are not exact duplicates of the originals. Nevertheless our cars have all of the important functional and visual features and many of the details. All of the bodies from all of the major manufacturers now have the right proportions and dimensions. There are lots of good looking replica wheels available and without a doubt all of our interiors are absolutely right on. In the engine compartment things are a bit more free wheeling. Even in original cars, oil & transmission radiators, air ducting, electrical wiring, gas, oil & water hoses are all over the place. But there are still many key features that a replica needs to replicate (imagine that).
I will mention again that that my car was one of the last stainless steel monocoque cars made by the old Cape Advanced Vehicles (CAV) before the rights to the design went to John and Jean at AutoFutura. So my comments here apply only to the first 100 or so car made by CAV and not necessarily to cars made later.
When I look inside my CAV engine compartment, all of the big pieces look right. You see the engine, transmission, headers, trailing arms, and other suspension parts in a monocoque structure as expected. But in a side by side comparison between an original GT40 and my car, one thing you notice right away is that the CAV crossmember and transmission support look out of place. From the picture you can see that these pieces are flat steel plates. One plate holds the sway bar and the other supports the ZF transaxle. I guess that these part do the job just fine but they do not have the look of the crossmember found on original GT40s.
Admittedly even the most authentic replicas are not exact duplicates of the originals. Nevertheless our cars have all of the important functional and visual features and many of the details. All of the bodies from all of the major manufacturers now have the right proportions and dimensions. There are lots of good looking replica wheels available and without a doubt all of our interiors are absolutely right on. In the engine compartment things are a bit more free wheeling. Even in original cars, oil & transmission radiators, air ducting, electrical wiring, gas, oil & water hoses are all over the place. But there are still many key features that a replica needs to replicate (imagine that).
I will mention again that that my car was one of the last stainless steel monocoque cars made by the old Cape Advanced Vehicles (CAV) before the rights to the design went to John and Jean at AutoFutura. So my comments here apply only to the first 100 or so car made by CAV and not necessarily to cars made later.
When I look inside my CAV engine compartment, all of the big pieces look right. You see the engine, transmission, headers, trailing arms, and other suspension parts in a monocoque structure as expected. But in a side by side comparison between an original GT40 and my car, one thing you notice right away is that the CAV crossmember and transmission support look out of place. From the picture you can see that these pieces are flat steel plates. One plate holds the sway bar and the other supports the ZF transaxle. I guess that these part do the job just fine but they do not have the look of the crossmember found on original GT40s.