Monocoque on ebay

[Lee Patterson]

A curious monocoque being offered for sale by a guy that "doesn't know anything about it".

thoughts on this one???

Ford GT40 Monocoque chassis and bodywork Mirage, Ray Webber | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Ford GT40 Monocoque chassis and bodywork Mirage, Ray Webber at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products!

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[Jos]

No doubt this will soon be seen with FIA papers and possibly even a 'corrected' chassis no

 

[Charlie Farley]

It is Ray Weber's first chassis. It was sold to the gentleman and he was told the full history and the added caveat, that it is an unknown quantity.
As no suspension components were ever offered up to it. It is a nice piece of work, but as to FIA papers... who knows.

 

[Lee Patterson]

thanks. Can you provide who Ray Weber is?

 

[Mike Pass]

There was a company based in Poole called Mirage who built correct steel mono chassis in a unit opposite where GTDs were built. Ray Weber was the metal man and Steve was the IT/CAD/CNC man. They worked on Ford's own GT40 for a long time and carefully measured all the parts and put the data into CAD and CNC files
From this data they produced press tools for the chassis parts. They also built an extremely accurate sectional chassis jig. Ray assembled the chassis on this jig and placed spot welds and rose welds where the original Ford chassis were welded. They also had a large number of original parts and intended to sell chassis or rolling chassis. Unfortunately Ray became ill and passed away. I do not know what happened after that. I know where some of the chassis are and two of them are in build logs on this forum. I believe that 5 or 6 were made. They are very accurate chassis and the suspension pickups are spot on.
I visited the unit just before Ray became very ill and he showed us round the workshop, the pressed parts and the two chassis that were being built up at that time. They were still working on the tools for the roof panels at that time. I have several pics that I took during the visit. I will look them out if anyone is interested. The chassis are very good indeed - the main issue is the cost of the parts needed to complete it to the correct level which would be to FIA/HTP. The parts can be obtained but they are hard to find and /or expensive.
Cheers
Mike

 

[Lee Patterson]

Thanks for the detail Mike

 

[Doc Watson]

Mike is correct although Ray did have a 80% complete chassis which was produced by David Brown of classic car developments in New Zealand, which I believe Ray also used to produce the jig and 5 more chassis from scratch.
I also believe that David Brown produced at least 5 replica chassis hence the build title of my car

Classic Car Developments Chassis #5 - Doc Watson's car

Finally good things come to those who wait.... Picked up my chassis 2 weeks ago. Some work to do including fitting a roll cage inside the rear bulkhead as per Ali's car and am sorting out my storage and work area before cleaning ready for zinc primer. Haven’t done a great deal apart from...

www.gt40s.com

The Davis Brown chassis #3 is also well documented here and may I say is looking stunning Brian.

Classic Car Developments Chassis #3

Not sure if image station is still hosting stuff, but let's give it a whirl. Assuming a picture appears, this is my CCD monocoque chassis as at last Sunday. The fibreglass roof section is just a buck to give some idea of proportion. the steel roof section is being pressed sometime this or...

www.gt40s.com

I own the David Brown chassis #5 and visited Ray way back when he was working from his garage and I saw the above chassis. He then moved into the workshop in Poole and created the 5 (i think) chassis from the David Brown and also from some original cars which were in his workshop from time to time. I know he took measurements from original cars as I took a trip up to Poole to see one while it was in the workshop specifically to see if I could fit in the car. After already spending the money for the chassis and being 6'2" it was with a little trepidation that I slid into the original car but I did fit although a crash helmet would probably require a Gurney bubble in the drivers door.

I know where 2 of Rays chassis went and they are well documented here, I did have a list of who got the other 3 but I think its buried on an old hard drive from an old computer. I don't know who got the jig and tooling that Ray and Steve produced but its out there somewhere. I have a picture which is attached of my chassis in Rays workshop and after about 2 years of waiting for it to be completed I was forced to get it after hearing Ray was very ill in April 2011. The chassis was originally sold to me by Chris Melia and included a 330 cu in SBF with webers and a ZF-2, an original rear clip (P1041 racing spare I think) and replica doors and front clip with twin nostril. It also included the inner and out pressed steel roof panels which I believe Chris Melia got via South Africa (Superformace?) although I might be wrong about that bit. I sold the engine to Mike of southern GT who put it into his prototype chassis and the gearbox went to another member of this forum. I have spent the last 12 years saving and buying all the other bits to complete the car and am probably in for at least £50K+ and bought the original chassis/engine /gearbox for £25K which I thought was a good deal at the time.

 

Good info Andy. Not sure where Chris sourced his roof panels from, but Roy Snook certainly made some back around that time, a couple of which ended up in Dave's hands.

 

[Ryan L]

The floor ribs are interesting. I did wonder if it was a Mirage chassis like the other ones on this site when I first saw it as there is some similarities. would be a great start to a project.

I have attached the photos of the chassis here as they will no doubt disappear from ebay in time.

Ryan

 

[MarkR]

I had a fairly good look at this chassis a while ago and must say it does look amazing.

The original jigs apparently do still exist.
Had a conversation with a part-time vendor of GT40 components who used to supply GTD and was advised that they are still being stored in Dorset.
I couldn't extract any more detail.

 

[David mono]

Mike Pass I would be interested in seeing those pictures .

 

[Mike Pass]

Hi David,
Here are the Mirage pics
Cheers
Mike

 

[Mike Pass]

And more....

 

[Mike Pass]

One more.....

 

[Morten]

How sweet it that! A 917K chassis on the wall. Brilliant!
Do you know more about this 917 chassis?

Morten

 

[Mike Pass]

It was a 908 chassis. Part of the 908 project which is on this forum.
Mike
Cheers

 

[Mike Pass]

Apologies for thread drift.
908 project thread here

Porsche 908/910 project

hi Guys as some of you will remember from last year I got hold of a Porsche 908 body, well things are still progressing with this project and here are pic's of the chassis. regards Chris.

www.gt40s.com

Cheers
Mike

 

[David mono]

Thanks Mike .

 

[PAB]

Silly question perhaps Why has no one snapped this up ?
Is it overpriced ?
Not good enough quality ?
If I am viewing what should I look out for ?
Many thanks

 

[Mike Pass]

It is a question of the cost and availability of the parts to complete this chassis. The chassis is fine but would not be really suitable for road use as it is mild steel and fairly expensive compared to space frame replicas. To see the issues with building one of these chassis to original spec and the joys of finding those parts now which Ford just grabbed off the shelf at the time check out Jimmymac's thread on this forum.

Jimmymac & Alistair's Cars

My mate Ali and I had a chat with Ray Webber over lunch today and decided that we should post some details of the work done over the past months with our Mirage monocoques. We will open this up with some shots of the recent craftmanship done by Ray Webber and Steve Hill at Mirage Automotive. The...

www.gt40s.com

Cheers
Mike