[WIP] Ford GT

[Jeroen Ottens]

Hi,

The Valkyrie is finished, final photos will follow, but first I'd like to start my next WIP topic. This time it is the Ford GT (the modern version):

This model will feature an 8D-N-R gearbox (inspired again by @Anto's compact gearbox). It is operated with flappy pedals. Independent suspension on all wheels, a fake V6 engine, a retractable spoiler and scissor doors are the other functions.

I spent a lot of time on getting the shape of the door right and I am pretty pleased with how it looks now:

I am still working on fixating the hinge, it is rotated around two axes, so it is bit tricky to get all the angles right and maintain in system connections. Especially at the drivers side there is not a lot of space to work with, but that is a worry for later. I'll first try to figure something out at the passenger side and then see how well it can transfer to the other side.

And of course a Ford is not a Ford if it doesn't have a racing stripe:

The bodywork at the moment still hangs from spit and hope together, so also there a lot of work is still needed to get it more robust and stiff. The bonnet for instance is not even attached and just sort of lies on top.

Comments, critique and questions are appreciated as always.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Jeroen Ottens

[LvdH]

That looks awesome. This car seems almost made for you with all the complex curves. Dark azure is also possibly one of the nicer colors for this car, but it’s extremely limiting. Definitely looking forward to seeing more progress. 

[StudWorks]

Looks beautiful so far! Can't wait for more progress.

[thekoRngear]

Looks awesome! Question: is the 42083 (Chiron) enough to build this MOC?

[brunojj1]

That looks like a promising start! I like the usage of the many fence pieces in the front grill, although I doubt that should be the final height of the nose. The door indeed looks fantastic and smooth as it should.

Thanks for sharing, hopefully the community will give you the drive to go for it . 

18 minutes ago, thekoRngear said:

Looks awesome! Question: is the 42083 (Chiron) enough to build this MOC?

Definitely not, since only one half of the Chiron body consists of this color. So you´d rather need 2 or 3 at least, still being limited in the parts range. I have failed / skipped on this colour to be honest.

[LvdH]

1 hour ago, brunojj1 said:

Definitely not, since only one half of the Chiron body consists of this color. So you´d rather need 2 or 3 at least, still being limited in the parts range. I have failed / skipped on this colour to be honest.

Plus at least 2x 3x7 curved panel, which is insanely rare nowadays and only came 1x in de 42077 rally car.

[Samolot]

You are on the right way

[Gray Gear]

Looks like an amazing start!

So weird to me how you build the body first and do the insides afterward 

I know this isn't final, but the fitment will need some tweaking imo. The wheels sit very deep inside the arches. Front wheel arch is sitting lower that rear one, resulting in bad fitment on the rear. Flex axle in the rear arch could work...

[efferman]

11 minutes ago, Gray Gear said:

So weird to me how you build the body first and do the insides afterward

The best way to get the Look you want. The internals are secondary.

[2GodBDGlory]

47 minutes ago, efferman said:

The best way to get the Look you want. The internals are secondary.

It makes sense on an aesthetically focused model like this, but also seems hard to do in practice, having to hold up the panels with some preliminary chassis.

It sure works out nice, though!

[efferman]

This ist why i build digital First. No preliminary frame necessary.

 

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody.

4 hours ago, brunojj1 said:

That looks like a promising start! I like the usage of the many fence pieces in the front grill, although I doubt that should be the final height of the nose. The door indeed looks fantastic and smooth as it should.

Thanks for sharing, hopefully the community will give you the drive to go for it . 

Definitely not, since only one half of the Chiron body consists of this color. So you´d rather need 2 or 3 at least, still being limited in the parts range. I have failed / skipped on this colour to be honest.

The nose is a bit high, but I really like the big 5x7 panels at the sides, so I am tempted to keep it this way. It is a pretty clean look now, whereas dropping the nose one stud will probably result in a more cluttered paneling below.

It is indeed not possible to build this with one Chiron. At the moment I use six fender panels, so even in a two-tone colourscheme you'd miss two fenderpanels.

2 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

Looks like an amazing start!

So weird to me how you build the body first and do the insides afterward 

I know this isn't final, but the fitment will need some tweaking imo. The wheels sit very deep inside the arches. Front wheel arch is sitting lower that rear one, resulting in bad fitment on the rear. Flex axle in the rear arch could work...

Who says there are no insides? It already has the full gearbox, flappy panels, suspension and steering inside .

The wheels are deep inside the arches, but that enables some travel inside the fender, so it allows for a lower placed fender. I'll see if I can do something with a flexaxle for the rear one. It is just a pain to work with the limited amount of parts available in dark azure though.

[Gray Gear]

2 hours ago, efferman said:

The best way to get the Look you want. The internals are secondary.

This is personal preference I guess. I for myself start with the transmission and steering system for the car, because that's what is most important to me, and is the most fun. Since those are always in the engine bay, transmission tunnel and under the rear seats I never had the problem of them being in the way of bodywork later...

 

@Jeroen Ottens Sorry then it seems I misunderstood your description text. My bad.

I get what you are saying with the wheel-fender situation. It makes sense as that is often how it works irl, but I don't enjoy the look. I prefer a flush fitment with minimal suspension travel until te tire hits the wheel arch. This is often done irl on modified cars especially, but it often results in cracked arches after a small bump in the road 

I feel you with the color problems. I am so glad to have (almost) freed myself from that burden.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Gray Gear

[langko]

This looks very good so far. It amazes me how you pump out so many quality models in what seems to be such a short amount of time. 

As people have mentioned dark azure is going to be troublesome... but I look forward to seeing how it all comes together. In my opinion those 3x13 curved panels behind the roof look too curved, not sure if placing a 5/6 panel there would suit the shape of the real car better.

One thing that I tend not to like when people make this car is... In attempt to keep the roofline low the roof and side windows in particular can look too squashed. Your's so far doesn't suffer from that so good job 

[Jerry LEGO Creations]

Good to see you tackle this one and especially in this colour. I'm struggeling on the front of mine, so some extra inspiration never hurts I think It's looking very clean so far

Looking forward to the progress updates!

[Jeroen Ottens]

On 1/31/2022 at 10:42 AM, langko said:

This looks very good so far. It amazes me how you pump out so many quality models in what seems to be such a short amount of time.

Time is relative . This is a job for me, so I can spend a significantly many hours per week on this. I'm sure that others can do the same if they could spend as much time as me.

On 1/31/2022 at 10:42 AM, langko said:

As people have mentioned dark azure is going to be troublesome... but I look forward to seeing how it all comes together. In my opinion those 3x13 curved panels behind the roof look too curved, not sure if placing a 5/6 panel there would suit the shape of the real car better.

One thing that I tend not to like when people make this car is... In attempt to keep the roofline low the roof and side windows in particular can look too squashed. Your's so far doesn't suffer from that so good job 

That overhang behind the roof is causing me all kinds of headaches... I've tried everything in combination with that curved panel and below is the best I could come up with, but maybe it is better to follow your suggestion and ditch the curved panel completely...

So, time for another update:

Still a lot of detailing and tuning to be done, but the general shape can be judged now. I have raised the roof one stud as I felt that the sidewindow became too squashed, but let me know what you think.

I am quite happy with the doors. The angles in the door continue almost straight to the surrounding bodywork, the gaps are minimal, but the door can still open. When closed they sit really solid. The only thing that needs improvement is that it currently snags to some parts when closing and the opening angle isn't as high as I would like. So some more tuning to be done.

Also the A-pillars are just mock-ups, it is (us usual) a bit busy at the bottom-attachment point of the A-pillar, but this time the topside will also be a bit of a puzzel to attach. It currently just hangs from the flexaxle providing no support whatsoever.

The two big vents in the hood turned out nice I think:

It even has some room for the fluid containers below the hood:

The rear is starting to look clean as well (but the lights will be a challenge, I haven't figured out which part to use there yet). The tires are (again as usual) too wide for this scale...

As mentioned, the overhang between the roof and the side is a major headache. This is the best I could come up with so far:

Comments, suggestions and critique is welcome,

Jeroen

[Jerry LEGO Creations]

This is really cool, I like it a lot. The front is very well made! For the overhang, I have a different solution. Now, my building style is very different as I want to add the sponsors on the car, so I need a flat, gapless underground, but maybe it can give you inspiration:

FordLMGTE_10.4 by Jerry LEGO Creations, on Flickr

Small edit: this is a bit of an older version of the car, but it shows the overhang the best

Edited February 6, 2022 by Jerry LEGO Creations

[Nazgarot]

Really nice build! I love the way you have shaped the front and rear of the car, and the doors are perfect. The only part that doesn't seem spot on for me is the roof. It just doesn't seem right. Is there any way to tilt it a bit down towards the front?

Great work! Can't wait for the next iteration! This is shaping up to be an epic moc!

[Vigerust]

Really nice car! Great work

[Alex Ilea]

Looking really nice overall! I would suggest some improvements : to remove the black panel on the roof to make it flat, the a pillars need to be angled more towards the back (side view) and the area right on top of the tail lights needs to be more flat to match the spoiler. Can't wait for more updates   

[langko]

On 2/7/2022 at 8:47 PM, IA creations said:

to remove the black panel on the roof to make it flat, the a pillars need to be angled more towards the back (side view) 

@Jeroen Ottens I would agree with this comment. The front and rear end are shaping up very nicely though! The top view of the hood with the vents looks great. I like the rear spoiler as well, is there a linkage to make it go up and down?

The overhang does look the most difficult part of the bodywork... I've though about designing a Lotus Evija (similar wacky aero tricks at the back) but not sure I could pull it off. I'm sure you'll figure out something in the end. I know the part availability doesn't allow you to do what Jerry did above, but maybe you could redesign the roof slightly to have a long flex axle running in a similar way he has. That combined with the 5/6 panel might work. 

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thanks for all the comments!

On 2/6/2022 at 5:22 PM, Jerry LEGO Creations said:

This is really cool, I like it a lot. The front is very well made! For the overhang, I have a different solution. Now, my building style is very different as I want to add the sponsors on the car, so I need a flat, gapless underground, but maybe it can give you inspiration:

FordLMGTE_10.4 by Jerry LEGO Creations, on Flickr

Small edit: this is a bit of an older version of the car, but it shows the overhang the best

Ooh, that one looks juicy! I am usually not a fan of beams over flexaxles, but in this case it is a very nice way to get that overhang done. Unfortunately dark azure is very limited in part selection, so I can't use the same solution. Here is my next attempt:

I've tried first to use the long 3x11 curved panels, but they were too long (and stick out as they are 2 studs thick) so I couldn't make them work.

On 2/6/2022 at 5:41 PM, Nazgarot said:

Really nice build! I love the way you have shaped the front and rear of the car, and the doors are perfect. The only part that doesn't seem spot on for me is the roof. It just doesn't seem right. Is there any way to tilt it a bit down towards the front?

Great work! Can't wait for the next iteration! This is shaping up to be an epic moc!

 

On 2/7/2022 at 10:47 AM, IA creations said:

Looking really nice overall! I would suggest some improvements : to remove the black panel on the roof to make it flat, the a pillars need to be angled more towards the back (side view) and the area right on top of the tail lights needs to be more flat to match the spoiler. Can't wait for more updates   

I've removed the 3x13 panel from the roof to make it flat, I lowered the roof by one stud and I shortened it a bit:

On 2/9/2022 at 8:02 AM, langko said:

@Jeroen Ottens I would agree with this comment. The front and rear end are shaping up very nicely though! The top view of the hood with the vents looks great. I like the rear spoiler as well, is there a linkage to make it go up and down?

The overhang does look the most difficult part of the bodywork... I've though about designing a Lotus Evija (similar wacky aero tricks at the back) but not sure I could pull it off. I'm sure you'll figure out something in the end. I know the part availability doesn't allow you to do what Jerry did above, but maybe you could redesign the roof slightly to have a long flex axle running in a similar way he has. That combined with the 5/6 panel might work. 

The spoiler has indeed a linkage. It is operated with the black gear behind the engine. I've tried using a flexaxle with #5/6 panels and this is the best solution I've found so far.

Again, thanks for all the comments.

[Gray Gear]

The change to the roof is an improvement for sure 

I would suggest to move the exhaust pipes a bit apart if there is enough space. They look to close to each other and maybe a bit too large imo. But idk.

Also, side note: I find it very weird how the sideskirts move up with the doors as well. I always thought those woult stay put, but you implemented it very well 

[langko]

Best version yet! Roof is much better 

Shame about the blue 15100, but I don't see a better option. Man I both hate and love dark azure haha

13 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

Also, side note: I find it very weird how the sideskirts move up with the doors as well. I always thought those woult stay put, but you implemented it very well 

A lot of cars are like this, I guess it helps you get closer to the seats when getting in and out.

[Ethan0080]

will you ever release the instruction once its completed?