04-04-2003, 07:45 AM
|
 |
Senior Club Cobra Member
|
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Northport,
NY
Cobra Make, Engine: Kirkham, KMP178 / '66 GT350H, 4-speed
Posts: 10,362
|
|
Not Ranked
FFR did indeed 'experiment' with an aluminum body, using a Kirkham skin. As an R&D exercise, they "proto-mounted" the skin and had the car on display at Carlisle last year.
Unfortunately... architecturally, it is a difficult task to adapt that type of body to the FFR platform. An alloy body is like a gum-wrapper; on it's own, it has no rigidity.
The Kirkham body, as the originals, utilizes the entire set of frame tubes to mount the skin and they become part of the substructure. Although FFR uses a twin tube frame, the rest of the tubes and hoops just aren't in the right place to easily mount the body.
FFR wanted to position it as a $6K option; apparently, cost of materials and rework to the underpinnings would push this option way out of the range of FFR's current price point. They scrapped the project and sold the protoype to a Florida customer.
Recently, Kirkham has developed and sold several "beta" bodies that consist of the aluminum skin, mounted on a partial body/hoop assembly that could be adapted as a 'glas body replacement... but it is far from turnkey, or a direct swap on any current car, without some degree of "mechanical engineering."
I think KMP has sold this in the $10k range.
Hope this info helps.
|
Linear Mode
