Alan’s Custom Hot Rod Roadster

Alan and I hit it off when he stopped by the shop a number of years ago and he realized we were both using the same CAD package, Solidworks. 3D CAD being something of a rarity in the Hot Rod Aftermarket at the time. Subsequently I’ve always thought of this car at the Solidworks Roadster because of the shared software. In my mind, Solidworks is why we decided to build this car at all.

Personally, I like to call this car the ‘Solidworks Roadster’ but the owner Alan calls it the ‘Corona Roadster’.

Alan and I had been brain storming various options for this car for YEARS but when the COVID lock downs started keeping people in their homes, Alan finally got some serious work done on the design. So he always refers to the car as The Corona Roadster.

I like to think I have a better naming since than Alan but he’s paying the bill so it is what it is.

Collected here are a mess of photos he and I have shot back and forth over the years in reverse order. Newest at the top. Feel free to scroll WAY down to see how it all started and how the project has evolved and where we are today!

2024.Mar.13

I had a few good day banging on the roadster CAD getting the front suspension mounting updated to my current style of mounting with tabs and slots. Thought I would toss them up before I forgot about it.

2024.Mar.11

68 Feet and 4 inch’s of welding at a minimum so far. And we’re nowhere near done. Glad to see it starting to take shape however. The new engine plans are also coming along for the Turbo Charged Atlas / Vortech 4200.

Sub Assembly 2 almost completed and the designs for Sub Assembly 3 getting sorted. And the front control arm mounting tabs are getting cooked up as well.

2024.Feb.21

New Jig tubes have been cut and we’ve started using lots of 3D printed Jigs to deal with the complex angles involved. The frame has been broken into a number of sub assemblies and is being assembled into stages.

2024.Feb.07

There was talk about doing something with the LL8 also known as the Atlas 4200. So we tossed it in there and took a few screen shots to see what everyone thinks.

We also got the tubing bender calibrated for the 1.75″ OD Round tubing. Much easier than the Square tubing for sure. The real bend CLR for these 6″ Dies and the 0.120″ tubing is 6.24″. So now its time to update our CAD models.

2024.Jan.30

Working on finally bending the parts for Roadster. This is the first time we’ve leveraged the Tube Bending Calibration of our Bend Tech Dragon A400. So there was some learning curve and the 1.75″ 11 gauge wall tubing didn’t like the bender to start out either. But we nailed the two outside frame rails and we’ll get them on the frame shortly.

Something interesting that we didn’t know the software did. It shows you want the bend “really is”. For example. The CLR, center line radius, of this square tubing is 6.5″. But the tube won’t hold it exactly and end up being 6.72″ CLR. This is going to be important in the future as we work this into our other designs. Imagine if you have a tube that lands in the middle of a bend but the bend isn’t where you put it and you get a feeling for why this is REALLY important on out kits.

Second layer of the rear frame is also getting welded up. You’ll see what those 3D printed jigs are for shortly.

And the marker on the Dragon has been a god send to keep track of all these parts.