Click to enlarge

3/4 View. Note uncomfortable passenger seat.

Front view. Note smaller engine, new headlights and vital gearwheel for drive train.

Side view. The differences to 8448 are most noticable here. Higher rear end and larger wheels.

Rear view. Fat exhausts, roof down. press the number plate to release it.

1/2 Volume Supercar

I built this model in October 1999. You'll have to excuse the pink pictures, they were taken with an exceedingly poor digital camera (which did actually have a macro function, which I only discovered long after the time). I also totally missed straightening the passenger seat. It is obvious that someone sitting in this seat would have quite a back pain. First, some history.

The 8448 supercar was the first new set I purchased after emerging from my dark age, in the summer of 1999. I was very impressed with the model (although not owning an 8880, I could not compare it) and some of the mechanisms were very neat. I did think that all the mechanics were very far apart, though. The one thing I really appreciate in technic design is compactness and neatness of design (as you can guess, the airtech claw rig and shuttle are my all-time favorite sets). So, I decided to rebuild the 8448 supercar, but 1/2 size, thinking that I could get rid of all that empty space.

I originally tried to scale it to the style of wheels you get in Mindstorms, or the indycar. This was really a ridiculous proposition, due to the width resrictions of the rear wheel drive set-up. Even though I employed some clever tricks (see below), I soon realised that this just wasn't going to happen. I eventualy used the wheels from the claw rig. These lend a slighlty rugged look to the car, and if I had some other wheels of a similar size, I'd use them.

Enough story telling. On with the gory details.

As you can see, only the engine size is compromised (and the roof is improved!) Lets check out the model bit by bit shall we?

Click to enlarge

Wow! look at all those gubbins! I bet you can't figure it out! Neither can I to tell you the truth. I built this a year ago.

The picture to your left was created by laying the model on my scanner. Two major optimisations can be seen here. The first is not entirely my idea. At Fredrik Glöckner's Lego Ergo Sum page, he has a page of 8880 suspension modifications. One of the modifications is mounting the differential at 90 degrees to the axle, which I used here. This does create some extra friction, and is not very true to life, but the width reduction was worth it.

I did not use any of his other modifications, as I felt they deviated too far from real life (using gears to transmit to the axle for instance). Instead I used two universal joints, like the 8448, but through 90 degrees. This whole setup saved a lot of space, and yes the wheels do turn (and in all suspension positions too).

I did not change the design of the gearbox, all gears are in exactly the same postition as in 8448. I tinkered with gearbox designs for a while, but the 8448 solution really is the most compact. Only the mountings are changed. Unfortunately, while building, I put the gearbox in upside down (so reverse is top right) and didn't notice until I had fished. By this time, I really had had enough of rebuilding the model (and there was a lot of that, let me tell you) so I left it in. You can't tell from the photos anyway can you?

We also see the motor mounted at the front of the car. This is an old-style 9V motor and so requires some gearing down before it reaches the gearbox. This area was ver tight, as the steering had to be included as well. The subject of many rebuilds, sweaty brows and cries of "it just won't fit!".

You can just see, at the rear, the folding roof mechanism. This I was particularly pleased with. It is a considerable improvement over the 8448 design. In that model, the roof is it's own lid. When the roof is up, it leaves a gaping hole in the back of the car. A real folding roof, of course, opens a lid, folds out and then closes the lid. I created a purely mechanical system to achieve this, and the results were just right. Don't get me wrong, I didn't pluck this out of the air. I had to work very hard to get all the beams the right length. It's not millimeter perfect, but damn near.

Click here for a sequence of pictures showing the process. (warning, several jpgs, may be quite a load)

Overall, I was very pleased with this model (although not with the photos!) and I did try to make a version that was actually 1/2 length, but it just isn't possible (that's a challenge!)

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