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Spring will be arriving any day now on the Buchanan estate (starting
in the south, of course). It's time to start driving some of the
convertibles again.
But convertibles are so unsatisfactory, in any one of three different
ways. Soft-tops are all well and good, but they look like prams
when
the roof is up, and even the best fabric roof is not as
soundproof as a hardtop. Removable hard-tops are great, except
that it takes ages for one's man to remove or replace the hard-top; it
has to be stored somewhere when off the car; and one finds oneself
bebuggered if an unexpected shower occurs. Folding hard-tops
would seem to be a good choice, but they are always clunky and
compromivial, with huge amounts of wasted space to accomodate
the stowage of the folded lid.
So.
Maxmoto Inc. (a woolly-owned subsidiary of Buchanan Ungineering)
is developing the Double Helical Retractable Hardtop.
A graphic would be very helpful at this point - please feel free to
draw one.
Imagine a ribbon of steel, about 3ft wide and 10ft long, given a
half-twist. Now imagine laying that on one side of a car, running
from the top edge of the windscreen towards the back of the car.
The front edge of the ribbon is horizontal (and aligns with the left
half of the top edge of the windscreen), the back-most edge is
vertical, and aligns with the rear left corner of the car.
Now, imagine that we chop off the back 60% or so of this ribbon.
What's remains of the ribbon forms the left half of the roof. Now
imagine that this ribbon can be slid backwards, corkscrewing around
and following the path taken by the original (un-cut-off) ribbon.
When slid backwards, it would lie against the rear quarter-panel of
the car. Except it will slide back _inside_ the rear quarter-panel.
Now imagine two such ribbons, of opposite handedness, on opposite
sides of the car. When slid back, the two ribbons are essentially
vertical (with a slight twist in them), and lie between the outer and
inner skins of the vehicle in the rear quarter panels. You now have
an open-top car.
To close the roof, these two ribbons both slide forward whilst
twisting by a quarter turn (the left ribbon turns clockwise, the right
ribbon anticlockwise), meeting in the middle to zip the roof shut.
Gadulka!! You have a full retractable hardtop which has only one
"seam" (down the centreline of the roof), and which takes up only a
modest amount of space between the outer and inner skins of the
rear quarters of the car.
Yes, it really did need a picture, didn't it?
illustration
http://imgur.com/rq8nK [xaviergisz, Mar 22 2011]
illustration
http://imgur.com/FEZpm [xaviergisz, Mar 22 2011]
Gadulka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadulka [normzone, Mar 22 2011]
Maybe like this
http://i923.photobu.../Halfbakery/Car.jpg But better drawn, curvier and less lumpy. [MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 22 2011]
[link]
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I *think* I get it... but I'm one of these folk that try and figure everything out by visualisation (sketch would be much appreciated). |
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I've drawn a sketch, and I'm holding it up now in front of my
monitor. |
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Failing that, a simpler explanation: the roof splits down the
middle; each half slides backwards and rotates around its axis
to snuggle down inside the side of the car. With curves and
stuff. |
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I'll do an illustration tonight (about 8 hours from now). |
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That would put you in California? |
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Why didn't you just say that?! (As you know, I'm a bit dim, but the light bulb just came on, ta.) |
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//That would put you in California?// |
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nope, Canberra, Australia. |
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So it's a T-top with a half-twist... |
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Unecessarily complicated and flawed in so many ways. |
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my illustration is uglier than sin, but its getting late so it'll have to do. I couldn't get the two ribbons to meet at a neat seam, so its not a very practical idea. |
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I think the reason the panels don't "zip" nicely is that the
car, as you've drawn it, is basically purple. It would
probably work fine in a metallic silver. |
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As for the "tailfins" - sort of no. The idea is that the roof
panels would slot inside the rear-quarter-panels of the car
as they twisted and slid back. |
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It may just need very stretchy metal. |
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I don't think so. Perhaps it would work better on a larger
vehicle. I think it might be possible to develop a convertible
bulldozer for summer bulldozing. |
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If my imagination isn't leading me astray, the curves
are more like those on the after portion of an
exquisitely modeled double-X chromosomal
humaniform than is usually found on the rear of a
vehicle. |
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Oh, wait - even if I'm right, my imagination is leading
me astray. |
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Hey, some of us XY's have reasonable curves too. |
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But you're thinking along the right lines. |
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I have attempted to represent curviness, see link. The
picture only shows one half of the roof (grey panels show it
in the closed and open position). And it's a bit wrong. |
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I know, it's not as good as [xav]'s. Probably not even as good
as yours. |
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It's Cinema 4D, which I've used for a few magazine covers and
other stuff. But a man can only do so much on one glass of
wine and 15 minutes with a trackpad. |
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I'm a big fan of the word "bebuggered." and I think
that this would be very difficult to do with a
traditionally shaped car. it would end up looking
very different, because of the tracks and the funky
shaped roof. |
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