The only real way I was going to see how the car was going to look; without potentially wasting much of my budget; was to model the car in 3D.
The shape of the nose cone could have a ‘knock on’ on the position of the front wheels and even the engine position. Although any shape of nosecone could be fitted without chassis modifications, I wanted something that looked right from all angles.
Luckily, I had access to one, from which I could take vernier measurements.
I started with the standard Lotus profile.
It can be seen that the standard nosecone is dissected by the 2 inch taller chassis.
Modelling in CAD has shown that a custom nose cone will be needed.
Disliking some of the deep ‘Open Mouthed’ grills I’ve seen on web, there is no other option but to make one from scratch.
When viewed from the side, the top of the bonnet has a flat profile. In order for it to clear the engine, any curvature in the profile has to be done in the nosecone. Indeed, a longer nosecone would enable a much gentler profile from the side, but would a long nose cone look as bad a deep one?
However, removing some of the crossmembers and moving the engine further back in the chassis would enable a lower and flatter bonnet profile. Doing this would mean the 4×4 drive on the gearbox would intrude more into the driver’s foot well. However the advantages would potentially out-weigh this.
