Home-built Bugatti replica [video] | Hacker News Reader

Home-built Bugatti replica [video]

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146 pointsjnord49 comments

I'm a big fan of people building vehicles - I do - but there's a hot rodding expression 'beautiful deathtrap'.

People build aesthetically attractive vehicles, often with very powerful engines, spend a fortune on paint and visuals but there are lots of potentially deadly mechanical single points of failure.

Some of these vehicles are mostly trailer queen show cars, but the ones that are driven a lot often need some safety work. I know of a socal shop that fixes high end customs designed by TV show car personalities so they are actually driveable

Uncle Tony's garage showing some scary hacks video: https://youtu.be/a-DfxrEnDsI

For every genuine safety hazard there's dozens of people complaining about stuff that just isn't. Seems like safety is just the trojan horse that the "you shouldn't have modified anything it was perfect the way the factory built it" people use to get past the gate these days (not saying you're one of those people).

I skimmed the video. I didn't see anything particularly out of line. Their metal fabrication wasn't great but it's fine for what they're building and frankly where they're building it (don't get me wrong, that suspension is a kludge but they probably don't have enough car to break it).

I like to see stuff attached to fiberglass anchored better and over more area but I'm no expert on fiberglass so I don't have a good feel for what you can get away with and what they did was as good as what you see on boats.

I think you missed my broader point. I wasn't particularly criticizing this Bugatti emulation, I was making a broader point about people building aesthetically pleasing vehicle, because looks are everything to most people, and skimping on the mechanicals.

This emulation looks like a film prop vehicle and they were very clever in how they created it. I did a metal bashing workshop with Gene Winfield (now 94 years old and going strong) last fall, a famous car customizer and builder of a lot of Hollywood vehicles including the Bladerunner vehicles. He was very clear on what was for visuals and what had to actually work and go down the road.

This will go down the road just fine though. The tiny little diesel will make it go but won't break their ghetto CV extension. Those small car calipers and plate brake rotors will let it stop just fine (probably better than you'd think since they're so big). The structural stuff is ugly, overbuilt and heavy. The design isn't the greatest (lol what even is triangulation) but they make up for it in metal well enough that they probably won't be able to hurt it. What it won't do is perform as well as it looks. Don't expect to track it with that tiny little engine and questionable (in the most literal sense of the word, they probably don't even know their numbers) suspension geometry.

These guys are welding and using angle grinders without any face / eye protection. There is a different set of safety standards in their country.

I had red hot metal flake land on my eye once. Even while wearing safety glasses (the type without the side shields). When I went to the hospital, the nurse was extremely concerned if I could see anything because of how red/puffy my eyes were.

After a 12 hour wait, the doctor had to use metal tweezers and dig it out of my eye. Absolutely terrifying. He said there was rust residue that needs to be removed and would need to go the specialized eye center where they would need to use a specialized drill.

After that, I double up on everything. Not worth it.

> After a 12 hour wait, the doctor had to use metal tweezers and dig it out of my eye

12 hour wait to see the doctor for an eye injury? Were you in the middle of the desert?

Wow, sorry to hear you went through that. I do a lot of metal fab (hobbyist) and that is basically my worst nightmare.

Agree, you can't be too careful, especially when you are frustrated and about to cut corners to save time

You left out the most important part - is your eye ok now?

Yeah that is pretty upsetting to see, they are potentially doing permanent damage to their eyesight. Presumably someone is paying for all of this but isn't paying for eye protection?

They have no protections at all, except for a COVID mask. Eyes, head, hands, legs, feet, nothing.

For true safety you really need mass production as you need several "copies" of the car for crash testing.

The best practice IMO is to modify cars (or components of cars) that have already gone through that testing. I use first gen Jaguar suspension modules that work in most project cars and provide superb ride, steering geometry and brakes for example. I am very opposed to restricting vehicles to those the authorities have rubber stamped because there are some truly awful and dangerous mass produced cars out there.

Really great series on making fiberglass molds from a live pattern/part to crank out laminate (carbon fiber or fiberglass) copies. Seems like they could do that with this pretty easily, not sure if there is a market but it's a great start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgKvDw1E60E&list=PL-DQ6gqgQv...

(The channel is fantastic if you have any interest in making carbon fiber parts. The guy does great and very practical demos and they have some very good products for small batch/hobbyist projects. I just wish they would sign with a distributor in the US)

Very impressed by the tolerances achieved, it's inspirational. The headlamps also look exceptional. Given that these guys are working with pretty primitive means of fabrication, this is a great attempt!

The video shows them unboxing the pair of headlights out of a box with Chinese characters on it[1]. It made me look on AliExpress to see if they sell knock-off Bugatti headlights. Actually they sell look-alikes for other cars, e.g. a Honda Civic [2], so I guess these guys looked hard to find shapes that match the original.

[1] https://youtu.be/bwUnIN5RLm0?t=1379 [2] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003214053321.html

About 15 min into the video and its giving be strong memories of a book I was given as a kid:

"Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250" by Ron Champion

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Build-Your-Sports-Little-£250/dp/08...

It includes all plans and instructions on how to build a Lotus 7 style car from scratch using a Ford Escort Mk 3 as the donor car.

Always dreamt of one day doing it.

I believe it created a whole mini industry of workshops manufacturing components for amateurs to buy if they wanted to skip a step. There was/is a racing series for them too.

The Lotus 7 is one of my favorite sports car designs. Caterham has done a great job of making these modern and bringing them to America.

Love the Caterham 7, one day when the kids have left home the plan is to convince the wife building one is a good way to keep me out of the house. Amazingly our house has an inspection pit in the garage crying out to be used.

This is very similar to how car body design prototypes were built until the mid-1980s, when CAD become the master of prototyping. A quick photo search for "car body design clay" yields fascinating pictures.

https://www.carbodydesign.com/media/2014/07/Opel-Russelsheim...

Slightly cooler, this guy lived next to me and I saw him riding around his Duct Tape 911 all the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5vlqWln7do

Saw videos of that car at the time and would love to know more details and some experiences!

Nothing short of amazing, an extremely small budget made up for a very large dose of ingenuity and craftsmanship, what's not to like?

Amazing ingenuity, but I’m scared by the amount of chemicals they’ve collectively inhaled.

The skill displayed with the "eyes closed while the arc is hot" welding technique is both impressive and concerning.

aka safety squints

Disappointed they did not forge their own engine like those foundry shops in India. /s

Made a disk wheel for a Bugatti, but the brakes look like they’re from a Corolla.

Obviously, legislation to prohibit these untraceable and dangerous ghost automatic super-cars is called for!

This french dude has been building a GT40, documenting everything along the way on its youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/c/BenjaminWorkshop ( in french )

Great work. Why not wear gloves? Fiberglass gets in your skin and if epoxy is used, you might get sensitized to it. They might have used some other glue. At least they were wearing masks.

This still has better build quality and panel gaps than Tesla cars.

Equal parts terrifying and impressive. If I worked in PR at Bugatti I'd ship these guys a case of eye protection and respirators.

Something tells me this wouldn't survive much rain. Lack of close-ups makes me suspicious how good this build really is.

Are you kidding they did this from nearly nothing

There's some close-ups, but it doesn't really look that great in the far shots either. Uncanny valley territory.

The last 2 minutes has a "walkaround". You can see some cracks near the door handle, guy opens the fuel filler cap and it's hilarously unpainted on the inside, and it's held closed using a cabinet door magnet.

Good for them, I was hoping for something more akin to the guy that build an iphone from parts he bought in Shenzhen.

Strange Parts?

Wrong type of Bugatti - I was hoping that it would be a Type 35 or something of that ilk. Too bad.

I only watched part of it because it reminded me more of those cake-decorating videos than actually engineering and building a car.

If you actually want to see someone (re)build a car from (nearly) scratch, check out Bad Obsession Motorsport. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get the funk out.

Very creative, but quality control of a Tesla model 3. /s

Brilliant work

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