A couple years ago several of us were bench racing/bench re-designing the Carrera GT, a universal consensus from our group was that we felt the car should have been a coupe rather than a roadster. Armed with our talents, several of our illustrious rogues set off bound and determined to show Porsche the err of their ways :wink:

Veyron took off first, and landed gracefully as usual with his CGT coupe wearing a modern Ferrari fastback and a style unmistakable to Carrozzeria Dino Venabli. Our club president Henry and I brainstormed and measured Revell's GT1 roof and found it to be a killer variation that fit the CGT kit body with ease. Henry did the roof conversion in a day or so when we had a group modelpalooza (GTMike400 superglued a toothpick into his mouth that day:lol: ) to much fanfare and having the model (a black competition version using team graphics used on other Porsches) on display 2 years ago at Birmingham's NNL and a month later at the 2005 NNL East. It looks so natural I still think most people have no clue it's a custom job. Looks just like the Porsche factory spit it out. I did the exact same roof conversion to mine, with intentions for a street coupe. It sat in the box until yesterday.

Po9r1s1che took another turn, he combined his CGT with a Jaguar XJ220 roof for a magnificent black and white coachbuilt CGT coupe.

Yesterday I cracked open the kit again while visiting Mach I 2003, got an idea to sink the rear part of the roof down to meet the recessed area below the spoiler instead of flush with the tops of the fenders and flush with the leading edge of the spoiler (and forgive me if someone else has already figured out this modification before me. It's entirely possible). By narrowing the roof along it's natural contour line, it allowed a more graceful shape that flows w/the existing body much better than my earlier mockup. It also seems slightly reminiscent of the rear haunches of a Cayman S. I envisioned a couple pieces of styrene to fill the gap w/the recessed roof, Eric suggested that it should be puttied so it could be slightly concave/contoured, to match the contours of the CGT body. I immediately wanted to find pre-shaped plastic that I could glue in place vs. using putty. While I was thinking out loud we both looked inside the open box at the same time, and voila...the original CGT decklid was sitting there shouting something like "hey, quit ignoring me and glue me into that bad boy!". I ended up gluing in the decklid that I so despise on the open version :naughty: . And it works, I shaved a bit more from the roof sides and welded it in place. It might make it to the show on Nov. 11th :eek: . I really like it, I'll need to tweak the details a bit, add some primer/filler and it'll be on the way. I think it's sufficiently different from all the other CGT coupes that I've seen that it will have it's own unique appearance.

http://images19.fotki.com/v32/photos/1/10258/4182870/1-vi.jpg
http://images17.fotki.com/v28/photos/1/10258/4182870/2-vi.jpg
http://images19.fotki.com/v36/photos/1/10258/4182870/3-vi.jpg
http://images16.fotki.com/v29/photos/1/10258/4182870/4-vi.jpg
http://images19.fotki.com/v32/photos/1/10258/4182870/5-vi.jpg
http://images16.fotki.com/v30/photos/1/10258/4182870/6-vi.jpg
http://images16.fotki.com/v31/photos/1/10258/4182870/7-vi.jpg
http://images19.fotki.com/v26/photos/1/10258/4182870/8-vi.jpg
http://images19.fotki.com/v26/photos/1/10258/4182870/9-vi.jpg

This is going to be sweet!

-Chris

Nice! Are there going to be windows so we can see the engine?

cool!your idea makes the CGT more like a porsche!i'll be watching this!

great idea , i think it would look more porsche like w/o the roof scoop,just my 2 cents

Nice! Are there going to be windows so we can see the engine?

Nope! In fact I'm building it curbside. The engine will go into something interesting where you can see it :wink:

Thanks for the comments!

a universal consensus from our group was that we felt the car should have been a coupe rather than a roadster.
Couldn't agree more. Brilliant!!!!!

Looks like an awesome idea!, i'll be following this ;)

That's lookin AWESOME so far; fantastic idea. I personally have very little love for convertibles, this fixes the one thing about the CGT I wasn't interested in! :D

Looks like it should have always been that way. Good luck on it Bob.

Great work so far! I'm very interesting in seeing your take on the coupe, here. I think just about everyone in the world thinks this car should have been a coupe; except Porsche. Let's see more!

Sweet. I'll follow this with great interest.
/Joel

Nope! In fact I'm building it curbside. The engine will go into something interesting where you can see it :wink:

Thanks for the comments!


not by any chance you'll put the enigine in a caterham 7 for the group build? 612 of porsche's finest horses in a caterham WAAAAAAAaaaaaaah

not by any chance you'll put the enigine in a caterham 7 for the group build? 612 of porsche's finest horses in a caterham WAAAAAAAaaaaaaah

No way am I doing that to a Lotus 7! Unless it were 1/12 scale :icon16:

My Lotus group build might end up the slowest car, but at least my engine will fit the car :wink:

Now if I can figure a way to stuff the V10 into a Volksrod...well, who knows? :naughty:

This is for sure going to be interesting to follow.

I agree with someone's earlier comment about the air scoop on the roof - at the moment it looks a tad out of place to me.

Looking forward to seeing next instalment :)

This is for sure going to be interesting to follow.

I agree with someone's earlier comment about the air scoop on the roof - at the moment it looks a tad out of place to me.

Looking forward to seeing next instalment :)

The roof scoop stays, but it will be tapered w/styrene and putty into the windshield frame so it fits/flows better. I may even take a small section out to lower it. The car looks kind of bloring without the scoop to my eyes (like a widebody Cayman instead of a Carrera GT :eek: ), and since the solid/windowless roofline is taken from the GT1 it definitely gives it a family resemblance. It helps that the GT1 scoop is designed into the roof rather than tacked on, so it's not just a ricer trick :wink:

It seems Porsche itself may have seen the err of their ways, they're said to be developing a next-generation GT1 coupe for '09/'10 based on the Carrera GT. Maybe they looked at the model car forums? :icon16:

it's not just a ricer trick :wink:
:eek: Gasp! Shock! Horror! The thought never entered my mind!!! LOL

Maybe they looked at the model car forums? :icon16:
Shame some kit manufacturers don't ;)

This is going to be beautiful. Can't wait for more picures!

GREAT build! great idea!!! Seems like it should be that way since the beginning, personally I do like the air scoop, compliments the GT-like stand.
Will it have modifications on the front fascia? side skirts? air intakes at the front?

I'm looking forward to see more of this thread, thanks for sharing!!!

GREAT build! great idea!!! Seems like it should be that way since the beginning, personally I do like the air scoop, compliments the GT-like stand.
Will it have modifications on the front fascia? side skirts? air intakes at the front?

I'm looking forward to see more of this thread, thanks for sharing!!!

Thanks! I'm not planning any other styling modifications beyond the roof swap. To me the Carrera GT was just wrong with the funky open top/double-bubble decklid, layered rollbars and a hardtop that looked tacked on. It's like they wanted to make an open-cockpit speedster with a half windshield but at the 11th hour they had to put a huge windshield in place and it just killed the look. Put the GT1 roof on it and voila...looks like a logical next-generation car all of a sudden. The rest is gravy.

Fan of your work! This will be another one of your masterpieces, cant wait to see this one done .

wow, this is going to be sweet...

Excellent work,

I am sure that will be a great custom carrera

Any progress on this one? Looks promising...

Any progress on this one? Looks promising...

Would like to see some progress