TimeOut

Hand Made Cars !

 

Sometimes you just don't know what will be awaiting you when you start out a day. On the road for my day job today I had an appointment at Leopard Automobile in Mielec Poland. I knew that Mielec is a long time center of the Polish aviation industry with exceptional experience and knowledge of metal working.  But I wasn't prepared for this.

Start out with this plain sheet aluminum....



and using almost only hand tools they end up with this....


You are used to my reports from those making hand made watches, now for a hand made car.
But how do they do this, getting these perfect and repeatable forms using only hand tools?  I would compare it to a shoemaker who forms a shoe around a lath.  Just using wooden mallets and a fixture to hold the metal it is patiently hammered to form causing a resounding dinn. 

Here we see the "laths" for the many different pieces.

To make such perfect welds in aluminum takes great skill and a fine feeling for the material.  After finishing these welds will not be seen from either side of the piece.

Leopard is now in the process of moving a part of this production to have more room to work.


These aluminum bodies are placed on a frame of steel tubing, also made and welded on a jig in house.  After welding the frames "relax" for 3 months before they are further worked on to allow the stresses in the steel caused by the welding to even out.

A completed body along with a body awaiting its final finishing.

This is the first prototype vehicle.  Present production is being snatched out of their hands so fast they didn't have a vehicle for us to try.  Note the hand tailered leather interior.

The present production is propelled by the 6liter small block V8 from the Corvette.  The prototype uses a 3.9liter V8 from Rover.

I had never thought that a car could be produced with such TLC and emit the kind of special feeling that a truly hand made watch does.  I was highly impressed by the craftsmanship going into and shown by these cars.


Those buying these cars are getting real exclusivity with 4 sold to date and a maximum production planned of 24 pieces a year.


To finish off our day in Mielec we had a meal at a local castle.  This not being the season we were quite alone, but the welcome and food was excellent.

For an appetizer local forest mushrooms.

Followed by local pike, cooked to perfection.


Of course to let the fish swim...


We hope that on our next visit we will be able to have some bear meat as shown on the tapestry on the wall behind us...

and finally there is a time related subject.


What a great day.

Don













This message has been edited by DRMW on 2011-03-16 17:03:56 This message has been edited by DRMW on 2011-03-18 01:09:39