Personal Project: My Bubble Car Design 1989-2011-PART II -3rd Term 5th Scale Model

  A shot of My Bubble Car Design Taken just under the bridge at ACCD back in the Fall Trimester of 1989

 A side-view taken at ground level of my Bubblecar design.

Here with a birdsyeye shot you really see the cutaway side of my Bubble Kar design I did back in the late 80's.

My 3rd Term Presentation was done as a tri-fold foam core wall that I basically just set up on a table and did the presentation for Freeman Thomas.

Here is the Bubble Car again  five terms later for my senior show in the fall of 1991 at my Graduation.

Personal Project

My Bubble Car Design 1989-2011
Part II- 3rd Term 5th Scale Model

This is my second post covering my personal project on My Bubble Car that was started back while I was still at Art Center in Pasadena CA. back in 1989. If you want to view the Bubble Car in it's current 2011 form, you can go here.

Above you will see shots taken back while I was still a student at Art Center, of the 5th scale model I built for the final design presentation for the class.

Our teacher at the time was, Freeman Thomas, famous for more than one current automotive design including working on the PT Cruiser, The New VW Bug, and the Audi TT coupe. He allowed us as Transportation Design One students, to build a 5th scale model, which usually took place our 5th term, not our 3rd.

If I remember right,  he caught some flack for that, but as a designer we were able to get right into a dimensional design on our first car, so the connection started very early for those of us fortuneate to have him as a Professor.  Going from a 2D sketch to an actual 3D model sculpture connects the dots that no other method can do, and the sooner you build your designs the sooner you see your own disconnected sketching style, and "fakes" that are in the sketch[ foreshortening etc.], so you adjust your sketching style to be more realistic.

The original "Orbit" was a fluid driven chariot, with swing arms that would hold each wheel independently, and move independant from the main body so the car body itself was truly animated in form. At the time of design I build a rear engine[ Think VW type 1] with a fluid drive system that went to all four wheels.

I had seen many an "Egg" cars, or teardrop shaped cars, but I had never seen a fully round bubble [ until 2008 as there was one done out of France back in the late 50's]. The "Ball" was key to the design not only in the Cabin, but for the wheel-fenders themselves as I wanted the five main spheres to be the basis for the design.

For the final design I did a half, and half model showing the interior structure, with the frame that was inside the bodywork, as well as a full interior, as I had to build out the full interior since I used a lexan hemi-sphere for the windows on the finished side rather than a solid clay or foam model as most 5th scale designs are.

I will be posting close ups of those first renders done in Vis-Com 3rd term taught by Andy Ogden in days to follow, so enjoy the posting.

PART I: here

Cheers, THOM