Building an "A" type hip-spoiler for the Manta

[Blueovalz]

When I finished my six year Manta conversion into a look-alike Mclaren, I no longer had the wherewithal to start on the M8A spoiler. I didn't want a wing to match the "B" body being this was mostly a street car, and the "A" spoiler is unique enough to compliment what had been accomplished already. So three years later, and having thought about how I would build it, yet not make it weigh a ton, and not being satisfied with a similarly shaped aluminum one that just wouldn't be "right", I dove into this mini-project. As it turned out, this seemingly simple idea and piece was probably one of the more complicated parts I've built for this car. Based on some very good scale drawings and photos, I came up with the dimensions, which appear to be reasonable once I was able to visualize it with foam-board template taped to the car:




One of the many challenges was to build this to fit the car like a glove, yet fabricate it without destroying the existing paint. This was done by carefully laying up masking tape to cover the existing paint, very evenly, anywhere fiberglass would be laid. Then I laid up a mounting flange onto the tape, which would be used to fasten the completed spoiler in place using 1/4" screws around the periphery of the mounting flange. The subsequent pieces of the spoiler would be bonded onto this mounting flange: