Dave Bivens Mirage Build

[Manta22]

Dave, I made my black Mirage doors into gull-wings so my larches are not exactly the same but you might get some ideas from these pictures. I installed an inside door handle from Southco.

[davebivens]

I like that Neil, looks like it would work well

[davebivens]

Thanks Jerry, yea I'm really trying to do the Manta justice, I want it to show well and not be referred to as a "kit car" although I really like kit cars. This is actually not much of a kit, it's got a frame, glass, gas tank and body, and pretty much everything else is up to the builder. The goal is for it to be a real solid driver. I've gotten a ton more experience doing metal work, fiberglass and body work (and grinding) that's for sure!

[davebivens]

Ok, adding a few more pics, I struggled a little bit on how to route the coolant hoses/tubing. I finally settled on routing them just inside to front lower control arm and then down the lower frame rail. for that I actually had to add a dimple/blister/bullet (whatever you call it) to the inner passenger tub so the pipe would clear. Here's some pics, if you look close you can see them inside the frame rails,

[davebivens]

and here's the work I had to do to the tub, adding the blisters for clearance, basically cut them out, flip them, and fiberglass in,

[davebivens]

Then I had to rebuild the footbox, it didn't line up at all with the frame mount for the brake and clutch master cylinders,

[davebivens]

Ok, still working on this car, something more fun to talk about....tail lights, here's a pic of the setup on the car from a previous builder, I think it's an old ford van tail light layed on it's side, just wasn't happy with this look.

[davebivens]

What I really wanted was the round tail lights like the Factory 5 GTM or Ferrari 308 but their just didn't seem to be enough room for them to fit, so started looking around, saw the tail lights on a Brubaker and thought those would work, they come from a Datsun pickup, but they turned out to be a little too long.

[davebivens]

So, looking for something like that, settled on believe it or not, El Camino tail lights, just had the look and sizing that seem to fit, these are actually also used on the Consulier sports car from the 80's or 90's,

[davebivens]

So, back to a bunch of fiberglassing, had to make the tail light buckets as well,