It took a while, but I finally decided the front end had to be improved over my original (1982) Lola T70 MK IIIB sculptural interpretation. It just didn't do justice to the voluptuousness of Tony Southgate's original design. With so much more visual information available today, I've been working on gradually creating a whole new nose.
The plan view profile is now curved, which greatly affects the rest of the nose. The hood has been re-shaped, the fenders have been extensively modified, and the radiator opening has been moved closer to the cockpit and reshaped. Overall, it looks much better but has a way to go.
The Poplar tires and acrylic wheels have been turned and are primed. That makes checking for the proper stance much more accurate. Having them in place also showed me that the front track was too wide. Since this photo, the tires have been narrowed to tuck into the wheel well properly.
The front of the body has been sealed and has several coats of primer. The areas that appear pinkish have had their first cycle of glazing and sanding to fill the Jelutong pores and imperfections. Every part of the restoration will go through many, many such cycles before it is ready for painting.
Moving the camera out a bit shows the workbench on which the body is being modified. It's a complete creative mess.
All shaping is done by eye based on reference photos. I finished the original in 1982 with only about five photos of the whole car to work with. These are just the ones for the front end.
You can also see the wide variety of tools needed to move things along. The current acrylic sanding blocks have purple 120 grade paper on one side and 220 on the other. Moving to each higher grade is a sign of progress. By the time I'm using Bufflex sanding film on the final clear coat, I'll be up to 4000 grade.
The plan view changes have created greater complexity throughout the front end. The fenders and headlight covers are quite different. The hood surfaces were raised and blended into the surrounding areas. The radiator opening was moved closer to the windscreen, deepened and reshaped.
Timber Mate, from Australia, is an excellent filler and was used to raise the hood and make many other adjustments. Symmetry is improved by gridding it off and comparing side-to-side and top-to-bottom 'Z' heights. That process will continue as surface finishing gets smoother.
Reshaping the fenders and keeping them reasonably symmetrical is a challenge. The body's telltale highlight runs from the rear of the door, along and over the top of the fender, down and around the headlight covers and across the entire hood leading edge. It's a bit tricky.
I use a dial test indicator to check the height from spot to spot. Each spot is measured and compared side-to-side. The right fender in this photo has been finished and the other must be matched to it.
Marks are used to help me know whether spots are too high or low. "0" indicates the right height and "///" indicates it is too high. Repeated careful shaping and remeasuring helps to match them up. After the fender tops are done, the rest of the fenders can be developed accordingly.
Generous fender fillets are part of the sensuous shape so they're being added here. They're not a constant radius from top to bottom. The chrome ball-shaped tool helped to get them started, but fine tuning by hand will be needed.
3M Flexible sanding sheets are great for helping work the compound-curve surfaces. Moving up to 320 grit shows progress. Painting will start after about 800 grit.
The turntable will be mounted in the spray booth to be able to properly spray this 10-pound (4.5 kg) Lola. It's just too heavy to nimbly hold and rotate while maintaining a constant spray distance and moving from bottom to top and all around. Even on the turntable it will be a challenge.
This front corner has quite a way to go; but it does show the process, since you can see multiple layers of corrections all the way back to the green glazing used in the original shape.
Once at this stage it gets confusing to tell what needs to be done next - time for primer.
Primer reveals the problems and shows what needs to be fixed. Reshape-fill-sand-prime is a continuous cycle through to painting.
Most of the rear fender and engine bay surfaces are ready to be moved along into finer grit sanding and sealing before primer. The new rear spoiler tabs have been integrated into the body and basic shaping started.
Over the 40+ years of its life, the Lola's original spoiler tabs became dinged and broken, so replacing them with new ones was important to strengthen them as well.
The old beat-up tab has been removed, and a slot was cut and chiseled to recess the new tab into the body for additional strength. New tabs were made from Poplar, which is more finely grained than Jelutong and will be more forgiving of the occasional bump.
One new tab blank is being dry-fitted before gluing in place.
You can see the finicky sanding that remains in the taillights and engine bay areas. The old lacquer has crazed and must be scraped and sanded down to the original primer so that it doesn't cause problems as new primer and paint is added. It may have crazed, but it is still quite difficult to remove from the nooks and crannies.
After gluing in place, the tabs have been roughly sized with a plane. The top surfaces will be blended with the existing spoiler in the center section and the bottom surfaces will be filleted to blend into the rear fenders.
All in all, a lot of progress has been made, and it looks more sensuous than ever.
Links to previous Lola T70 posts are below.