Thats one awesome car and garage Jack. I Think I have a slight case of garage envy and thats saying something since I own a 8500 sq ft body/repair shop

 

Thanks guys.

Mooty, if I had to make the choice, I'd take the car for two good reasons: One is that choosing the car would make life with my wife a lot better. Two is that the woman won't look nearly as good at 41 as the car does -- much less 51, 61 or 71.

Flying Finn, the width allowed after the center pillar stakes its territory is one of many compromises of the shop. But if that pillar hadn't been there, I never would have had the center island bench, which does a nice job of making a work area on the right side that's bounded by four different work surfaces. I suppose a bench on casters would be more flexible, while still offering the same benefits. But I was stuck with the pillar.

Still, I've got all the access I need to the drivetrain and rear wheels. And with the front wheels there's still plenty of space for getting the basic work done.

With the doors? Well, I get better access when the car is up:



It's actually pretty nice to work on a lot of the cabin stuff standing -- without having to support myself on my knees.

 

And for anyone who's wondering what the video is, here's a new link for the second page:

 

I hear you and it was obvious pillar dictated a bit on the overall lay-out which is very good. I'm a designer and have done a lot of lay-outs (Cruise Ship interiors so a lot of lounges, bars & restaurants where space is at premium) and also appreciate a good, working lay-out that functions well.

Might be a "blessing in disguise" that the pillar is where it is (although it always could've been moved with a little work) because now there is more space where most of the work is done (between & at all the work surfaces) instead of a lot of space next to the car. As long as you can take the wheels off adequately, that's pretty much all the space you need.
And of course you can always park the car closer to one side than other when needed, I speak from experience as my garage is small...
Photo attached, as you can see, when I start working on my car, I need to move bunch of stuff first... By far from ideal but it works.

By the way, if you (or anyone else) is in need of unused RSR fiberglass front fenders, those grey things left of car in bubble wrap could be yours.
(I bought them supposedly as 993 fenders but they're for 911 and now just take up space I don't have!)

Love the downplayed colors of your garage too, works real good.

 

Thank you. And thanks all the more, since you're actually a designer and not a guy who's just plain playing it by ear, like me.

Assuming you've got a few minutes, I'd be interested in any input in my only other stab at putting a 'space' together: the deck and pergola I built behind my house. Here's a link with the whole build documented:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/s...d.php?t=201117

And here's a recent snapshot.



I did a lot of Googling to see what had been done with steel arches and shade fabric, but couldn't find anyone who'd thought to make a Gothic style arch out of steel to keep the stuff from looking as 'strictly functional' as a barrel arch or whatever. In the end, I had to squash my arch down a little for height issues, but the family has been very happy with it. (Who knows, though -- as a designer, you might hate it. I'm curious.)

And of course, if anyone else is interested in giving me an opinion, I'm interested in that, too.

 

jack,

my 2 cents as an architect.
the overall feel is very nice.
some minor comments would be the roof covering and the tracery nature and airiness of the steel arches are a bit in conflict with the heavy wall. though one can argue you moved from brick wainscot to wood panels then to lighter covering as an expression of materials. but it's not very coherent. i would also use much lighter colored floor to "lighten" the subsidiary structure to the main house. but then again, designers are full of theoretical BS. as long as the space works for you and you feel good in it, you got it made.

 

Don't beat yourself up so badly. That's a pretty common garage situation for a 944 owner. :lol:

 

I appreciate the input, John.

Maybe like you, I've got a day job doing something that a healthy portion of the population thinks 'if I sat down and tried that, I'll bet everyone would be surprised by how good it would be.' And while there have been screenplays written by amateurs that have come out all right, the vast majority are awful and it's hard to sustain an actual career by running on nothing but gut instinct. Sooner or later, you've got to learn the craft.

So I'd never say I did a great job of design on my deck -- at least, not in any context that included professionals. But I guess everyone on this board can understand why sometimes it's fun to try something even though you know full well the outcome is going to be just okay, relative to a pro's work. Otherwise, all of us would be hiring professional drivers to race our cars for us. We get a lot of satisfaction out of our amateur efforts.

You're right about the lack of coherence of the materials. They were chosen pretty randomly, based on budget and happenstance. I cut out the non-rotted section of the old cedar fence in the back and had to fill in the bottom 32" with something -- and then happened on the slate stone stuff in the kitchen section of the hardware store. I pulled the gray color for the wood from that stone, and ended up using the same slate for the risers for all the steps. No plan at all. I like it, but it wasn't like there were any other options considered. Likewise the decking color -- it was the least expensive example I could find of those Brazilian hardwoods. I love it as a surface (and I'd better, since it was almost half of the whole project's budget, including the furniture). But I never really gave a thought to its color.

Like you say, the deck fits into the category of 'the owner being happy with it.' Which is a good point to hit, even if it includes a bundle of random choices.

I will say, though -- the one point in the process where I actually felt like I'd 'designed' something was with the gate. I incorporated a candle into the design (it's got a flickering yellow-white LED in it, which makes it safer and easier) and also echoes the Gothic arch idea in a way that I like the looks of and hadn't seen before. I bent the steel and welded it all together.



(All 36 candles light up with the flick of one switch.)

But I appreciate any compliments at all from a professional. Again, I see it as an outsider's stab at this sort of project. And I'm proud of it in that context. And as the guy who paid for it, I'm also proud of bringing it in at a pretty modest budget -- about 6.5k for the structure and lighting (including 4K for that hardwood) and another 3.5K for all the furniture. I don't know what the budget range would normally be for this sort of thing, if the homeowner just wrote the checks, but the price was right for me -- more money for track tires.

 

^ dont get me wrong, i am beyond impressed with your work, including "design". before you stated it, i realized that you must have reused some materials espeically from your chronicle in the garage journal link. coherency is ONE of many design languages, or BS as i call it. i have no matching furnitures of silverware in my house. i go out of my way to mismatch them. that's how i like it. so i am not just crazy with cars... i am just crazy. most of your "design" are very warm and soft. it's a hard quality to master. while my stuff are cold, barren and austere. google "wurster hall in uc berkeley." that's the architecture dept. a total cluster fk design which i love ..... then google tadao ando (one of my thesis advisors), he is a pritzker winner (nobel prize in architecture sort to speak), his stuff are also cold and inhumane... now you know i am carzy and cold blooded, dont block me when you see me coming up on track...

but really, when you quit your day job, pls come up and work on my garage and make it more useful hahaha

btw, you got to teach me welding. i love fire. you should see me with a plasma cutter. watch out.

 

Hi !

Thanks so much for taking the time to initially post this, and then also, to update the thread for those of us who missed it the first time around.

1) The "vibe" of this video is just wonderful, the visuals, the editing, the music, the narration, I really think something wonderful was captured here, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, a real pleasure. Thank you. (The video has an "Endless Summer" feel, in a sense...)

2) The car, no, more precisely, the mission statement for this car, is wonderful as well. I think so many times it seems to be the easiest or perhaps most pragmatic approach to have the family car and then oh also the load carrying car and oh also the zippy sports car and oh also the track car. This is such an elegant and under-utilized approach. One car to do it all. I would imagine that this is very satisfying. Congratulations.

Thanks for posting, Van.
And thanks for sharing a slice of your life with us all, Jack.
Best wishes.

 

Wow, the old thread comes back up. Time for an update. With pictures, like a Christmas card.

First off, thank you very much, Dan. The video was made for Petrolicious by Josh Clason and Barmak Behdadnia -- two very talented guys. They aren't with Petrolicious anymore; mine was one of that site's earlier videos.

The garage is right about 9 years into its life post-refurb and reinvention, now. I wouldn't say it's finished. But it's fully functional. I cleaned it up a few days back, so here's the builder posing for a selfie inside his creation.



The projects in the garage from this past couple of weeks were an odd half-height coat rack and also some kids' art caddies for my daughter's pre-school.

I'd never rounded off the ends of steel tubing before. This was mostly done with a hammer.



This picture was taken before I painted it, but it gives you an idea of the function.



I almost feel like I could pinstripe a car after figuring out how to do this lettering.



The car is doing well at 44 years of age. Here's an illustration of it I recently had done by a guy I found here on Reenlist. It's AWESOME how an illustration takes care of those stone chips.



I'm still primarily focusing on improving my lap time at my local track -- I'm out there about eight events a year, both driving and instructing. I still drive the car around town as well. My son and I drove it up to Rennsport Reunion this year, and he got to go through 10 hours of Harry Potter on tape -- since I would worry about his hearing on a trip that long if he didn't have some protection on. Plus, it kept him entertained.

I recently made a newer, bigger wing for the car that bent both of my uprights in its first test. It's always fun to see a theoretical improvement in a component translate into real world (and upright-damaging) power. I'm working on some modifications to the front splitter now to offset the rear.

The year after this thread came out, Germany's Auto Bild TV made a clip about the car and my work at Willow Springs with it. So if you want to see the owner slightly older and grayer, but still working on getting just a little bit quicker, here's the English-language version of that clip:



That one got a nice write-up from Road & Track, shortly after it came out. Click here to go to that story.

Here's the thumbnail-size version.



And finally (in case you're still reading), the Auto Bild photographer Justin Evidon got this picture, which is pretty much my favorite of me and my car -- moments after I'd finally gotten the 1:26.

 

Wow, that last pic is just fantastic