Velocar cyclecar semi-replica.

silverbear said:

I meant "responsible and adult like" in comparison to me. The headlight will work nicely. Cool photo makes the Colombe look really fast. The driver's helmet could be an inverted flowerpot. I wonder if the cigarette made them go faster or was to steady the nerves.
SB

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I understood what you meant Silverbear I was just having a little fun

They were going for the 24 hour 350cc cyclecar record when that photo was taken and I believe they were successful too. Some folk have commented that in the absence any lighting on the cyclecar being used for the attempt the glow of the driver's cigarette must have lit the way during the night time stages

After much thinking I've pretty much decided on the bread and butter ordinary body, but with some aspects of the sports versions trimmed back cover over the front wheel. Quite a few French cyclecars had a similar body style during the 1920s and it very much marks them out as being of French origins.
I think I will need to put a door on the left hand side though as with my long skirts and creaky joints climbing in over the side is no longer an option. My cyclecar will be left hand drive like the original Colombe, but with such a small vehicle which side the steering wheel is on is largely academic. My daughter is still agile enough that she can climb over the other side to get to her seat if she wants to

More CAD work this evening, but I think I'm going to have to see if I can beg another long bicycle carton from the bike shop down in the township before I have the whole body mapped out.

Zoran, the body I will be building will be mostly plywood and more than likely canvas covered as was often done with French cyclecars.

I've just had another CV joint and axle offered to me. I wonder if building quirky semi-replica French cyclecars could become habit forming

Not too sure at the moment Ludwig, - I suppose a lot will depend on what's available at a price I can afford.
Good tip about the side curtain fabric though

I'm tired today. Attempting to do housework, the week's laundry and work on my cyclecar yesterday was definitely too much for one day.

I decided to concentrate most of my efforts towards the front of the chassis as sorting out the steel bracing for the suspension and steering as well as wrapping a body covering over the engine, gearbox and fuel tank is a very important part of the whole structure. Once that's done the rest of the body and the rear suspension should be a walk in the park.
In typical French fashion for the times the body tapers so it's wider at the top than the bottom and quite a bit of cut and shut CAD work was involved with getting that right. At the cowl the body is 4 inches wider at the top than the bottom of the chassis frame which seems to fit best with the photographic evidence I have.



I found a vintage bonnet mascot design for my cyclecar too which I really like

The courier delivered the Peugeot bits this afternoon and if weight is any measure of a bargain I didn't do too badly. According to the 'net a Peugeot 206 is a 'supermini' car so I thought the drive bits would be a dead corker size for my project. In reality the CV joint and axle have turned out to be of considerable size with big working surfaces, - so something tells me I won't be wearing it out ever by feeding the fiery rage of a pre-war Villiers engine through it.

Some clever things will need to be done with the aid of Mr Myford and I'm awfully glad I got a support steady thing and carbide tooling when I originally purchased my lathe because I'm going to need them.

The vendor very kindly sent along the whole bearing support, lower suspension and brake caliper mount thing/assembly with the drive flange and possibly it will be useful once about half of its mass is sawn off and it gets modified so much its own designer wouldn't recognise it. This is going to be sooooooo much fun

I think I mentioned that the NOS Robin petrol tank I purchased cheap arrived earlier. I think it's intended for a generator set, but I wouldn't know for certain. Anyway it's going to be perfect for my cyclecar and that's all that counts really.

Not a lot was done today as I'm not so well, but a fair bit of creative staring over a nice cuppa tea did happen so I'm keeping myself connected with this project.
My daughter was a little shocked that I wasn't going to put an electric motor in the cyclecar, but after a certain amount of pleading and puppy dog eyes on her part I did agree that an electric motor would be tested out at some stage for 'research purposes'.

Posh auction sites for vintage motor vehicles can be very useful for gleaning good detail photos from and when I found pictures of a tiny 1924 Peugeot Quadrilette on one of these sites I knew I was onto a winner. The Quadrilette has virtually the same style of body as the Colombe cyclecar I'm basing my build on which means that the photos should prove to be very useful.
I think a Quadrilette is slightly larger than a Colombe, but the body construction is much the same. Nice details of the folding canvas roof too which is something I needed.
In case anybody is interested the Quadrillette is listed at $75,000.00 so you can understand why I like the idea of replica building so much.

Yes that little Peugeot Quadrilette is a honey alright
The trouble is just about any of the little cars from that era will be beyond the financial reach of the majority of old car enthusiasts

Zoran, I love that little Salmson from Monsieur Hurlot's Holiday. I could almost be tempted away from my love of Colombe/Villard cyclecars, but I shall be strong and resolute and keep my project on the straight and narrow.



Something useful I did find was two pictures of the French style cyclecar body framing that was used on a number of cyclecars of the period. Those pictures will help me a lot.