G Body Concept Cars

I, too, like the new Challenger and I've thought about the same exact thing. Giving my Cutlass a newer "retro" styled look. Unfortunately, I'm not an artist, designer, or fabricator. Excellant idea I think but I doubt I'll ever be able myself to pull it off or to afford to have it done.

Lol, ive been trying to sketch some stuff, but it seems that no matter what i do the simple g-body original design still looks the best. Im not giving up yet on it though, but its a pretty hard design.

The things that date the design the most are the things that ruin the aerodynamics of these cars. The door windows is one of the big offenders. A retro style G body should use flush mounted door glass and framed windows. It should also do away with the large amount of windshield trim and instead flush mount the front and back windows as well. Then the headlights should be flush, and I would argue that the nose is too high off the ground and the base of the bumper needs to be lower to the ground. Remember that an important component of modern design is minimizing airflow under the car. Likewise, the front end would need to be smoother and lack protuberances such as the bumper guards, and anything else that sticks out or in. I would also forgo the formal roof line of the basic G body, and instead use the one from the MCSS Aerocoupe or GP 2+2. The door handles are also a major aerodynamic flaw and I would use a flush mount design instead. While I was at it, I would move the antenna from the front fender to the rear of the car. The gas tank would also need to be moved under the back seat and a fuel filler door added to one of the quarter panels to improve rear impact crash safety. This also helps with handling and weight distribution by reducing the polar moment aft of the rear wheels and the tendency of the fuel weight to act as a pendulum and generate a counter force to the direction the car is turning. Then there are the front fenders and wheel placement. The engine's crank pulley needs to be behind the front axle center line so as to help with the weight distribution, which would necessitate a longer section of metal between the front of the door and the rear of the wheel arch. Another thing on modern cars is the wheels. New cars do not have deep dish wheels for aerodynamics as the shallower the dish, the less the disturbance to air flow the wheel presents. Oh, and the door mirrors should be incorporated into the doors so that they act as one piece, and the drip rails would have to go. Finally, the windshield glass would need to be raked back far more than it normally is. I hope this gives you a few ideas!

well here is what i came up with

I sloped the windows front and back, made the windows, chopped the roof about 2 inches, lowered the front and rear bumpers, widened the fenders some, changed to a wider lower bumper strips, extended the rear window, and raised the hood some.

You need to push the front wheels forward. Newer cars would never be built with that engine position. I would also consider using a Malibu coupe roof line instead of the chopped off Cutlass one, and a rounder transition to the back glass than the abrupt corner you have. You also should eliminate the bumper trim strips altogether. Remember that modern automotive retro design is very minimalist in nature. I could draw it out with pencil and paper, but I am an artistic perfectionist and it would take me the better part of 2 hours to get it right. I wish I had a good graphic design program to play with (or something free and open source). It would be fairly easy to do that way. Plus, I wouldn't run out of erasers like I usually do!

This got me thinking, and I came upon this site offering to teach graphic design for free using free software. I'll post it in case you are interested.

http://www.opengraphicdesign.net/

I may try it out when I am bored so that I can learn a new skill.

I was trying to keep it reconizable, i pretty much left the front end where it was, but Ill try moving the front wheel forward some.

i know money is tight, but if you check into it, you can get the basic adobe cs4 through your college for less than 200 bucks.