DAMN! THE TORPEDO! A FATHER-SON FIXATION

摘要

When car designer Preston Tucker first imagined the Torpedo, back in the 1940s, it seemed to belong in some fanciful future: butterfly-style doors, fuel injection, an airplane-like engine, and pivoting headlights that turn to light the curved road ahead. Alas, this Jetsons-meets-Gattaca aluminum-skinned road shark never got built. But Bob and Rob Ida are about to change that. The father-son custom-auto team re-creates historical rides for films, and normally they have plenty of source material. But for the Torpedo, the concept car that inspired the iconic Tucker 48 and still inspires automakers, they had nothing but a few 60-year-old sketches-and a 1/4-scale plaster model unearthed in a tobacco barn. So they 3-D-scanned the model, using the data to CNC-machine a wooden frame. Then they hand-hammered an aluminum exterior to fit over the shape.