Autoblog

Building the Bailey Blade!

Just the other day I said to myself, "I should write Neal Bailey at Bailey Speed and see how he's coming on the Blade." Last time we heard from him was back in March, which is like 20 blog years. But before I could fire off a "wassup" to Mr. Bailey, I got a message from him with a set of new videos, one of which you see above, and two more after the jump. They look to record about five or six days of work in Neal's garage.

The first time-lapse vid shows Neal hard at work on his second Blade wooden buck using an updated design. The second and third videos document he and a friend during the foaming process. At about 5:56 during Part 3, the time-lapse gives way to Neal's commentary on plans for the car including carbon fiber belly pans, radiators behind the functional hood scoops, and why he decided to make, as he says, "another car with side vents." He then gives us a quick tour of his garage including the obligatory beer fridge but no-so-common T56 transmission waiting to be installed in the developing musclecar. For those at work, be warned that the beginning of both videos on the jump have sound that could greatly annoy co-workers not accustomed to garage work. Just drop the volume until you see the action slow to real-time.

At about 13:45 of the third video, we get a quick tour of the car's interior, which for now is nothing more than a couple of unanchored Corbeau racing seats. But Neal tells us that he's built the car to fit his 6'4" frame, so he says potential buyers in the NBA hopefully won't look like contortionists in the car.

Neal tells us he still plans to have a rolling prototype by the end of the year, but major chassis design changes have pushed the production back to the first or second quarter of 2009.

Thanks for the update, Neal. Let us know when it's our turn for some seat time.


[Videos hosted at Streetfire.net]