This is a fictional vintage landspeed record car I designed and built using Second Life ages ago. I started off building a classic belly tanker “lakester.” These were made from the external fuel tanks of World War Two bombers. On the inside I modelled a tube frame which you can see in the image. Then i started to work with the lines to mimic a p-47 thunderbolt. Then I pushed the front tires way out front, mimicking 1920s and 1930s race cars. I realized I’d designed the car very thin, and I wouldn’t be able to put in a flathead v8, which would have been expected anyways. So I modelled a fictional straight 6, based roughly on a blue flame 6, with an even more fictional 3 carb setup. I did do some googling and there was a company that did make a manifold for such a thing. I used p51 mustang air speed and engine RPM dials and other details.
Once the modeling was done I programmed a 2 speed automatic transmission and a separate lever to engage a separate overdrive gear, along with the functioning engine, steering and wheels. If you accelerated just right and used the overdrive you could get the car to more than 200mph as advertised in the manual that came with the car. I mixed engine sounds using harley motorcycle recordings which were layered in Audacity to sound more like 6 cylinders.
For the heads up display, shown in the second color image I used vintage comic book motifs. The buttons and levers function and the levers are inspired by the throttle controls in old bombers.
I also built the desert location which was well suited to breaking speed records. Second Life was and remains a wonderfully creative medium.
One of my Second Life creations, when I was doing such things, both the land/lighting and the car. The idea was to make a car that recalled a nostalgic belly tanker race car, but also to make it look like it had literally been crafted from an airplane fuselage.
