The Ugly Duckling is Street Legal

We have passed the NSRA inspection, traveled to Springfield Illinois to complete the state paperwork to obtain a title, renewed and transferred the license plates from my Stalker and obtained insurance coverage.  Lots of time involved but those tasks got done.

The pictures submitted to the state follow:

Front view

Rear View

Right side

Left side

 

Now that we are legal and insured we can actually drive the car!  Hooray!

I have about 250 miles on it so far. All gentle street miles with no adventurous driving.  Compared to previous kit cars that I've driven it is extremely stable on the highway. Also wind buffeting in the cockpit is much less than we were used to. This is even with the crude Lexan windshield and wiper blade/motor that I have rigged up.

The Ugly Duckling reference mentioned above came from a fellow we talked to at a Sunday evening Cruise Night Car Show that we stopped at.  He commented about the D2's lack of a body. I replied that it was coming and showed him pictures of the current state of the body that we had printed from Palatov's website.  He smiled at the pictures, nodded at the car and said "that is the ugly duckling". He then looked back at the pictures and said "and it will become a beautiful swan".  That seems like an appropriate observation to me.

While waiting for the body, I have plenty of work to do.

The speedometer is accurate up to about 40 MPH but then seems to read low.  I suspect that one of the speedo magnets has fallen off the right front wheel hub or the sensor to magnet gap is wrong.  In addition the fuel gauge seems to not be showing correct levels.

Fixing the above are my next priorities. Then getting a digital dash and data logging system purchased, installed and working.

More posts to follow.  The really fun stuff has begun.