Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
I prefer the side by side seating. The front axle is 60 inches wide, and everything seems to fit well together with some room for side protection.
The curves match the template perfectly for best aerodynamics, and the design of the VW axle gives you a decent amount of collision protection as well as the natural tendency of the trailing arms to deflect and offset impact to the side.
Overall length of just over 12 feet is all I need to package everything.
regards
Mech
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I understand all of that. However, how would side impact protection in a tandem design be any different in design than duplicating the side impact of a wider car, where the driver is sitting right next to the door? The only advantage in your design is that a driver would have about 3 feet of space from his right shoulder to the right door. From the left side of the car, the impact protection would (or could be) designed absolutely the same in a tandem design.
Ofcourse, the disadvantage would be double the frontal area. If you plan on driving around with a passenger 100% of the time, then fine. But is that ever the case with all of us? I'm in my car by myself more than 90% of the time I'm driving it. The right half of my car is completely unnecessary at that point.
You could make an open wheeled tandem design, much like the HyperRocket, and still have the same usable interior space as your design. Hell, you could also design the space behind the driver's seat to have a removable rear seat for extra cargo space.
If it were me building this project (which i wish i could do, not enough free time), I would build a reverse tadpole tandem just like the HyperRocket, except it would have a trunk space behind the rear passenger seat, and have a removable rear seat for added cargo space. That way, regardless if i have a passenger in the car or not, I would always have the most efficient design for FE without any wasted space.
Just throwing my thoughts out there. Good luck on your project!