The Splinter

There's this graduate design student down in North Carolina who's building a car entirely out of wood for a graduate project. Not just 'a car' though, a mid-engine supercar. His name is Joe Harmon and I have found myself obsessing over his project. At my work there's a handful of websites that I frequently use as time wasters, and joeharmondesign.com is near the top of the list. The fact that he's building the entire car out of wood aside, his website, blog, and flicker pages are incredible, and definitely worth a browse. Check it out.


Just a few details that I find fascinating:

1. The body panels are made from woven strips of cherry. They built an old school loom to weave the strips of 1/8th inch cherry veneer that they cut with a homemade veneer slicer.
   
2. The leaf springs are made from laminated osage orange.
3. The engine is a twin-supercharged Cadillac Northstar, and to reduce heat in the engine compartment they flipped the heads over so the intakes are on the sides of the engine and the exhaust is routed out the top.
   

I'm not certain what the state of the car is right now, except that they don't seem to be working on it at the moment. I have seen pictures of it at shows and what not, so I know that it is at least assembled, but I don't think they actually have it running.