zagato door handles

I had been experimenting with the SubD feature in Rhino so I could design a small scale buck for a Bizzarrini. Hans saw my post and said that I should borrow a book that he had on the topic. He said he would mail it, but I just told him that I'm come down and visit again. I asked if I could bring a student and co-worker and we got the go-ahead. When we got there, Hans asked me if I might be able to create some copies of the unique Zagato door handles that go on the Zagato Ferrari. One of the handles has a cracked housing and they wanted to make certain that the color matched and so welding was out of the question. The housing are really cool and do doubt, Tesla ripped off the idea with their handles. The Zagato handles have a center handle blade that pops out quickly like a switchblade when you push the push button to the side of the handle. You then pull on the handle and the door unlatches. Zagato put these on several of the cars that they made racing versions of like Abarth,  Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Masarati, Aston Martin and Ferrari.

The Ferrari that AMS is building required a ton of sheetmetal work. It is one of five in existence and I believe it is the last of the five if I remember correctly. It doesn't have the signature Double Bubble roof, but it my opinion the lines of this car are the best of this series. The "greenhouse" is amazing with beautiful curved Lexan windshield and back window. It also has a better shaped rear pillar than the Zagato Ferrari pictured above. it's going to be a beauty when it's finished!

I brought the handles home and got started on disassembly and measuring of all the components. Hans had mentioned that they might like to have the handles made in the same method that Zagato would have if possible. I did some research on the handles and found some of the pics above. The Lancia handles are pretty much the same as what I had been given. I decided to think about making molds from the original handles and casting but figured the shrinkage of the wax and eventually metal would be too much. I'll post more on this soon. I moved ahead with 3D modeling the handles so I at least had a back up plan and could still CNC cut the aluminum housings. The inner blade was bronze that's been chrome plated, and the push button is either chrome plated steel or magnetic alloy of stainless steel. I developed a full 3D model of the housing and got to work cutting a prototype on the Tormach CNC. In the mean time I modeled the inner blade as well using my new SubD skills, due to its irregular shape. I'll post more on the other stages of this multi pronged attempt at making these reproduction handles. 

In the mean time enjoy this cool design and be like me and dream of the imaginary car you would build around these handles...