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#1 BLAMELESS

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Posted 08 June 2007 - 02:39 AM

hi all... im in the throws of making up a Z-cars STYLE mini but i need some plans or chassis designs... can anyone point me in the right direction? cheers...

Edited by BLAMELESS, 09 June 2007 - 03:07 AM.


#2 s00049643

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 03:54 PM

i have the measurements for a z cars mini frame....................

#3 Jammy

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 03:57 PM

i have the measurements for a z cars mini frame....................

Which I'm sure Chris at Z Cars will not want you passing on!! Chris has already said he will prosecute anyone found to be copying Z Car frames!

#4 smudger

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 06:55 PM

sorry, but if he changes it just a bit, then its no longer a copy.

just look at the grp bits.

all he needs to do is put an extra bar in place and its not the same is it.

not being funny about it or anything, just cant see how he can try to protect it when all you need to do is change it just a bit.

#5 ChipsezMini!

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 08:30 PM

Not sure what kind of recearch you're doing, but how about.......

Competition Car Suspension: Design, Construction, Tuuning by A. Staniforth
or
Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, by William F. Milliken and Douglas L. Milliken
or
Race Car Engineering & Mechanics by Paul Van Valkenburgh

#6 mika

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 08:43 PM

Not sure what kind of recearch you're doing, but how about.......

Competition Car Suspension: Design, Construction, Tuuning by A. Staniforth
or
Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, by William F. Milliken and Douglas L. Milliken
or
Race Car Engineering & Mechanics by Paul Van Valkenburgh

well i can see why chriss is trying to keep hold of his design it works i am also building a spaceframe mini mine is based on an old magure mini but i have rear arms and diff off zcars so far carnt fault there service and help but any help with angle of tubes or rear arm mount point would be good for me pics and a biuld diary will be up soon

#7 Jammy

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 09:41 PM

Well if you ask me you HAVE to work it out for yourself when building something like this. If you do just copy someone elses measurements you won't know what to do when something goes wrong.

by the way, I recommend that book by A. Staniforth, very VERY good!

#8 z cars chris

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Posted 21 July 2007 - 11:43 PM

there are very good reasons why i will protect our product its quite simple if you do copy it almost identically then you can be infringing our design rights if you change just one bar or add just one bar then this is not enough to get away with it
there have been several attempted copies of our cars done some of them by so called mini experts who already run traditional mini garages
a z cars mini is not a normal mini
most other mini garages havent the facilities or experiance to weld together the framework to a suitable standard for it to be a,accurate and b, safe
it takes years to build up a reputation and having second rate copies out there ruins ours because they inevitably get sold as "a z cars mini"
we have consistantly proved both on road and now on the race track that our cars work ( this years race results 7 starts 5 wins 2 2nd places)
the courts will quite happily deal with this sort of thing and regularily do so what most people dont realise is that if another person builds and sells several cars/kits then the court will order compensation equivalent to the full retail cost of the kits this is to protect the financial status and the reputation of the original inventor/designer
i have absolutly no problem at all with someone building and designing their own product and applaud anyone who has the where withall to set about a desing and bring it to fruition
the design and modification of the monte carlo has cost us in excess of £120000 if anyone thinks im going to roll over and lie still when ive pumped three years hard work into that project they will find im a very determined adversary indeed
i didnt spend 26 years in the police for nothing and giving evidence in a court does not bother me in any way
another aspect of all this isthe cost and the hassle factor
if i serve papers regarding this type of offence you would have to defend or accept the charges if you accepth them then the court will find for z cars
if you fight it on the grounds that its actually your own design you have to prove when you designed it produce drawings etc etc
ive been building them for 5 years,can produce valid documentation of sales both here and abroad,we even have a dvd (which has been ripped off recently and now stopped after we intervened)
if you fight it then you will need a soliciter initially then a barrister for the day in court
barristers cost £1000 per day for every day they are in the courts
a soliciter will cost you £50 per letter written,plus anything up to £500 per day in court
when you lose you pay your bill and mine so double everything ............ im starting to feel sorry for anyone daft enough to do this
i daresay you are all getting the picture here but finally i will protect it on behalf of my customers who when they come to sell their cars need to know that there are only genuine Z cars out there and the second hand value hasnt been ruined by shoddy replicas killing their resale value
chris

#9 roofless

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Posted 22 July 2007 - 01:13 PM

there are very good reasons why i will protect our product its quite simple if you do copy it almost identically then you can be infringing our design rights if you change just one bar or add just one bar then this is not enough to get away with it
there have been several attempted copies of our cars done some of them by so called mini experts who already run traditional mini garages
a z cars mini is not a normal mini
most other mini garages havent the facilities or experiance to weld together the framework to a suitable standard for it to be a,accurate and b, safe
it takes years to build up a reputation and having second rate copies out there ruins ours because they inevitably get sold as "a z cars mini"
we have consistantly proved both on road and now on the race track that our cars work ( this years race results 7 starts 5 wins 2 2nd places)
the courts will quite happily deal with this sort of thing and regularily do so what most people dont realise is that if another person builds and sells several cars/kits then the court will order compensation equivalent to the full retail cost of the kits this is to protect the financial status and the reputation of the original inventor/designer
i have absolutly no problem at all with someone building and designing their own product and applaud anyone who has the where withall to set about a desing and bring it to fruition
the design and modification of the monte carlo has cost us in excess of £120000 if anyone thinks im going to roll over and lie still when ive pumped three years hard work into that project they will find im a very determined adversary indeed
i didnt spend 26 years in the police for nothing and giving evidence in a court does not bother me in any way
another aspect of all this isthe cost and the hassle factor
if i serve papers regarding this type of offence you would have to defend or accept the charges if you accepth them then the court will find for z cars
if you fight it on the grounds that its actually your own design you have to prove when you designed it produce drawings etc etc
ive been building them for 5 years,can produce valid documentation of sales both here and abroad,we even have a dvd (which has been ripped off recently and now stopped after we intervened)
if you fight it then you will need a soliciter initially then a barrister for the day in court
barristers cost £1000 per day for every day they are in the courts
a soliciter will cost you £50 per letter written,plus anything up to £500 per day in court
when you lose you pay your bill and mine so double everything ............ im starting to feel sorry for anyone daft enough to do this
i daresay you are all getting the picture here but finally i will protect it on behalf of my customers who when they come to sell their cars need to know that there are only genuine Z cars out there and the second hand value hasnt been ruined by shoddy replicas killing their resale value
chris


Have you actually copywritten all aspects of your design, or do you just hold the intellectual rights to your specific solutions ? I've often wondered if it is possible to hold all the rights on a mechanical design that has inherant similarities to an extremely broad range of other existing products / mechanical design solutions that have existed for some considerable time.

I work in a quite different field but design copyright and intellectual rights form a very large part of what I do, and I find the whole area of design rights a complete minefield open to exploitation in many ways.

We take considerable concern from manufacturers in China and Malaysia where intellectual rights have little respect for original designers, they are free to ship and sell in the UK and distributors of their products are touchless as they in their own right have not infringed any rights whatsoever unless they specifically market their product as a direct and definative alternative to yours, and use your company or brand name in their marketing message.

A very Sticky area.

Edited by roofless, 22 July 2007 - 01:14 PM.


#10 R1minimagic

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Posted 22 July 2007 - 06:44 PM

If someone is making something for their own use then i dont think there is an issue. It is when they are trying to make a business out of it that it could become a problem...

#11 z cars chris

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Posted 22 July 2007 - 07:57 PM

mini magic has the general jist of it in that a one off for personal use isnt worth bothering with but someone selling more than one and making a business from it is a different matter
we had a lad selling the dvds on e bay having ripped them off by copying them he had sold quite a few by the time we got to him that only involved a small amount of money both gained by him and lost by us and mini films but the whole point of this is that when you spend the time money and effort to come up with a product then market it and develop it further its tantamount to theft as far as im concerned and really really gets my goat
if the people copying the product whatever it is were any good they would come up with their own solution which they could develop and market to make an honest living you have to doubt the integrity of the copiers if they will rip the original off they will rip you off as a customer by cutting corners and not offering a service like anything in life you get what you pay for
chris

#12 wilcooper

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Posted 23 July 2007 - 08:46 PM

its poo init when people copy your own ideas....starts right back when your at school....

i remember (not really as big but..) in infants school, drawing some wicked picture, which was my idea etc, and this girl next to me goes right ahead and copies me, i was annoyed, told the teacher, all she said was, she must think its good then.....

but ye anyway...

what if someone came up with with a different framework design, and started a business through it not knowing of z cars, what would you do chris?

would that be classed as copyright, or not?

if someone used almost identical plans to yours (not using yours though, just making their own design, but comes out similar to yours) but only produced one as a toy car, would you take them to court? would it affect you if they came to sell it say on ebay as a 'z car' or not?

by the way, im not asking the questions because i want to copy :P just intrigued, went in adyzr1's r1 other week, and was :( immense, loved it! cracking job chris.

#13 z cars chris

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Posted 23 July 2007 - 09:25 PM

if you draw up your own plans and build a car its not a problem its when you copy the thing exactly or near enough exactly then add a bar as was earlier suggested
a few years ago my mate jim at tiger sports cars built a copy of a westfield it used the same wishbone geometry they took him to court for just the wishbone design alone,won and had £250000 off him nearly bankrupted him in the process,westfield themselves were taken to the courts by caterham and lost a substantial amount of money
no one in the lotus seven game is allowed to use the word seven in any of their blurb as caterham will defend their brand vigorously
im not after stopping anyone building minis in their shed just for themselves its those individuals/companies that are out to profit from it by ripping our design off
in my experiance it takes a very very clever person to design then build a car from scratch that will then work correctly out of the box inrvitably there will be good aspects of the design and bad we have been lucky enough to have been involved over 30 years in the building of literally hunderds of different race cars prior to building the mini and can call on vast amounts of practical knowledge in making them work very well straight away furthermore we will be self critical of a design and change it to try and improve the product
nobody ever copied from me at school..... either im too big and scary or i wasnt worth copying from... you can pick whichever you like i wont be offended
whats adys car like i havent seen it in the flesh?
chris

#14 drayton min man

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Posted 23 July 2007 - 09:29 PM

If you are a loyal customer to z cars why would you try and pass on certain information/data etc? after all we've all had to spend our hard earned cash, not just for somebody to copy imitate and and possibly sell on as a "z cars" package and potentially depreciate the value of our cars.

#15 wilcooper

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Posted 23 July 2007 - 10:20 PM

its gorgeous chris, looks so stealthy on the outside, along with the '07 plate mocking other modern cars. Inside, noisy, not much there :P but the seating is really something else, almost being sat on the floor with those seats hes got. his dash and different gearchanger looks wicked, and the blue cage adds a nice bit of colour to it all :(

i took some pics of it, i should upload them to his project, take a look soon :)




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