By the way, the “splinter” part is not exactly a pun since it's also the actual name of the vehicle. "I wanted to show that wood isn't an antiquated, low-technology material," Joe Harmon said. Well folks, this isn't as low tech as some people might say. Well, except maybe for the Amish-like way of actually transforming huge logs of wood into the pleasant and speed inducing shape of a supercar, inner structure and wheel rims included.
To give you an idea of just how much wood is used in the car, just think about the following: the truck-style transverse leaf springs are made from Osage Orange wood, the tie rods are made from hickory and almost everything else including the suspension control arms are made out of press-laminated plywood. Plywood! This man is obviously gifted if he makes everything work.
As for the engine, the pistons are made from honey-pressed paper and the fuel tank is a huge brown paper bag from 7-11. OK, scratch that, we couldn't help it. The engine is actually a highly modified Cadillac V8 from the Northstar series, while the manual gearbox is another GM product, a transaxle six-speed Corvette unit. The body itself weighs around 1100 pounds, while Harmon believes the final road-ready weight of the car to reach about 2500 pounds. Coincidentally, that is almost the same weight it would have had if all the wood had been replaced with much-more-expensive carbon fiber.
After three years in the making, including the design of the project and all the brainstorming sessions which were probably carried out in the beginning, the car is now almost ready and will be drivable sometime in the course of 2009.
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