This second part of our body-focused special reports on the fabrication of the upper frame and exterior panels, which sit atop the ladder frame to form the racer’s cigar-shaped body.

At this point, Tsuchiya and his crew had two challenging assignments. The first was to produce the panels, larger than any they had experienced before, by “hand-beating” sheet metal, just as it was done in the days of the original Toyopet Racer.

A time-honored craft, this technique involves manually pounding sheet metal into the desired shape with a hammer instead of using a press or similar equipment. Over his career, Yoshino has had experience fabricating large parts entirely by hand when building prototypes or concept cars. However, these days such jobs have all but disappeared.

Neither the young technicians who handled most of the sheet metal work—including Tetsuya Kondo, Kenji Naito, Yoshiki Horikawa, and Yasuo Yamada—nor their instructor Tsuchiya had experience with hand-beating parts as large as the Toyopet Racer’s body panels. Yoshino hoped to pass on the skills to a new generation by entrusting this work to the team’s younger members.

The second challenge was to complete the body panels without putty, using only welding and polishing to create a beautifully smooth finish.

In fact, the Toyopet Racer restoration team was strongly committed to this “no putty” rule. One of the project’s main goals was to impart Toyota pioneers’ skills, techniques, and spirit. Therefore, the team adopted an overarching principle: build parts using the original methods wherever possible. For the body panels, the butt welding was originally done by hand and not mended with putty. Although using putty in the restoration could certainly give a nice surface finish, the distinctive texture of hand-beaten sheet metal would be lost in the process. Above all, the decision stemmed from the team’s dedication to conveying the effort and passion of those who had come before.

However, not using putty means that body panels must be made to the required shape through hand-beating alone; the welding that joins panels must also be neat and dent-free to ensure a smooth finish. All of this raises the bar for those doing the work.

All told, Tsuchiya, along with Yamada and other young members, spent several thousand hours working on the sheet metal by hand. While doing this alongside their regular duties, they learned from Yamashita the vanishing skill of hand-forming sheet metal into large parts from Yamashita, and they also managed to complete the racer’s body panels.

The next step was to weld the body panels together and create a smooth finish without relying on putty. This was another difficult task for the younger members, however, they managed to get it done.

These sentiments were shared by Watanabe and Tsunekawa, who tackled the welding and sheet metal challenges alongside their younger colleagues.

The upcoming sixth installment in this series will feature the team that produced the car’s front axle I-beam by forging, another of the Toyopet Racer restoration project’s traditional manufacturing methods.

(Text: Yasuhito Shibuya)