Learn how a vintage Stromberg is assembled, without smelling like gas
There’s a lot to love about cars. Many appreciate the sense of freedom they bestow, others can stare for hours at a perfectly shaped bit of sheet metal catching the light just right, and others revel in the symphony of finely crafted machinery whirring and ticking along to harness fuel and turn it into motion. Juan Seren, a mechanical designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina, seems like he’s one of the latter. A longtime lover of classic cars—pre-war American cars in particular—he’s managed to tie his design talents with his passion for classics through his hobby of creating detailed animations of car parts.
His animation of a Stromberg Aerotype two-barrel carburetor is as close to the real thing as possible, down to the “Aerotype” script embossed on the side and cotter pins being bent into position. “I believe that the secret to creating an interesting video is not to omit any detail in the modeling of each piece,” Seren says. We agree, as the video is particularly mesmerizing.
“This carburetor came into my hands when I was a teenager attending technical high school almost 25 years ago,” Seren tells us. His example wasn’t totally complete, but he knew it was used on plenty of ’30s and ’40s Buicks powered by straight-eight engines. His online research tracking down the missing bits led him to the Buick Club of America, which helped him learn about all of the unaccounted for pieces, the heat-operated automatic choke in particular.
Each part was meticulously measured and then rendered in 3D using computer drafting software. Throttle and choke shafts were virtually machined using Boolean operations, brass hardware was given the proper color, and gaskets were digitally cut out of digital gasket material (bearing Seren’s website). Once the painstaking process of creating each and every part was complete, Seren used a video editor to animate the assembly process.
All told, Seren spent about four months modeling and animating this six-minute video during his spare time. If you enjoy this one, there are others that are equally detailed on his website, but this one is perhaps our favorite.
