Jaguar C-X75 puzzle

Think of it like a giant car-shaped puzzle.

That’s how Bay of Islands resident Jeff Cartridge described the ambitious project of building his very own Jaguar C-X75 out of ply.

Cars have always been a big part of Jeff’s life, so when he heard about a man in South Africa that built his own Ferrari from scratch, starting with a true-to-size wooden model, he was inspired to do the same.

It’s how cars were made in the old days. It’s essentially a life-size car body framework. Otherwise known as a ‘body buck’, the wooden car acts as a design masterplan for the real thing.

With a solid structure in place, the next step is to build the body of the car around it.

Choosing to build a Jaguar C-X75 was an obvious choice – Jeff says he’s loved Jags for as long as he can remember.

His Dad even owned a Jaguar when his parents first met. The C-X75 is a rarity, as a concept car best known for its appearance in the James Bond Spectre movie.

After that, the model never went into production – it simply doesn’t exist on the market.

With the design plans in hand, Jeff approached Cutshop® with the idea for his project. I had all the files for every sheet of ply. We needed 30 of them, all 9mm thick and cut by a CNC machine.

Jeff says he was really pleased with how quickly Cutshop® responded to his enquiry, given he was working to a tight timeframe. Bryce was super helpful in resolving the technical issues we encountered converting the files to a format for the CNC machines.

We were able to get the cutting done by our deadline.

Putting the car together was a challenge at first, says Jeff. I did a trial on the boot, I thought to myself ‘I’m not going to do the car first’, but the boot was actually the hardest part!

From there he found his groove – it became  “a bit like putting together a big jigsaw puzzle”.

The way that it was cut was excellent, you had a slot in each sheet and they went together seamlessly.
— Jeff Cartridge

Now taking pride of place in his garage, the car buck serves a reminder of Jeff’s ultimate dream of bringing it to life – complete with its own engine, spaceframe chassis, scissor doors and plush leather interior.

Dave Sutherland

Dave & Debbie opened their Cutshop franchise in 2015, and provides contract cutting services to Auckland's North Shore and the Northland region.

https://cutshop-develop.squarespace.com/north-shore
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