Old Yeller II - 1959 Balchowsky Buick Special - 3D scanned

Old Yeller II custodian with creator. Ernie Nagamatsu with Max Balchowsky

Being the custodian of a unique historic racing car and enjoying racing it presents the owner with a difficult question: if I crash it how will I get it re-created as it was before? This would include the inevitable idiosyncrasies that gives a classic automobile its character and uniqueness.

Old Yeller II with Bob Bondurant

3D laser scanning is the answer and 3D Engineers, as specialists in this area, was the natural choice for the owner of "Old Yeller II" - Ernie Nagamatsu - to undertake the task of recording the bodywork in case the worst happens.

Old Yeller II nearer the start of its long history

Now the data has been captured it is stored securely in the hope that it will never be needed, but if it is required then we can then use our skills in hammer form and section buck manufacture to create a jig from the scan data. The body can then be made in the real world using traditional techniques.

Old Yeller II meets North American B-25 Mitchell....Two superb designs

Additionally, as part of our process we took 1723 pictures of the car and its surroundings and these were then narrowed down to 226 good ones...as in solely of the vehicle.

Old Yeller II in a superb setting. Mountains meet mountainous torque

Again as part of our standard procedure, these pictures were used to create a Photosynth of the car. This is an excellent way of getting a photo map of the vehicle for future reference. The Old Yeller II Photosynth is here. The most important controls are shown marked in yellow below with the 2D and 3D views being the most useful.

How to navigate a Photosynth

Ernie Nagamatsu racing old Yeller II

....and to prove you cannot get too much of a good thing, here are Ernie and Old Yeller II in their comfort zone of the Sussex Trophy race at Goodwood Revival

Please note that in this case the car was in England and our client in the USA. With our equipment being fully portable, this situation could easily have been reversed and we are available for contracts wherever you are in the world. Should you require any work of this type undertaken, please contact us.

Our scan data straight out of the scanner. After post-processing it will look even better.

With our 3D car scanning method you get a whole car scanned - not half as most companies do - and a fully colorized scan.
This has the benefit of recording where stickers and other detail should go in the event of a rebuild.

Finally, please check out Ernie Nagamatsu's website that details everything surrounding Old Yeller II. Totally, totally superb.

Visit the 3D Engineers website