Shamals are the hot ferocious desert winds we get on a few occasions throughout the year that provide a lot of kiting excitement for us UAE kite buggiers.

Giorgio started building his composite buggy last September and when he introduced it, it looked like a beautiful work of art. Sadly, the geometry was wrong and is was back to his workshop where he hacked & chopped it on a couple of occasions with testing in between. He finally has the geometry right to produce the Shamal Mk III.
It is a delight to ride especially compared to my 50kg clanking steel buggy.

Total weight including the BF's is 34kgs. It is seriously overdesigned and new buggies coming out of his stable will look a lot less bulky and naturally even lighter.

It looks massive but is incredibly light.
e.g. the 3 wheels including tyres that we purchase have a total weight of 21 kgs. His total buggy weight incl. wheels is just 33kgs.
I have ridden it in the dunes & it's like riding on air compared to my 50kg clanking steel buggy.

Last Friday after painting it Ferrari red, he wanted to try it out again but the seat being manufactured by a specialised company wasn't finished, so he fitted some sponge type foam material into the seat well & stuck it with duck tape which kind of upsets its look but this is just temporary.

The Shamal







Couple of pics from last Friday where we made a 40 km run in 104 minutes mainly in the sand dunes.
Giorgio



Giorgio & I heading off of a sabkha into some dunes.

Great looking buggy, love the Red color!!! What exactly is it made out of. Is it carbon?

I'd hate to see that lovely red paint after the sand blasting and duct tape removal!
:sniff:

Quote:

Originally posted by awindofchange Great looking buggy, love the Red color!!! What exactly is it made out of. Is it carbon?

Yes it's a carbon buggy but uses a sandwhich of syntactic cores.

Quote:

Originally posted by lad I'd hate to see that lovely red paint after the sand blasting and duct tape removal! :sniff:

I said almost the thing lad.
It is a high quality hard epoxy paint job. I noticed a small chip in the paint and mentioned that to him as well as the possible damage to the paintwork during duct tape removal.

"Not bothered", he replied
1) It's to be used for desert buggying where nobody sees us
&
2) Can get it resprayed at work for free if needed.

This is a remarkable build from Giorgio, I was lucky enough to have a bash in this buggy on my recent Dubai trip, its the same size as SY's buggies, except it weighs virtually nothing, absolutely perfect for the terrain that this buggy was built for. Dont expect this to be the last buggy Giorgio builds, he has already been bitten by the buggy building bug...