Took it for a test drive and it seemed pretty good, bought it there and then and drove it 80km home.
It was a scorching hot day, and we got stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour. Also take into account, the Fasty was not idling well, and the 6V battery was toast, so if it dies, no chance of starting here again
Never sweated so much in my life.
Got her home without incident, and since then have done nothing much besides remove the seat covers, to reveal relatively intact seats, change the battery, and set the timing. Car needs a good service, and perhaps some more work, but more on that later.
Some pics of what she looks like now:
and she has pop-outs!
:
Some of you might have seen her at the Beetle 75th Celebrations.
What I found strange (and so too Variant and Blitz), was the dash
and for that matter steering wheel,
Other internal trim:
arm rest and interior door handles:
all shouting Pigalle. Comparing to other Pigalle's, the parts shown definately come from that production run.
The dilemma was though, with a pigalle, EVERYTHING is that deep red colour, and this car's seats, look like they come from a 67, as the pattern is different to a 66. So where they swopped? The other interesting bit, is the fact that all Pigalle's are either black or white, certainly not grey. We checked inside the ashtray, behind all the rubbers, under the boot liners, hidden nooks and crannies, and there is NO evidence whatsoever that this car was resprayed a different colour.
So, what to do.
I sent away to Germany and ordered a birth certificate, which I received last week. Hoping that this would clear things up, guess what it states?
That this car's original colour is, wait for it: Baltic Blue!
Which is impossible based on our earlier checks, and should have an interior like this:
Clearly not what is going on here?
So what happened?
The M Code on the birth certificate gives us a clue, M 306/487 CKD.
Just like millions of other vw's , this one was shipped to VWSA and assembled here, so who knows what the VW plant got up to when building this car, supposedly on 11 October 1965 (vw model year used to run from Aug to Aug, so Aug 65 and later - 66 model).
Now my question is as follows:
Anyone have any idea as to what could have happened?
Any way of finding out what happened at the factory (since VWSA destroyed all their records!!)?
Has anyone found something similar with other vehicles?
and more importantly, please vote in the poll what I should do with her ?
One of the potential plans is this:
