After how many years of dreaming and scheming, reading and hoping, wondering and planning...the project has officially started in some way or form.
It all started with my Great Grand Father - Oupa Brtis's 1974 beetle he bought in Zastron FS, which my mom inherited after his passing away in the late 80s. I got my drivers licence in that car and after moving to Pretoria in 1984 my dad decided it was time to get it 're-stored". Johan Stander was the guy at the time who specialised in beetle restoration - as per my dads investigation - and he did what my dad requested him to do. I was NOT a completely happy camper but did not have much say anyway.
However much fun was to be had in the little white bug.
As it looked after i bought it from my mom for R7000 and drove it to Durban in 2003:
As my moms Beetle was a daily driver i was made aware of a '69 Import that was for Sale in Durban by my dad. and after very little though i bought the '69 Import with disk brakes up front and full custom interior. It was in the 1988/89. I unfortunately fell asleep in the car on my on a trip to Nelspruit and had it repaiinted and bought a set of Impi 8 Spokes from Smiths Wheels in Schubart Street Pretoria.
Before accident:
After the accident plus Impi 8 Spokes:
And that is that...of just the beginning.
I came to know Werner Ahlker , Uncle Bertalmi ( who passed away a couple years later) and many other enthusiast in the VW scene. Fuelling my interest and the very little knowledge i had o the infamous Volks Wagen. At that stage i had accumulated a whole lot of VW Trends bought diligently from CNA during the early 90's.
Before finishing my Army career, and returning to Pretoria from Bloem in the '69 Import aka "coolest beetle in my mind" i started investigating the possibility of puttig in a faster motor. This idea was ignited the day i was cruising down Pretorius Str and some guy came past me in a very fast white beetle. After making friends i decided to allow his brother in law or brother Frans to build a motor similar to his.
To cut a long story short i collected my Volla in Wonderboom and departed with a very fast Bug less a few grand in the pocket. It was balanced, it had reground cam, head job and Webber 36 DCD progressive carb as well as a Cowley 4-into-1 Exhaust.
To say the least this car was extremely fast and many an Uno Tubo driver was shocked at how quick my car was and could not understand how they could not JUST race away as they thought they should be able to. Unfortunately this car was plagued with tuning problems and timing problems. It was "pinging" under load in 3rd all the time. I was told to get high octane fuel but this did not help to sort the problem.
So on a lovely week day coming back from work on the N1 just passing the Munt towards Pta i had enough of poor timing, "pinging" and under performance that i put pedal to the metal....resulting in an "engine blow-out and #3 piston disintegrating.
With even less money in the pocket and a Stock Standard engine in the Volla i decided to sell it before i shot a bullet through the car or the engine. The resulting transaction in 1995 was R6000 trade in value for an Opel 1600iE from Opel Menlyn. ( I will NOT even mention all the money spent over 4 years as well as late nights pulling the engine out and putting it back in before work on the Monday - not that i was a specialist mechanic in any way
)And that my friends where the end of my Beetle Career.....but the Bug bug never left the building...
So i am excited to say that the Brits FS Volla will soon be transformed hopefully into something special....
Chat soon with more....
