Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening or Good Night...
(It just depends on when you get to read my post...LoL)
My name is Riccardo...(yes 2 C's is correct)
Friends call me Rico, Ricks, Cardo, Bboy SLIQ... Well the list is endless!
I relocated to Cape Town in Oct 2007 from KZN (just outside a little town of Pietermaritzburg in an area called Ashburton) and am presently in the market for accomodation where I have enough yard and in a secure environment so that I can bring both my bug and bike down to CT. They are both back in Natal collecting dust.
.My Beetle has been a father son project since it rolled into our yard back when I was in High School and since it has moved from grace to grace but like a kid with itchy feet I haven't fully completed it as I constantly find something new I'd like to improve on.
My car started out as a piece of junk that my friends dad was practically giving away when he was conducting a major lifestyle change. It got towed into the yard without fenders or doors.
For the better part of my teenage years I spent pushing the car in and out of our driveway on a daily basis because mom had a daycare centre that was run from our garage and the car was a hazard to the safety of her kids... Well I managed to sell a motorbike I had as a youngster and took that couple rands and invested it into my car and managed to get it mobile even if it was with a twinport 1600 motor. I had endless generator problems and lights were super dim but that never stopped my... Everytime I went out I made sure that I had a crew of friedns to join me so there always was guys to push start my car!!!
Well I out grew the standard motor with the 5 start Smith wheels trail dusters and trim rings and conducted a little upgrade because at this stage I had already outgrown both the look standard look, standard performance and the standard rims.
So I got my hands on some californian import fenders that were stretched by over 150mm and fibreglass as well as a Porsche whail tail and watched my baby develop from a tame little beetle to a Bug with a Bite. A guy had advertised an adaptor plate kit complete with clutch and pressure plate for a Beetle or kit car and then I started asking questions.. I changed the motor to a Jetta 1800 water cooled motor which was standard at the time but slowly started with the tweaking.. But as any speed demon knows that when it comes to speed too much is never enough! Nice to have a lot of power but with going fast comes stopping suddenly which is one area my car was falling short. The disc brakes needed to get done especially after a close encounter with a Wanna-Be-Chuck-Norris who attempted to cross the road without checking properly.
Well the Bug was taken off the road yet again to complete this but things went terribly wrong and the timing just sucked. My mom was heading to visit my sister in the states and round about the time she was scheduled to leave her Caravelle 2.1i motor gave in and so,(being the loving son that I am) I sacrificed my beetle motor so that her Caravelle could be mobile and she need not worry about the expenses of using her spending money to repair the Combi.
The combi was mobile and from there on the sad story of my beetle began.
.. It collected dust and more dust and even more dust... Now I'm in Cape Town and hoping to bring it back to life. I also want to show my family, my friends and the rest of Cape Town that I am going to finish my show car and make it stand out from the crowd. I trust that being part of this family you guys have here at Aircooled can assist me in accomplishing this goal. I also hope that I can have my baby ready to take part by the next King Of Bling...
I think that by now we all should realise how passionate I am about beetles... Oh did I mention that I have a collection of model Beetles as well... Not a very large collection but more then enough to get your attention... I look forward to part of Aircooled V.W.S.A.
Take care,
Rico
For some reason I cannot sign on. (Maybe i'm banned and to stupid to notice) 
