Aircooled VW South Africa

Nice find....keep it as is it is a beutiful bus.


Now did anyone notice the bay window in the background? Iwonder if he has had that since new aswell?

Lawd! Awesome car! I vote to leave it as it is. No question.

Dutch_Diver wrote:Congratulations......as long as you use it rather than put her into a museam then I don't care.....lovely bus. I would leave until I had to do something!

Well done would love to see in the real.

UNLESS your name is FIG!!!

JohnHoffe Post subject: Re: .......All We Know,He Is Called The Fig!

Some say he has a farm in the Free State with his own private Bus museum....

....all we know he is called the Fig!

He has indeed had the baywindow since new. It's a 74 and he wanted to trade the splitty in when he bought it. They offered him R 200 on the splitty....... Thank God he said no thanks!!!

I paid quite a bit more than R 200!!!!!!

Thanks for all the feedback! I'm considering maybe just putting in a slightly more powerful motor, and then just giving it a bloody good polish! Any advice as to which motor might be best and where I can get one from would be much appreciated.

In Joburg, who's the bus maintenance Guru?


Anyone know where I can get the VW badge that's missing off the front?

Have you considered a Type4 upright conversion?

Lemme put it this way... keep it original if you can. A more powerful motor means a different gearbox, and a different gearbox is a 40mm longer gearbox which I have just spent 2 weeks installing, post to follow in "Gill's bus" thread soon, it soon snowballs. Even keeping all the original parts and minimising alterations to the bus itself is a headache. However, as I have said before, the car must give you what you want and cruising 80 in the truck lane is not everybody's cup of tea.

I just put a Beetle gearbox in with reduction boxes and a 106kW engine. And I have a front beam with ventilated discs fed by a remote vacuum brake booster. What a job!! But check out the thread in a few days, I'll have posted the details.

Luverly bus, by the way.

Awesome bus! Congratulations! You're lucky I was out of town last week when I heard about this one.

It's your bus and you can do as you please with it, but I think it would be a shame if you did anything more than mechanical restoration. Needless to say, I would hate to see it customised, even just an engine change. 50s buses are very rare and desireable, and increasingly hard to find in original condition. Rather customise a bus that is already hacked, incomplete or badly rusted. Original buses should be left as they are IMO.

If you want to upgrade to a more modern spec, speak to me; we may be able to do a trade for a bus that better suits your needs.

BTW, it looks like a 59, not a 58. What is the VIN? Also (in response to your wanted thread), only deluxes came out with chromed VW nose emblems. All other models had painted emblems. Standard microbuses (two-tone) had the emblems painted the same colour as the lower half of the bus. All commercial buses (including kombis) had a white painted nose emblem. Of course, any bus could be service fitted with a chrome emblem later.

Congrats!! Nice find. Keep the original engine, fix the mechanicals and preserve the body and interior.

Stock look with some hidden power sounds awesum, 1776cc type 1 engine and the right gearbox is what I would do.

And then store the original engine and gearbox away so if you ever sell it they can put it back to stock.

If I was you, I would try and unhack those gawd owful indicators at the back!

Other than that, dont ask me my opinion, I normally go 'against the flow'

Lochnesh Monster wrote:He has indeed had the baywindow since new. It's a 74 and he wanted to trade the splitty in when he bought it. They offered him R 200 on the splitty....... Thank God he said no thanks!!!

I paid quite a bit more than R 200!!!!!!

Thanks for all the feedback! I'm considering maybe just putting in a slightly more powerful motor, and then just giving it a bloody good polish! Any advice as to which motor might be best and where I can get one from would be much appreciated.

In Joburg, who's the bus maintenance Guru?


Anyone know where I can get the VW badge that's missing off the front?

he still said Thanks?
nice find buddy

1972 wrote:Stock look with some hidden power sounds awesum, 1776cc type 1 engine and the right gearbox is what I would do.

And then store the original engine and gearbox away so if you ever sell it they can put it back to stock.

Yep, that's exactly where I am. Still have the original engine, but I shagged the original gearbox with the 1776, hence the latest work, see "Gill's bus". I didn't mention in the thread that the gearbox was momentarily up-iddy-down and metallic flake gearbox oil poured out the breather. Oops, I thought it was only the RGBs that was shagged. But I will rebuild an original gearbox with original RGBs and store them, I have the spares. This is not a hijack, by the way, this is directly pertaining to your one-owner-58 bus... hehe...

Me, I'd fix up the interior, make whatever mechanical changes you would like to make it drivable in today's traffic (without doing anything that can't be reversed should you like to restore it to stock.)

The outside patina is quite nice - however, I'm not one of the crowd who thinks that letting a bus continue to rust is great idea.

Restore it,keep it the same colours.Its 100% original,make it look as if it did roll off the line yesterday.That bus will eventually start rusting,and in order to keep it around for the next 60 odd years it will need to be preserved.

Just my 5c.

Ron&Gill wrote:

1972 wrote:Stock look with some hidden power sounds awesum, 1776cc type 1 engine and the right gearbox is what I would do.

And then store the original engine and gearbox away so if you ever sell it they can put it back to stock.

Yep, that's exactly where I am. Still have the original engine, but I shagged the original gearbox with the 1776, hence the latest work, see "Gill's bus". I didn't mention in the thread that the gearbox was momentarily up-iddy-down and metallic flake gearbox oil poured out the breather. Oops, I thought it was only the RGBs that was shagged. But I will rebuild an original gearbox with original RGBs and store them, I have the spares. This is not a hijack, by the way, this is directly pertaining to your one-owner-58 bus... hehe...

Ron is that the engine from the ghia?

I think one day when I have loads of cash I will have a engine like that built for me, it was simply put "AMAZING" oh yes and whatever it may be it will have to have those porsce seats. just a quick Q did you go with the straight axel conversion on the bus? hijack over