Aircooled VW South Africa

The following are a few pictures of our latest project called Twobucks.

The idea is to build a clone of an SP Beetle in either red or yellow with the stripes, 14" rostyles, blanked off exhaust cutouts but with a few modern upgrades like disc brakes, about 75Kw from the motor and if feasible, fuel injection. As with most projects plans may change.....

The seed of the project was planted when I was offered a complete 76 body without pan.

When I went to collect the body, the guy told me that he could not give it away for free and that I had to pay him R1. I did not have the correct change, so I paid him 100% over the asking price, R2 - hence the name Twobucks

The day we collected Twobucks



The body was mounted on a specially made frame with castors to facilitate easy moving



As can be seen, the body is in excellent condition.
The left door needs to be replaced as blocked drain holes allowed rust to form at the bottom of the door.


Even the original upholstery was in good condition.


Fortunately, the dashboard is not butchered.


The two way radio that was fitted left a 20mm hole in the center of the roof and the rear apron is slightly creased. Small challanges really.

We have since stripped the body completely in preperation of bodywork and paint.

The main objective now is to get a rolling pan on wheels.

I smaak that stukkend!
Let us know how it goes.

Knowing you,that Beetle is going to look very good

Andre, my partner in crime, found us this pan.

He did all the hard work to clean it, fix the battery induced rust and paint it. The man is a machine.









Now we need to get the front suspension and gearbox sorted

This car is going to be so awesome! It would be cool to have a car with the old SP looks and with modern brakes, EFI etc etc

Nice work Andre and JMVV.

You sure dont mess around. NICE, a SP clone is a very cool idea.

You guys are onto a good thing. I think its going to look good when you are done

and where do you find a body as clean as that for R2 ?
If you tell me it had some papers as well I'm gonna cry..

No, unfortunately it did not have papers, but that has been sorted ...... thanks Chris.

Pleasure

Jmvv, that pan looks very nice. Andre sure knows his stuff.

DO you have a source for the original dash inserts to take the gauges or are you going to cut those ones? If you do have a supplier/ stash of them, please let me know. I would like some for the cabrio.

jmvv wrote: Even the original upholstery was in good condition.

I love the leg restraints in this pick... makes for easy access to the cockpit....

beetlefanatic wrote:
DO you have a source for the original dash inserts to take the gauges or are you going to cut those ones? If you do have a supplier/ stash of them, please let me know. I would like some for the cabrio.

That is a bridge I'll cross when the time comes.

At this point I was considering making a template of the OEM panel and then have it laser cut.

Thanks to Greenbean's dilligence, I managed to get a set of 5 14" rostyles together.


I had them acid dipped as I am not too fond of the finish to the metal after sandblasting


The idea was to have them chromed.

After contacting all the local Chromers (Edisons, Sheffields, etc) they all told me that the rim needs to be split before chrome plating. The halves are then welded back afterwards. As the center of the rim is originally welded directly to the rim, I was worried that the new welding will discolour the chrome.

I think this is a B.S. procedure, as chromed rostyles were available new from the Guestro factory in P.E.

Nonetheless

So, plans have changed. I've decided to paint the rims in the original colour scheme (silver with black inserts) and then fit bikini trim rings. (Jeez, but i am showing my age)

Firstly, great project! I wish you all the luck.
Concerning chromeplating rims, I found this guy that can plate just about anything, it is called Crazy Chrome. His name is Karl and his number is 083 447 6992. he is also in the Pretoria area. Not too sure about the pricing.
He has done these ....


I will use him in the very near future.