During
my few years at high school, most of my afternoons were occupied by walking 2.5
miles home after detention. A some point during my leisurely stroll home I'd pass
this unloved, unpolished, black oval beetle. At the time it was still registered, and driven by on
old bloke who'd built the house he was living in.
After I left school (read:- asked to leave) and I'd acquired my first Beetle, a pristine Grey 1964 deluxe with just 32,000 miles on the clock. Being young and stupid this lovely car had a short life in my hands.
After being forced to walk again, I noticed the old black oval sitting dejected, and by now unused at this old blokes house.
I
scrimped and saved what I thought to be just enough cash to put a bid in for
this old bug. I finally asked the fella if he wanted to part with the old girl,
to which the casually a said, "$200 dolla, take ta day" Yippee I still
and some cash to spend!!! I paid and took possession immediately.
This bloke lived a mile from my home, fortunately it was down hill and I pushed, coasted all the way, once I'd found the original 36hp motor had clagged it.
The old bloke later told me he bought it new in Belgium, and used it as a mobile laborers tool storeroom, whilst driving all over Europe to find work.
There
was evidence of cement and blue metal having been mixed on the floor pan, where
the passenger seat would have been, had it still been there. There was a plastic
bucket over the battery, no headlining, no back bench, no floor matting of any
sort, no glove box case, no bumper bars, the engine lid didn't close, the bonnet
popped open on the roll down hill to home. Need I say, it needed a "little"
bit of TLC.
Within two years I'd had an engine built by a VW workshop in Brock Rd Seaforth, Sydney, just down the road from the old Tech school (Can anyone remember their name??). It was a 1375 kit using a 1200cc case, tricked heads, a 200cmf Holly carby, lightened flywheel, power pulley, Kombi clutch etc. Now it went rather well, till the old crash box exploded one night coming home from work. New box required!! A close ratio box was built for me by a mob at Brookvale (again too much alcohol over the years has faded my memory as to who exactly built it) it had the luxury of full syncro on first and close ratio 3rd & 4th gears. The pan had to be modified a bit to fit the later box, but they did a great job.
I then fitted Michelin 185 x 15's all round, had the front guards flared a bit to accommodate them, Gabriel shocks, 3/4" K-Mac bars front and rear, a fiberglass air scoop over the engine vents, and (shock horror) I cut holes behind the rear quarter windows and fitted two air scoops, which had large heater hoses fitted in the them to funnel the cold air to the rear of the fan housing.
By now the thing went like a cut cat and stuck to corners like sh.t to a blanket. I thought it I was bloody hot cause I was winning the traffic lights drags. That was till the day I was blown away by another Oval at Crows Nest one night. At the next set of lights I coasted up to this sleeper of a vehicle and sheepishly asked what he had in it? The bloke with a big smile just said, " read the number plate mate" as this very plain looking bug disappeared into the night with a most wondrous sound, the plate read "VW2180"
As young a stupid kid, the go fast component of cars was all-important. You learned how to stop the things as you went along. I was constantly adjusting all the original 1/2" binders and the bloody handbrake never kept its adjustment, probably cause I was always using it in day to day stopping as an adjunct to the foot pedal.
The car kept it original 6 volts, I could never hear the original VW radio or the horn, due to no sound proofing in the cabin. Ole JDM did me very well over the years and many a surfing trip up the north coast had me camping in it overnight.
This photo was taken in 1981 at a property in Molong in central west NSW, it was supposed to be a roo shoot weekend, but ended up as a beer and birds contest. The beer won!!!
Late in 1981 I sold the remains of my little creation to a fella in Willoughby, Sydney for (yep you guessed it) $200. By this time the motor was very tired, the box was crashing in most gears, the Scat extractor system had holes in them, the shocks were leaking, and I had NO bloody brakes at all.
The thing that really made up my mind to get rid of it, was one day, in a hurry to fill up the petrol tank, the bloody bonnet came completely of it's hinges (rust) and fell off the car onto the servo's driveway. Much to the delight of my surfing mates in their hot HX panel vans and early Monaros.
The panel beater did me a favour and had a good look around the old girl, and said the cancer vas pretty extensive and was going to be costly to fix. I'd like to think she went to a good home and wasn't broken down. If it's still around I love to see her now. Can any body help me with this?
Twenty years later the "bug" bit again, and my 13yr old son and I are now going through a slow restoration of a 1963 beetle. Subject to cash flow and opportunities, I hope to have this one done in two years, so I can get a drive of it before I hand it over to my son as his first car.
There are lot of funny stories I could tell about this old '57, and maybe I'll get the chance if Club VeeDub, included a "Funny Bug Stories" section in this magazine.
Peter MacQueen