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Post by Volktales on Dec 1, 2014 21:43:59 GMT -8
Well let see.... My first interest in VWs was sparked at a young age due to a favourite auntie. She lived in Vancouver, so visits to the island were rare for her. But it was always a treat when she came to visit in her boring beige Beetle. She was the only one in the family who owned one and as a kid I loved riding in the back. I seemed to spend most of my time staring at the dashboard and listening to that engine purring than looking out the windows. Years later that same VW became my sister's first car which she purchased in 1980 for a whopping $300. The 1970 Savannah Beige Beetle had 50,000 miles on it by that time and I remember well the faded paint and totally rotten rear seat material by the back window. Surprisingly I didn't want a VW for my first car, I had my eyes on a 1965 Ford Falcon. I was kind of disappointed to hear that "Your first car will be your sister's old one and you should be happy to have a car at all" said Dad, although I may have imagined part of that. The Beetle cost me most of my life's savings at age 15, again $300. I remember my wonderful sister being pissed off about this as she thought she was going to get a lot more.... By now the Beetle wore a five year old red paint job that had faded to a pinky colour, and the odometer was up to 62,000 miles. Once I owned it, the first change was to install some used slot mags and elderly Michelins which still felt better than the nasty old bias Goodyears that it came with. New metallic Booger Green paint (my friend's description), came the next year courtesy of dear old Dad. The front was lowered via the old select-a-drops, which took two attempts to weld in correctly. Then I drove it. For the next 17 years! It was always the car that could be counted on to get me to wherever I needed to go. It survived high school, college, university and more and kept going. In later years it was retired from summer driving once I acquired other vehicles, but was always the go to winter car. As you might imagine, rust was slowly becoming an issue. The engine was my first ever rebuild at 100,000 miles due to low compression in two cylinders. This was due to cracked rings, likely a result of my "spirited" driving. When I was young, 78 miles per hour was my normal highway speed... By the late 1990's the rust was starting to get grim and I told myself when the seat started sinking through the floor, it was time to call it a day. That day occurred in the spring of 2002, and my unfortunate Bug was laid permanently to rest in the back yard with 135,000 miles on the odo... Years later its engine was borrowed and installed in my 1966 Beetle, so every time I take that car out for a spin, the good memories of days past return. It is funny how this car, that I didn't really want at first, became such a part of my life and definitely explains my VW addiction today. I still hope that my welding skills will improve enough for me to save the remains of my first car, because I still feel guilty every time I look out the window at it slowly returning to earth. I now own many VWs in much better condition, but still want to fix up the one that everyone else would happily have scrapped years ago...
Anyway that is the start. Since those early days I went on to have a career in the automotive industry, in part so I really would know how to fix cars and support what I always knew would be my hobby. I have always owned at least one VW, and despite an affair with an old Cougar (who will quote that first?), my first love has always been VW's (they came before I met Rebecca..) I have always been much better at buying cars than selling them, so I tend to have a few stuffed here and there. I know I am not the only one with this disease.. (Don, Tony, Reagh), but so far I don't really WANT to be cured. A select few have escaped my hands however. John's French bus was one of them. My friend Brian (with the '72 ghia) and I bought the French bus together with the idea we would fix it up but never got beyond the engine rebuild. I am glad it is in good hands now. Brian and I once bought a white '77 Westfalia together to fix up but that never happened either ( do you see a pattern here?) That one later gave up its drivetrain to my '74 Riviera, and I sold the rolling shell to a customer cheap. He fixed it and it still exists in Nanaimo and is two-toned black and white. Brian and I tried one more time with a Taiga Green fully loaded '77 Westy and I eventually bought him out and now my friend Steve owns it and is SLOWLY working on it! I once scrapped a terminally rotten '66 Beetle and was yelled at by a little old lady walking by who said "How could you do that to a nice old Beetle?!!!" I also scrapped a '73 passenger bus that was very nasty, and sorry Mark, I once scrapped a Ghia, BUT is was a '72 Autostick so could be considered the "fat chick" of the Ghia world... However all the other VW's I acquired over the years remain and none of them will leave my hands anytime soon... I still have four more must do projects too.... Never enough time, money, and skill....
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Post by CrazyBrit on Dec 2, 2014 17:35:08 GMT -8
Russ, if you don't have the skill, then there's not much hope for the rest of us!
I think that we need a breakdown of your current collection... - with photo's of course!
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Post by PICTUP on Dec 2, 2014 17:54:43 GMT -8
What about the dipped '66? I agree with Mark, especially his first sentence
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Post by Volktales on Dec 3, 2014 23:09:24 GMT -8
It will take awhile to gather up the necessary pictures.... I will try to do this in order of when I acquired them... Hopefully done this weekend... Just figured out that I have owned a total of 19 VW's, sold 3 as projects, scrapped 3 no hopers, and "returned" 1. This leaves 12 in my possession (5 and a half currently running). The other six include four future projects, 2 mostly complete parts vehicles... And I should mention I managed to go through five different Toyota Tercels.... These were bought cheap, fixed up and sold for profit to fund my VW addiction... I couldn't do this with VWs because I would want to keep them all. Rebecca still has one Tercel in the garage however....
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Post by alltypes on Dec 3, 2014 23:47:19 GMT -8
Hmmmm....still one Tercel...sounds like more vw project funds on the way. Shhhh did she hear that:)
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Post by Volktales on Dec 4, 2014 8:26:09 GMT -8
The last remaining Tercel has been in Rebecca's possession for 19 years and is probably one of the best still in existence. It will be eligible for collector plates next year, and no I am not kidding...
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Post by PICTUP on Dec 4, 2014 10:36:57 GMT -8
When the Tercel gets them, it'll probably be the only one in existence with Collectors Plates! So much for being a commuter. Call the Toyota Museum
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Post by Volktales on Dec 7, 2014 20:54:51 GMT -8
Ok, here it is... The pictorial history of my first car through many years...
This is the earliest photo I have. Car was still in mostly original paint at this stage, but the drivers front quarter panel had been poorly repaired from a serious accident early in the car's life. Granny got splatted by a motorcycle at a blind corner and the guy ended up going over the hood. If the car was not near new, it would have been written off then. That crappy repair caused many problems later in the car's life.. This picture was taken in 1980 when my sister first bought it. Dad was prepping it for a paint job, which was sprayed by his friend at the old Paramount Auto body in Nanaimo which was next to the old Harrison Motors VW dealer...
And here we go with its new coat of metallic red paint. It looked good for a few months before my sister hit the garage door, denting the front fender... Dad was not amused... This paint job was short lived.
And here we go again. 1985. Sister was going off to university in Victoria and the old bug was deemed unacceptable for serious highway use. She got a near new Pontiac Acadian (yuck!), and I got my first car! Single stage red metallic was badly faded by then to a pinky shade! Not cool!
Drove it as is for one winter then in the spring it was time for new paint! Here it is in my Dad's basement, ready for revival.
Damn, I was once young and skinny... With real hair, too!
Check out those giant bias ply snow tires! Lots of fibreglass had been stuffed in the quarter panel and crudely undercoated. We decided to add some more. This was the only real rusty area on the car at that time.
Dad proudly showing of the internals of the door. Or not. This was his third attempt at painting a complete car.
Me with full safety equipment. This was after discovering grinding rusty dust gets in you nose and is gross.
Primer time. Block sanding really sucks.
Dad did most of the body work part. I decided I hated sanding with a passion. Still do.
Shiny! The colour was a custom mix to approximate a colour on one of Dad's old pickup trucks. His buddy mixed it up saying it was exactly the right colour. Sadly it looked NOTHING like the photo of Dad's old truck, but I grew to like it anyway. It changed colour depending on the weather and you could always tell when rain was coming...
This picture shows the old mags installed; the front was lowered shortly after. The T-bars made their appearance too, but I didn't run them all that long. From this point forward, the car was driven constantly and not in a sedate way. When it was my time to attend university, it was suggested that like my sister, I should get a better car for going over the Malahat. Unlike my sister who got a free car for this duty, I wasn't given that opportunity. So I happily stuck with the Beetle, and loved cruising the highway with it.. Few pictures were taken during the rest of its working life...
T-bars, and the winter wheels installed...
Used as my winter driver for 17 years!
Sometime in the mid 1990's. In reality, the car looked like this for most of its life on the road with me...
This was taken at a Coombs show around 1995, and was the last event ever for this car.
The final years of driving, circa 1999. Lots of rust underneath, and the 13 year old paint was fading fast.
Now car was off the road, never to return. Was kept inside my crappy old single car garage for awhile, shown here sharing space with my '66 Beetle which was slowly being restored at the time...
Around 2005 and off the road for a few years due to severe rust. Ran great right to the bitter end. My kid loved playing on and in it at this stage. There used to be a big pile of yard waste beside the old garage. By this time the brakes no longer worked but it still ran. Victor and myself and the next store neighbour's kid used to have great fun driving it up and down the yard and crashing into the waste pile! This ended when I stole my first cars heart out and transplanted into something else. I really did feel bad the day I did that...
Engine now gone, kid still had fun playing on it however...
2012. Car was moved to only part of yard not disturbed while new garage under construction. Looking very sad... I still have dreams to fix this up, but we will see if it becomes reality... This car has very serious rot, and the only thing that keeps me inspired to save it is reading British car magazines. It looks mint compared to some of the VWs saved in Volksworld...
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Post by Brenticon on Dec 7, 2014 22:15:24 GMT -8
There's something about a VW with slotted aluminum mags ..
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Post by Volktales on Dec 8, 2014 21:31:10 GMT -8
When the Tercel gets them, it'll probably be the only one in existence with Collectors Plates! So much for being a commuter. Call the Toyota Museum And here is a picture of said Tercel...
There is more to this then meets the eye. Around ten years ago the side got scraped up and needed to be repainted. Wifey had a choice of trading in the car, or fixing it up. Given the good service it gave her, she wanted it repainted. Then she said (I want a different colour too!). Talking her out of that was not going to work so I agreed to this. Dad was not interested so the car was booked into Little Valley Restorations. I wanted things done right so stripped the car down to a shell. The trip to the shop without things like any interior, bumpers, glass, etc. was interesting. Once they realized how serious I was about doing it right, they removed the doors, trunk, and hood to paint them properly. Once done it was impossible to tell the car had every been a different colour except for the firewall and inner fender panels. Years later I rebuilt the engine for her Christmas present, and took that opportunity to paint the compartment to match. Yes it was a bit odd on a car like this, but she liked it and was much cheaper then buying something else... Seems to have earned its way into the permanent collection now...
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Post by Volktales on Dec 14, 2014 21:45:51 GMT -8
Dec 2014. Poor old bug is deteriorating fast despite being over gravel now. Opened the door and was greeted with massive amounts of disgusting mold. Need to get this car undercover soon to save what is left!!!
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Post by PICTUP on Dec 15, 2014 10:20:55 GMT -8
It is going to look like that Taiwanese Beetle soon!
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Post by Volktales on Feb 27, 2015 22:18:56 GMT -8
Out of guilt, I pushed the old Bug down the yard to the patio area that Rebecca built. It is a good thing she wasn't home, as I washed all the accumulated slime and ick off the car. Also installed a non leaking tire and rim to make it look a little less decrepit. Had a poke around underneath while on the jack and this is what was found...
Great big rust holes! Imagine that...
How is that for a nice beam? Check out the daylight that you can see right through! The bottom six inches of the car are pretty well shot. Lots of the top parts are too... Boo-hoo. This someday project better start soon or there will be nothing left to weld anything too...
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Post by PICTUP on Feb 28, 2015 8:07:31 GMT -8
That's nothing by english standards. Looks like a great project to start your welding practice on. As people say in boats…"get on with it, it ain't a piano". Definitely looked better cleaned and with an aired up tire on it!
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Post by Volktales on Mar 28, 2015 21:27:26 GMT -8
Couldn't help but notice that the neighbourhood rats have moved in. Put on a mask and removed the mold covered door panels and back seat. Cleaned them up and put them in the attic. Vacuumed up the 400,000 rat turds, then drenched the remains of the interior with bleach. At least that doesn't smell as bad as rat poops. Think I vacuumed up half of the heater channels too....
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