I've known about these 2 Country Buggies for a few months now and intended to pick them up.
The pics tell the tale.....both have been badly treated.
KO 134 was run into a stump or fencepost or tree at some point and is lacking its bonnet, passenger seat, boot lid, both bumpers, gauges but more pointedly, practically the entire pan! 🙁
It's a Fred Flintstone job if ever there was one.
But all the suspension and drivetrain are there so there is definitely something to work with.
Unfortunately there is rust literally EVERYWHERE.
You name it there is rust there.
If and when I repair there will be more new metal than old metal.
Here she is as I first saw her:
And if that weren't enough of a sad tale KO 386 has had a very unhappy life.
Not long after it was bought new the original owners, in their wisdom (🤪) pulled the entire body off the pan and used the pan to make a frame buggy for roo and fox shooting.
That in itself wouldn't be so bad as it sat protected under a tarp in a shed for years.
However they suddenly decided it was worth nothing and without asking anyone who was into VWs (and there are a fair few around Goulburn where it was) they took it to the tip.
Then as if that weren't enough some cretin in a bulldozer ran right over the back of it!! 😬
Despite this the bonnet is still there as is the windscreen and the frame and wiper motor at least are ok although the glass is busted and one wiper arm is cactus.
So I bought both with the intention of cutting as much off it as I could to repair KO 134.
Here it is lying in the paddock when I first saw it:
Now I have to say right now that I got cold feet after a little while and wasn't entirely sure but my wife really got on my back about these little cars.
Her reasoning was thus; I've been meaning to learn how to weld for a long while, these are all flat steel and in that sense 100 times easier than most cars and CBs are getting rarer and rarer.
Plus our little boys LOVE VWs so even if I did nothing about them they'd get years of fun out of them and if I wanted to I could probably get my money back through parting them out.
I had to admit she was right, and besides, a rat CB would be the ultimate. 😊
And so it was I found myself at Kennards today at about noon hitching a car trailer to the back of our '68 Land Rover factory trayback ute.
That was a bit of a leap of faith in itself.
The Landy has been a complete joy to drive since we got it about 3 months back but I've never tried towing a car trailer with it so we were going to find out how happy it was with that much weight on the back.
Since we needed a few hands we also took our daily driver, a '67 Panel which was restored by Steve Muller and we've driven since it was finished in time for the Nats this year.
Here's a pic of the back of the Landy and the trailer from the Split.
When we arrived the current owner had pulled both out of their "shallow graves", KO 134 on inflated tyres and KO 386 using a stellar little Grey Fergie tractor which the owner assured me he would NOT part with, and were ready for moving.
So we rolled KO 134 down the gradual incline and onto the trailer.
Here are some pics:
Then it was off home to drop KO 134 in the backyard and come back for KO 386.
The trip with the country buggy on was not fast but then the Landy tends to be "0-100 in 1/2 an hour if at all" and it has decent low down power being the 2.6l 6-cylinder engine.
Getting the CB down the drive and into the yard was MUCH easier than when we squeezed our sons' cubby house, a 70 Deluxe, into the yard.
For a start KO 134 has a steering box!
So with little effort it slipped right in.
Note: my mate Carlyle is not riding in it.....he is pushing - there is no floor!
And here we all are in the CB, although we were sitting pretty gingerly.
Structural rigidity is not at a maximum at the moment...... 🙄
Then it was back to the farm for KO 386.
Here it is still hitched to the Fergie and then onto the trailer:
KO 386 really is in a bad way as it flexs where the back connects onto the side skirts but with 4 people it got into the backyard easy enough.
I'm a bit proud of these 3 pics as my 4 1/2 yr son Bryn took them.
And a closer look at KO 386:
And here's the entire team on both buggies.
As usual someone had to be a clever trousers and climb up through the bonnet......
And all 3 of our immobile VWs in the yard together:
You know there's a sense of irony in this whole situation.
Not so long ago my missus said she would never again buy a car which did not work.....now we have 3, 2 of which were at her instigation.
I intend to use that little fact to my advantage. 🙂
kombi1976 Casual Dubber
37 posts · joined Oct 2007 ·
Cheers & God Bless
'62 Beetle ~ '62 Panel project ~ '67 Panel[url=http://]http://www.dsk.com.au[/url]
'62 Beetle ~ '62 Panel project ~ '67 Panel[url=http://]http://www.dsk.com.au[/url]
