Was travelling in Queensland last week and called in at a Land Rover spare parts shop to see what windscreen wiper arms he had in stock as the early ones were similar to the CB fitting but not identical. The guy asked me what Series Landy I wanted to fit them to and I said a Country Buggy.
He laughed and yelled out to his old man who was out the back shed that there was this bloke looking for bits for a Country Buggy. The old fella from the back staggered in- must have been 80 in the shade- twisted over with arthritis and walking like a three legged dog.
The old fella goes on to tell me that he was working at the Clayton factory when they were producing the Country Buggy and I must admit I was sceptical. This was until he told me that he had worked on all of the three prototypes from time to time and he spent most of him time in the fabrication section where they pressed out the CB pans. He could never understand why the CB was produced with its own pan which was different to the Beetle. He also said the thing that always amazed him about the factory was the way that when the Type 2 panels came in as part of CKD pack the panel beaters would take the rear panel, cut out the louvres from the lower part of the panel and then weld them into a cut out higher in the same panel. He thought it was done for panel repair practice.
I was able to tell him that re positioning the louvres was done to get the louvres up higher from the road and prevent to much dust from entering the engine. This was an approved change agreed by Wolfsburg following a special request by VW Australia.
Unfortunately the old guy could not remember much more and did not think he had any photos of memories from his time at the factory.
Never know who you meet....
countrybuggybill
58camper Wolfsburg Wizard
591 posts · joined Aug 2002 ·
