Been at it with the angle grinder

Well its not much, but this is the start of my drag car project. Body is (or was!) a 59 Beetle, going to Portland in 08 gave me the need to make it a racer.

Work, kids, study & finances make any project a slow one for me but here is the start of it anyway.

Motor plans are big, turbo & efi. I have some of the external bits like a T04, throttle bodies (thanks Reub), sump etc but there is still a LOT to be decided on & bought. As much as I would love to, its not going to be a 6 month project.

Anyway, enough ramble, here is where it is at now

Take one unassuming body shell



And get out the angle grinder 😎


Only done one side so far. Turbo is going over the trans so the rear bulkhead had to go, my brother in law will be doing some alum panelling for me when the cage is built etc


And get rid of the front sheetmetal to allow a narrowed alum beam with shocks


I'm leaving the front sheetmetal like this so I can still bolt on some stock width fiberglass fenders.
There's a bit of rust in the bottom of the front bulkhead but that is about it. That sheetmetal might all disappear anyway and be replaced with aluminium panelling. Just cutting bit by bit.

Cheers,
Greg

Cool greg, good to see it has gone through first step. For a minute I thought you cut the guts out of the 54!
It you need any help with ideas of getting things to fit or want to check out my car for anything let me know.
Also the section you have just cut out. Don't throw it. I will but it off you. I need a replacement section complete wheelarch.
Let me know if you still have it.

This might be the way to get the kids into VW's!
Heath

looks like a good start greg, are u going to lift the motor and box aswell? or u not going to go very low with it? cant wait to see her coming together, keep up the good work.

Hi Heath,
I may still have the inner panels, but they would be in 2 pieces. If you have a look at the first couple of cut photos you can see where I did the first cut still there on the left side. I did both this way but then decided to go right up to the fender strip.
If you want any of my offcuts you can have them in exchange for beer! I still have most of them but I think some may have been chucked as I started working on it in around November.
No I wouldn't do anything this barbaric to the 54!!

And yeah the kids are really into it, Hamish was out there with me today and in between grinding spurts was trying to understand why I couldn't rebuild the siezed 40Hp singleport into my turbo drag motor 🙅

Yeah polak the box is being raised an inch, and depending how adventurous I get, I may get the whole torsion lifted a few inches when it gets narrowed.

I got some time on it today so more has come out, did the left inner fender, some of the inside steelwork that would normally hold the rear quarter trim, and the rest of the trim strips around the back window and front door openings that I started ages ago. Here's the results, I'm surprised how good my phone takes photos











Cheers

Looking good Greg-a good start.The first pic you posted-I hope you you haven't been using the plastic chairs to practice your gearchanges and making motor sounds????.What are you doing about a front bonnet?I have got a fibreglass mould for an original shape one and am having one made here for my Drag Car.Yell out if you need something done.

nbturbo wrote:The first pic you posted-I hope you you haven't been using the plastic chairs to practice your gearchanges and making motor sounds

Haha no but the 2 youngest kids did use to do that.
I do it in my head!!

I have a couple of decent steel bonnets but fiberglass would be better so the car can lose more weight then I don't have to. I am thinking the same with the decklid, have a steel one but glass would be better.
I don't have doors so I need to either buy steel or glass so depending on cost & how easy to get I would like glass there too.

Thanks for the words of encouragement guys

I am going to use Superbug doors on mine.I have some that are gutted and they feel a lot lighter than 6 volt era doors.I will hit them with a hole saw as well,and make some Lexan one piece windows.