I am looking at building something along the lines of the origianal military commander car like the photo below.

Has anyone got any info on the specs of the original ones. they seem to have been assembled with anything they could find.

Also any help in turning a mild mannered beetle into a snorting off road monster and beach basher would be most welcome. I'd like to keep the original beetle body not build a baja etc, they are to common.

It will probably end up as a standard beetle with big tyres and decent engine painted green but the dream has to start somewhere.

thanks in advance for any help

Kurt

go the type 82e!!!
they were a standard beetle running a kubelwagon pan which is similar to our country buggy pans ie kombi gbox with reduction boxes and a hi lift front end
Ive been thinking of building one for ever I was going to use an irs pan and jack that up but in the ned ran out of time and sold the bits but the idea is still there
Bill Moore the country buggy guy told me theres a few being built here in aus using country buggy pans at the moment he'd be the guy to ask
http://members.netro.com.au/~michael/cb.htm 
marcel:thumb

also keith black has a replica
http://members.netro.com.au/~vwcc/rb82e.htm 
marcel:thumb

Kurt,
Give me a call on 02 96514724 or email
countrybuggybill@hotmail.com

Regards,
Bill Moore:

Kurt, Rohan will be spitting chips when he hears what you want to do to his beloved 'pearl' hahah :P

Heheheeheheheheehe Told you so!!

Yeh i'm not yet quite sure how the pearl green paint will look once the split window is welded in :P

Firstly, I think it's Ray Black in Sydney with that replica typ 82E. There was at least 1 in Melbourne owned by Keith Newsome ( I think) that was made up from C/Buggy bits. The latter one has a split rear window made up of 2 rear corners of a pair of rear Type3 fastback rear quarter windows.
However, that photo is of a 4WD version as I recognise the Schwimmwagen front hub. That makes it at least a typ87. Also the rear guards seem to be cut away at the back and there seems to be a roller where the front apron is. Is this the Wolfsburg museum car? In which case I think it's a typ287 Kommandeurwagen. Now THAT would be a project! Does anyone have a spare set of Schwimmer mechanicals lying around?

[Edited on 29-9-2002 by geodon]

that would be nice wouldnt it 4wd beetle
I read an article in and old magazine that they were actually producing a 4wd in south america using vw engines and pans etc wonder whatever happened to that
marcel:thumb

There is a bloke down here in Melbourne who has a replica its been sitting in his drive way for quite some time now.
hmmmmmmm!!!
empi

hi empi
pity melbourne is so far away
any idea waht sort of money he'd be chasing?
and waht mechanicals he's running?
ie engine gbox front beam? and colour:thumb
marcel

Has anyone ever wondered as you gaze at the hordes of small & large Japanese 4WD's why there are no VW's? I mean Wolfsburg had a tried & true & battle tested 4WD in production up to '45. As the off-road phenomenon occurred postwar why didn't the VW marketing departments sieze on it? Imagine all wheel drive Kombis in all formats, Beetles & the Type3 would have been the Subaru Liberty of its day.
My theory is that the factory was still wearing the sackcloth & ashes of WW2 ("Please do not mention ze war!" Even as late as the early 80's when I was restoring a schwimmer, I was a niusance & they couldn't understand why I would want to. The "museum" in those days was a dusty room crammed with cars & I needed an appointment & an escort to see it!
One thing's for sure, if VW had been Japanese & the marketing dept missed such an opportunity, they would have each been presented with a short sharp sword & a big white towel & told to make amends!

Thanks guys its a start probably on a long winding road, will give Bill a ring this week.

Marcel after al these months now i get it 'type82e' sometimes the human brain doesn't work, stil ltrying to get down to Lismore might go to the next Bangalow markets. Christmas is coming.

geodon your right the photo was borrowed from the VW museum and i think anyones got buckleys of finding schwimmer mechanicals. The last schwimmwagon i saw for sale was in europe 5 years ago and it sold for 120,000, mind you my Austrian cousin's on/off boyfriend, playboy actually, kids scattered around europe owns one but i'm yet to see it.

also VW made a great 4wd drive in the mid eighties. caravelle i think, not sure if they were still aircooled but a twin cab ute won the overlander 4wd of the year award. beat the landcruisers pajeros etc.

So the best way to go would be to get a country buggy chassis and put a beetle body on it.
are country buggies rare and is it sacrelege to only use the chassis
what type of beetle would go on top, it seems a shame to waste an oval, welding up the back windows etc. would a late fifties with the bigger window be more appropriate. I am not planning on this being an exact replica but it would be good to be fairly close. The main reason is to build a decent offroad machine that will take me on the beaches and dare i say it to the cape one day.

Did the africa corps have these cars or were they all kubelwagens. they look so cool with the fat round tyres.

cheers kurt

Just a thought,
could you pull the 4wd gear off an 80s syncro and graft it on to a country buggy or beetle pan??

if you had enough time and money I'm sure you could graft on the 4wd bits
yes beetle body bolts straight onto the country buggy chassis
an easier way would be irs chassis with kombi gbox but its not as authentic as the cb pan with is a lot closer to the original
ive just acquired a 62 bug actually and am thinking of doing the same thing
keep us informed of how you go
marcel

Is there any reason that you can't run a subaru 4x4 gearbox and drop boxes in a normal Beetle pan?

I know that Subaru gearboxes (evidently) rotate the wrong way for a Volkswagen, but adding drop boxes (from a kombi or CB) would reverse the rotation and give you some extra ground clearance to play with. In addition you would gain a low-range (if you get the right box, Subaru didn't offer the dual-range box for several years) and the option or running a drive-shaft up to a front diff. :thumb

I've been thinking of this conversion for the kombi for some time, but I'm not sure of the strength of a Subaru box. I'm sure they'd be more than strong enough for a Beetle though.

There is a bloke in the W.A Volkswagen club that has built one of these to exacting standards. Like has already been said, country buggy gearbox and lifted front end (HUGE ground clearance, these things must have been able to go places), 'created' split rear window. This bloke has even gone to the effort to make the dash too, with sliding map tray etc etc.

Unfortunately, I cannot remember this fellows name - a little digging would find out if you are interested though.

On a separate topic - subaru gearboxes are something I have thought about too, but I was thinking of using a liberty front wheel drive gearbox and flipping the ring and pinion to get the rotation correct, thus getting a modern 5 speed tranny into the beetle. Dont know about sizes - the earlier (L series) gearboxes are bound to be smaller though.

Anyone know anything about these conversions ?

Doug any info is helpful.

Marcel your project sounds like a baja bug with a beetle body on it modified to suit.

Would this be a way of doing a low cost car (relatively speaking) as an interim solution while the other project, replica, slowly progresses in the background.
Kurt

personally I wouldnt do a faithful replica for the one I might be building as to the money involved and time
Ive hopefully got a split window kombi gbox lined up which sounds like an easy fit and cut and turn the standard front end to get the required lift
you could do the same just depends on how much you want to spend and how faithful you want the replica to be
marcel:thumb

Doug, is it actually possible to flip the ring and pinion in a Subaru gearbox? I haven't had a good look at one, but I've been told that they can't be flipped. It doesn't matter anyway if you use reduction boxes.

Putting redux boxes on the suby gearbox conversion actually reduces the strength needed, Its the same thing as the planitary redux boxes on large trucks and buses, they are there to reduce the load on the drivetrain and also allow smaller driveshafts!

I do have one question though!, and that is how easy is it to connect the gearshift linkages between vw and suby

Sorry, no idea. I've never tried it.

I recall reading in, Ithink, the UK split window club or similar someone had grafted a late beetle body on to a type 181 pan. It seemed strange at the time to me because thought they were a type 3 pan. Now that would be interesting! Not 4wd of course but high rise with a ripper LSD.
Thes pans may still be avail cheaply in Europe(?) and they would fit under or above a car in a container so the shipping
cost should not be oyutrageous.

Hmmmmm! A high rise Type3 wagon with an LSD? Hmmmm!

type 3 are really easy to lift you just adjaust the torsions bars front and rear as you do with the back of a beetle
so you dont really need a new pan
marcel:thumb

There is an OUTRAGIOUS Type 3 squareback with High lift suspension,thats the company car for a surf and skateboard shop here in Hobart!
COOOOL

sounds cool can you get us some pics for all to perv at?
marcel:thumb

I'll take some pics tomorrow but will have to wait till the film comes back from the chemists!

Sorry about the time taken to reply.

Can you flip the ring and pinion in a subaru gearbox ? I dont know to be perfectly honest. I know there are at least three different gearboxes (EA81, real early wagons, EA82 type, 80's vintage, and the EJ20 / EJ22 gearbox from the liberty / legacy (the one I was thinking of)).

I actually have a liberty station wagon (RS Turbo hee hee !), so I will have a word with my mechanic who has apparently rebuilt a few gearboxes. He might know.

Linkages can always be fabricated, they are fiddly to get right, but not rocket science. Only other things are then mountings (which can be fabricated), gearbox width (does it fit between the frame horns ??) and then adapting the bellhousing.

I think if the ring and pinion can be flipped to reverse the direction of rotation, then the rest of the bits and pieces should be surmountable.

Any body pulled one of these gearboxes to pieces before ?

The type 181 actually used the same floorpan as the karmann ghia not the type 3. :thumb

I have to ask why you would want a 4wd setup in a bug ? Why not buy a suzi or subaru ? The bug / buggy will go just as far if not further than a 4wd anyway.
Just give it a lift and get good at driving.

Don't believ me ?? If you are in the Brisbane area I will happily take you out for a display, better still come on one of our Manx Club runs ....