bit of a blast from the past here........ mentioned before that my family had background with competative offroading..........so heres a few pics.

circa late 80's, early ninties........plenty of bajas doing the rounds then








we dug out the rivmaster buggy from it's hole and plan to have it running again this year, not unusual to have it in this state, every year after the kempsey 1000, it needed rebuilding again as the event was super rough and harsh on all the cars that dare enter.......... runs turbo water cooled kombi motor with terrific reliabilty..

i'll go through the photo albums and didg out some better action shots soon!

well cmon then, fix it!

"long term".........motor and box remain ready in storage, lots of other stuff to rebuild tho YEAH!!!...........even after 10 + years of racing the watercooled motor looked great in the bearings and rods + heads!! mostly STOCK engine........you can imagine the abuse it suffered, constantly on boost for hours.....no intercooler + SU carb! car was originally 2.7 sigma scorpion engine with turbo and twin SU's can you say POWERFUL!!!!............went VW to chase better handling via lower center of gravity and weight reduction, worked well!!!

Not many Rivvies floating around these days, especially over here in SA, but I still love the shape.

Kimbo

yep, great look for the rivvies............as you know, need $300K to be competative these days!!........will get soem photos up of when it was brand new, you'll love it! check back in a week or so

LOL, yeah ain't that the truth, got the $300, just short by the odd $299,700. I'm guessing a mid-80's version - mines an '84

yeah, most of it's been changed in the name of "refining", cept maybe roof and side pods..........just one big developement/experiment really........i won't claim that i did it, but was there watching and learning for sure, was a great period to be in

This was my Rivmaster,,, i ran it for a few years (on & off) up here in Qld,,, always wanted to do the Kempsy but never got enough time/money & didn`t really have decent enough suspension so always thinking that i`ll one day overhaul/upgrade,,, well it didn`t happen & we just kept pounnishing ourselves every meeting,,, by the time we had recovered from one meeting it was time for another & it just stuffed us both... physically, mentally & financially





i wish i didn`t sell it tho,,, it was huge amounts of fun,,, the P76 alloy V8 made for great torque for climbing hills & getting off the line & out of corners,,, just going "Through" corners needed a bit of practice as i was soooo used to driving the minis that this thing was just soooo wrong to turn compared :-) i got used to it tho, just chuck it in & get it slideways :-) then wheel-stand it out :-) jumping was awsome fun tho,,, man it used to launch :-)

Ahhhhh,,,, those were the days :-)

Thanks hellbugged for bringing those memories back :-) oh the pain of a sore back & the flu after every meeting :-)

cool pic everyone
anymore here who where competative off roading??
and more pic please !

Some from last year

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thanks for showing us very cool shots ,please tell us that one is being rescued not sent to sims?

Inspirational stuff.........I'm off for a drive.

Daimo is that the buggy Luke was driving around Valla around 2002/4ish? covering people in mud who tried to follow him through some tracks just out of town as i remember.....

yep, that's it, but more like 1996 did a few laps of Raleigh in '97 or '99 i think.............

my kind of thread!!

this is what im hoping to do when i get my baja bug, just for sh!ts n giggles but lots of fun

This looks like some good stuff. I went to the Waikerie Enduro this year hoping to see some VW-based stuff and came away somewhat disappointed. The sport seems to have become some kind of big-budget playground for professionally built tube-frames full of expensive components from the USA. I only spotted one VW beam axle in an older (although still very competitive) buggy, and no Baja bugs. There was a buggy running a fibreglass Beetle roof and Baja front clip, but it was a big-dollar tube framed affair with a V8 in the back and fabricated wishbone suspension all round with metre-long shocks which each cost as much as my car.

excellent pics!

we should try and get a historic class going?

ill talk to a some of my mate who are in the clubs and see what can happen, its more of sh!ts and giggles but might be enough to bring those hidden rivmasters and VW out

great pics.. great yarns

ok ill have a chat to a few freinds and see if we can have aub catagory for all cars with either a logbook given ouprior to 1985 or built to todays standards using parts from 1985 or earlier
for example most rivmasters featured earlier but with themajority of orignal parts
or taking a beetle and chopping it to bitz,s, putting a modern cage in it and maybe a subaru EA82 but leaving it at that