Who does this CB belong to, and are they a member of this forum???
Regards,
Steve
[ Edited on September 21st, 2007 by ztnoo ]
Fine tuning the proper daily ratio of Maxwell House to Bacardi 151.........
* Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia !
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Dave says Bini's a fool
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Registered: May 22nd, 2003
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posted on September 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Hi there, This is my old CB I built it in 2005.
The following story was pinched from Hoodride....
The Country Buggy
These weird things were built here in Australia in 1968, originally sold as a farm and utility vehicle. After being in production for only a year
Volkswagen Australia decided to stop building the cars and as a result, fewer than 2000 cars were ever built. With about 200 cars still surviving
today, these are a very rare beast indeed.
The chassis consists of an early Beetle pan with running gear similar to the Kubelwagen ie. raised spindles at the front and reduction boxes out back.
The vehicle is very capable off road and appealed to those that needed a basic form of transport that was both rugged and reliable.
What Rhett from Bendigo in Victoria has done with his is defintly not what VW had envisioned, and we're sure it would leave some purists gasping for
air. Its defintly the first in the world to be transformed into the Hoodride you see before you. We were fortunate enough to be in Victoria for the
DOVW to catch up with Rhett and witness its debut on the Australian scene.
"It all started a few years ago, when my Dad and I picked up a couple of rough country buggy bodies that a mate had given us. We got them home and
sat them in the yard with all the other wrecks. Just for kicks I sat a couple of wheels under the arches, to see what one would look like slammed and
that was it, I had to build one!
A couple of years past and with a few projects out of the way and an empty garage I decided it was time to build this bloody thing. That was August
'05 and I set myself a deadline to have it finished for The Day of the Volkswagen show, just 4 months away!"
First Rhett pulled the pan out from under a burnt out '67 beetle, took it back to bare metal, primed, seam sealed, stone guarded and top coated it.
Most removable parts were sandblasted and painted in 2pak satin black, and everything was put back together with stainless fasteners where possible.
Then he bought a lowered beam that a mate had lying around, detailed it and fitted it along with a detailed 1300 gear box. At the same time he dropped
the back 2 splines. After getting the wheels and caps powder coated black they were fitted with 145/65s front and 165s at the rear.
With the pan done and just 3 weeks to the show, Rhett called on a few mates to come over and give him a hand with lifting the body onto the detailed
pan. "It looked great sitting down in the front, but at the back the tyres were nearly rubbing on the tops of the arches and that’s even before I had
an engine in it!" To give the wheels some room to roll, Rhett had to cut out the tops of the tyre arches.
"I pulled a 1600 out of my Dads Baja, fitted the merged headers and stinger, dropped it in and fired it up. Then I threw in some shitty Beetle seats
I had lying around and with just one week to spare I took her for its first drive! WOW that’s fun!!"
"The following Sunday we rolled through the gates at Day of the Volkswagen. WOW! What a response, everyone loved it!" And its not hard to see why. A
rare and unusual Australian vehicle mixed with some Aussie Hoodride ( read MELBURG) flavour makes this one unique machine.
Its since been sold on and going thru a bit of a transformation.