Thank you... you know who you are

swelchy

swelchy

Well-known member
The kindness and comradery here is awesome..... Feels good to be in a group that isn't full of negative gripey blokes. I was blessed with a gift from one of you guys.. I'm honored that you guys take time to spread kindness and genuinely interested in folks getting into the hobby. Some ofthe other hobby groups i'm in for aircooled VW and 3d printer stuff the people are brutal and crappy..
 
swelchy said:
The kindness and comradery here is awesome..... Feels good to be in a group that isn't full of negative gripey blokes. I was blessed with a gift from one of you guys.. I'm honored that you guys take time to spread kindness and genuinely interested in folks getting into the hobby. Some ofthe other hobby groups i'm in for aircooled VW and 3d printer stuff the people are brutal and crappy..
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Let's see your vw! We had a '73 bug til a couple years ago. My wife had it since she was a teenager
 
I'll look for some pics again. It was a beater, but we had fun. I stripped the back out and installed sound dampening, new interior panels, carpeting, and headliner. A real nice stereo, bean bag, hula girl on the dash, love beads hangin on the rear view, tye-dye curtains, barefoot gas pedal, monster die shift knob, safari windows for AC....fork clamp for my mtn bike mounted to the floor inside the side door, and a cargo rack overhead....and naturally, a peace sign instead of the VW emblem. I have a crazy decal and sticker assortment from the 60s & 70s and peppered the outside. It was Far-fig-groovin!
 
Mines ugly outside but has a lot going on most would never see... I took the body off in 2019 and cut out the old pans and welded in new pans.. painted the chassis.. sound proof the interior... new custom sew fine carpet, new headliner, new sunroof cables and doodads. stripped the seats all down to frame repainted, new foam new custom color sewfine seat upholstery. All new door panels.. new window regulators and all the glass rubber seals.. including the vent windows which is the biggest pain out of all of it..... Had a custom front beam made narrowed 5"... no shock towers.. She's static to get those big wide 17" BRM wheels under there.. Have a set of adjustable drop spring plates in the rear as well as a monster motor I had built by a pro guy that build VW race motors... i have 7K in the engine alone... It was previously in my bus and I swapped motors when I sold it so I could keep this one.
 
After taking my first breath, I was taken from the hospital to home in a ‘66 Fastback;
A little later I learned to drive in my Dad’s ‘63 Beetle with a pillow under my butt so I could see over the dash (barely reached the pedals); used to drive an early Bay (couldn’t find an affordable splittie) then a Westy.
Currently: Got Dad’s Baja kit (NOS, 1976), he never built it up (he had too many other projects), so I’m shoppin’ for something vwith front and rear damage as I’d want to save anything straight for a sweet street ride…
 
I can just remember my Dad driving home in a brand new '68 or '69 Beetle - the first with a 1500 engine I think. I drove it a bit when I got my license but it was older by then and in summer liked to vapourise the fuel in the lines when it got too hot. It was one of those cars which always started first time though. My dad was quite the VW fan - in the mid-70s he got his dream vehicle, a Microbus. That's a Kombi with seats. Dad and I went all over NSW and Victoria in that Microbus - I was about 10 or 11. We lived in Canberra and could get to Sydney or Melbourne readily enough. Got to see a lot of some of the most beautiful country Australia has to offer in that thing. Good times.
 
HamishR said:
I can just remember my Dad driving home in a brand new '68 or '69 Beetle - the first with a 1500 engine I think. I drove it a bit when I got my license but it was older by then and in summer liked to vapourise the fuel in the lines when it got too hot. It was one of those cars which always started first time though. My dad was quite the VW fan - in the mid-70s he got his dream vehicle, a Microbus. That's a Kombi with seats. Dad and I went all over NSW and Victoria in that Microbus - I was about 10 or 11. We lived in Canberra and could get to Sydney or Melbourne readily enough. Got to see a lot of some of the most beautiful country Australia has to offer in that thing. Good times.
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I wish I had not sold my last bus that I had for about 7 years. Came into a financial crunch and it had to go last year. Had a couple photographers that paid me to park it all the time for photo shoots background.
 

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That takes me back! Ours was a two-tone too - white on top with the lower half in a kind of apricot orange. It was the '70s! I remember my folks driving my older brother and I to see snow in NSW (quite a novelty to many Aussies) and while dad and my brother were trying to put snow chains on the tyres I used them for snowball practise. It was the first time I had ever made snowballs - I would have been around 10 or 11. My dad thought it was funny but my brother didn't. Good times...
 
Man, I always wanted to get an old VW as a kid. Best friend had an early (maybe '81) GTI that was in awesome shape, but had to get rid of it because it's differential was going bad. It was so loud (the broken diff) that we called it the star destroyer. Another friend had a type 3 when we were in high school (mid 90's) that was a super cool car, like a giant Beetle.

I started thinking the other day that I should find one in a couple years when my kids get to driving age. I'm sure anything worth buying is pretty cost prohibitive at this point though.

Cool stuff!

Oh yeah, pedals... be that a Tonebender you're working on?
 
Matmosphere said:
Man, I always wanted to get an old VW as a kid. Best friend had an early (maybe '81) GTI that was in awesome shape, but had to get rid of it because it's differential was going bad. It was so loud (the broken diff) that we called it the star destroyer. Another friend had a type 3 when we were in high school (mid 90's) that was a super cool car, like a giant Beetle.

I started thinking the other day that I should find one in a couple years when my kids get to driving age. I'm sure anything worth buying is pretty cost prohibitive at this point though.

Cool stuff!

Oh yeah, pedals... be that a Tonebender you're working on?
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