The time has come to freshen up our little buggy. I found "Ed" years ago when I went to help a neighbor load a trailer and saw the VW sitting in the corner of his shed. It was being used as a recycling bin and was was overflowing with aluminum cans. Questions were asked; money changed hands and I pushed the little buggy home. Not as hard as that may sound, it was mostly down hill but as the buggy had no brakes I had to jump in and put it in gear to slow down at the last minute before driving into my shop door like I did when I brought the MG home. There's a disaster for another article!
A fresh battery, a valve adjustment and quicky carb rebuild had "Ed" running the next day. A couple weeks to order parts and the brakes were working, leaking fuel lines replaced and new ignition components, exhaust and carb installed. This had our buggy running pretty good. We just drove it around the neighborhood and in the yard for several years. Both of the kids got the opportunity to practice driving a stick shift around the yard.
Finally the several-times-cobbled wiring harness was becoming a problem and the old 40 horse was getting tired. Out of all the vehicles that have passed through my fleet, this is the one Mama likes best and she asked to get it painted. Contrary to what she thinks, that obviously meant I had to disassemble the whole buggy for a complete restore. This job overlapped with the Mustang restore and got back-shopped for a while but is now being moved up to the front again.
The buggy is titled as a 64 Edford which I assume has something to do with the original builder but have not been able to verify. It has shortened '64 pan with a '65 air-cooled 40 horse. After quite a bit of research, I believe the body is a Spatz. These same bodies were later slightly modified and sold as Dolphins. VW bits, black carpet and 60's Mustang seats make for a decent low frills interior.
We are going to start with the chassis restore. The pans are pretty clean except where the shortening was done. This area must have just been left unfinished because it rusted pretty badly. The center tube was home to a community of vermin at sometime and has rusted areas that will need to be addressed because of it. Every moving piece is as worn as you'd expect for a 50+ year old Volkswagen so components will be addressed as we go.
The goal is a street buggy to run to town or go to the local cruises not off-roading, so we will mostly rebuild the VW parts stock and pretty. Emphasis is on being groovy
Stay tuned for the continuing story of "Spatz the Wonder Buggy".
If you have more info on Spatz or Dolphin buggies we'd love to see it. Send to Real Life Hot Rods or click the comment button.
The buggy is titled as a 64 Edford which I assume has something to do with the original builder but have not been able to verify. It has shortened '64 pan with a '65 air-cooled 40 horse. After quite a bit of research, I believe the body is a Spatz. These same bodies were later slightly modified and sold as Dolphins. VW bits, black carpet and 60's Mustang seats make for a decent low frills interior.
We are going to start with the chassis restore. The pans are pretty clean except where the shortening was done. This area must have just been left unfinished because it rusted pretty badly. The center tube was home to a community of vermin at sometime and has rusted areas that will need to be addressed because of it. Every moving piece is as worn as you'd expect for a 50+ year old Volkswagen so components will be addressed as we go.
The goal is a street buggy to run to town or go to the local cruises not off-roading, so we will mostly rebuild the VW parts stock and pretty. Emphasis is on being groovy
Stay tuned for the continuing story of "Spatz the Wonder Buggy".
If you have more info on Spatz or Dolphin buggies we'd love to see it. Send to Real Life Hot Rods or click the comment button.
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