That’s my wheels, my daily driver, though she’s spending the winters, that we’re spending Down Under, in a big shed between caravan trailers and other old timers.
She used to be an ordinary Bug until 1984, when a guy called Dorus cut her in in half and spent the rest of the year rebuilding her to a pick-up, as the Americans call their trucks. Of course i better like the Australian way of calling them ‘utes’, short for ‘utility cars’.
Photos first restoration (1988-1989).
Photos second restoration (2010-2012)
The base of my ‘ute’ that I bought from Dorus in may 1986, is a basic 1969 VW Beetle (Kever in Dutch). Drive train is a ‘flat 1600-engine’, from a VW Ponton.
The engine is modified for lead-free so she may be old, but she’s not more polluting for that reason.
The engine purrs fine on a Volvo 164 carburetor, attached to the engine on a Saab 96 manifold. Exhausts are stainless steel Dune Buggies, seats from a Ford Ghia, tires are Vredesteins 185-70 on American Eagles light alloys, front suspension lowered a full inch.
Which means you have to be careful; oversee one pothole and you’re lucky if you’re only losing a teeth-filling or two. It also has a Webasco heating that is fueled by a bottle of natural gas. ‘Dorus’, as we call her, in honor of her builder Dorus, sounds and drives like a four wheel Harley.
Through the years we’ve been taking her on trips to Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and through the former Yugoslavia all the way to Athens and the Peloponnese.
During that which trip we drove her to almost the top of Mount Olympus, to the point were the goath-path became to steep.
However, as nobody was selling stickers up there, we put the ‘This car climbed Mount Washington’ sticker up her back. That was another trip – to New Hampshire – and another story.