Ian at Southwest Classic VW’s tells us about his latest project, a Tempo Matador turned around in just ten days!

This old beasty, and a spare chassis were picked up from Kleift & Klok in Holland by its new owner Buzz, and his mate Jonny K. They trailored it back to the UK to be met by me (Ian), at midnight 12th October.  After unloading the two parts came the proposal. Could we get it driveable by the weekend of 22nd October, for the North Devon VW club show? With the promise of my logos on the doors as a reward, all current jobs were put on hold and work started the next day.

Southwest VW’s mechanic, Olly got cracking first thing Wednesday morning (13th) on the engine.  It was in the spare chassis to start with, and rumoured not to of run since 1974, but with some new plugs and some jungle juice we were in business, it fired up just lovely!

The next week was spent on custom engine mounts, J tubes which dodge the front leaf suspension (the engines in the wrong place on these) and  a modified Kadron exhaust that was kicking around the stores came into play too. Buzz had cleaned up the old fuel tank and even given it a lick of paint, and with the wiring plumbed in, the Matador was alive!

The old suspension was interesting, held together by cable ties and split pins! The donor chassis came to our rescue again – the brakes were a similar story, with the donor’s master cylinder still being in a useable condition. Flexi hoses for these are tricky to come by, and after hours spent online and driving to motor factors, we had to conceed with “close enough” to meet the deadline. Correct custom ones have since been commisioned.

We managed to get the thing movable and stoppable by Thursday the 21st. The Test drive was interesting! If you hit the brakes hard enough the back end would lift up off the floor, we subsequently discovered the fresh air vent by the screen was razor sharp – all who drove in her have no skin left on their hands after instinctivley putting a hand out to steady themselves.

48 man hours after starting, Buzz and Jonny K collected the truck  ready for the weekend. Mission accomplished!

If you have a project that needs some help, check out Ians website http://www.southwestvws.co.uk/                                     Click on the photo above for more pictures in our Flickr album