It’s been 3 years in the making, 2 incarnations and countless late nights in the garage, but finally (again) our in house Web Designer Dave, has finally got his ’65 Deluxe back on the road.
The sharp eyed of you might recognise this car as our SSP Wheels catalogue cover car, and the star of some of our magazine adverts, but it hasn’t seen the road for quite some time. After dinging the car into the tap in his garage in September 2011, the decision was made to repair the wing and have a slight tidy up of the bodywork… As we all know, things never turn out this way and after some panel beating, sanding, the wing was repaired. Just a coat of paint needed on this one panel would have probably been enough, but after a step back and eyeing up all the other little issues with the bodywork, before we knew it, the whole car was stripped and the sanding began!
Dave’s good mate Arron Tully was called in to take care of the welding work to the boot floor, engine lid and passenger door.
After 6 months of prep on the bodywork, the car was shipped off to Johnson’s Accident Repair Centre for some final fettling prior to paint being applied. This included completely stripping the wings, bonnet and decklid back to bare metal.
Most of the refit was done at the bodyshop before being transported back to Dave’s garage where the rest could be finished. The newly rebuilt 1600cc was fitted into the freshly painted engine bay, everything wired and the engine fired. Arron was called back in to lead the task of fitting the brand new off white TMI headliner and after dodging the bad weather, the pair of them did a great job!
*this isn’t the finished product 😉
The bug finally went for its MOT last week and sailed through, just a couple of little advisories, but nothing major. Of course, these things are never finished! There is still a set of dropped spindles, new king and link pins and deluxe window trim to fit…..
Wheels are GT5 spokes from the SSP Wheels range, seats, door panels and headliner from TMI all available from VW Heritage.
Dave would like to give a big thanks to the team at Johnson’s accident repair centre for their awesome work, Arron Tully for his help with the headliner, welding and general genius, and everyone else who has helped in one way shape or form!
Cool looking bug.
I ave a 63 with dropped spindles up front and standard width beam. Did/does your car have the same ? I was considering buying the same wheels but want to make sure they stay inside the arches.
Dave’s Beetle is fitted with a 4″ narrowed beam to give it this stance. You could fit the GT5 wheels with a stock width axle, but it will limit you to how low you can go. Hope that helps. Andy