1973 Volkswagen Other

open air

Aircooled flat 4

Manual

1132728867

Clear

Gasoline

Up for auction is my 1973 Manx replica. This was a five year project where no expense was spared. A friend down in Texas used an original Manx body to create new body mold and he sold a few manx bodies to cover his costs. The thing that sets this body apart from most others is that its red metal flake finish is in the gel-coat finish just as the originals were done. This is not a paint job. This in itself is quite difficult to do. Every part on the car is new except the rear torsion housing and a few tidbits. I wanted a lowered buggy for the street so I purchase CB's lowering ball-joint beam along with lowered front disk spindles. I kept the rear wheels vertically aligned by flipping the rear IRS trailing arms and swapping the shock mounts. Being lowered the car does not have a lot of suspension travel. I built this car for the street. It rides on air shocks in the rear and gas-KYBs up front. The bulk of the chassis is a box tube Barrien nostalgia frame. The wiring is by Painless and cooling is done by a remote/hidden Derale oil cooler using a thermastatically controlled fan and oil thermostat. All automatic. You can sit in heavy traffic all day and never worry about overheating with this setup. I have taken the car on a number of 300 mile plus trips without any issues. The car is debugged. The engine is a simple 1776 built by Strictly Foreign and the transmission is a highway flyer so the car can cruise all day at 65 mph. There are no windshield wipers on this car. I never took it out in bad weather so that was never an issue. The rollbar is a structural rollover hoop by Berrien that was chromed. The tail lights on the other hand are Spectra-Chromed which is fantastic. This type of finish seals the part and does not treat the metal with a lot of acids so that the finish will last forever. I highly recommend this type of finish. If you look throttle linkage at the back of the engine you will notice that it is all blind. You won't see any linkage at all for a very clean look. The Tri-Mill exhaust had the pre-heaters ground off and welded over and the the entire system was finished off by Jet-Hot Coatings. The ignition is all MSD. The 40mm Webers have been perfect since the day I purchased them. I originally had electrically choked Kadrons which turned out to be un-tuneable. Having four wheel disk brakes on a car this light is really overkill. Panic stops need to be progressive in order to avoid lock-up. I do have a brake proportion valve that lets you adjust the front to rear bias. The parking brake actually works the way it is supposed to, which is nice. I also have neatly mounted recoiling seat belts for the front seats. There are no rear seat belts. The fuel guage is the only non-operational feature on the are so I just go by mileage between fill-ups. A really nice touch is the only Manx style carbon fiber dash that I know of. I made the mold it for and vacuumed bagged it myself. The rims are original wide-5 VW centers welded into new steel rims by Stockton Wheels in CA. These rims were also powder coated white for a strong rust free finish. Shifting on this car is very nice. Only two fingers are needed to shift the car. There is no vagueness, only simple 4 speed shifting. The clutch is light and smooth. Lastly, this body was made from a Manx 1 body that had a spare tire and battery well designed into it. Since I wanted to hide all of my electronics, an oil cooling system hidden from view, and IRS I removed the two wells from the body. I then fabricated a new metal flake rear cover panel to close off the two vaccant spots for a very clean look. This cover also provides an excellent means of easy access to the rear internals of the buggy. The reason that I am now selling my buggy is that I would like to move on to another project. I have had this car for some time now and it is time to move on. If you need any more photos or have any questions please use the Ebay contact system, my phone number: (703) 533 7279, or my email: chucvadj@netzero.com. Thanks and happy bidding. MikeOn Jun-02-15 at 13:45:34 PDT, seller added the following information: YouTube shorty: https://youtu.be/8VnuFF5iL7M