DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

What a flying start you have!
Looks so good underneath, fantastic.

Had any thoughts on the suspension yet?

Oh yes.... we’ll get to that Metal first....

So for the metalwork, we decided that we'd blast the cargo floor to see what we'd got, and also that we'd hand bare-metal the rest to keep the integrity of the panels - we had original paint everywhere, but decided to remove it to make sure that we knew what was there.

This stage isn't very spectacular; a few holes in the floor, the windscreen area, one of the rear windows, a little bit around the passenger door area, the front panel and the rear quarter around the battery tray. And so we made a solid shell into one that was great. And considering the number of hours I had put into the targa (300+ on metal....) and the work that is going into JPs E-Type, this was a breeze. Although a lot of hard work by the team. Bare-metalling by hand is not for the faint-hearted. Nor the easily bored.....

But after full assessment, this is what we had to do for metal...















The front-end went from looking like this:



To this...







Biggest area of metal replacement was the rear quarter and the engine lid





And some repairs around the passenger door





And then the bare-metal work outside and general clean-up inside...





Engine bay

















And that really was about it. In fact it went so quickly, we really don't have that many photos of this stage! Underneath we cleaned and scraped, made a small repair around the handbrake pivot point. And that was it! Result....

So now we had a solid shell, the fun bits could start...

Modifications.....yeah!

Having done a slavishly detail correct resto last time, I really wanted to do a modified project. The plan when I was buying the SC was always to hot rod it. But when I found the car, it was completely untouched, had every piece of history with it and was in remarkable condition. All I could bring myself to do with it was to remove the Scoops and the fat-arse murican bumpers. It just needed preserving.....

So this project was going to be what I (and the rest of the family) wanted.

There are a few things we've done to it that quite a lot of people in the VW community will hate. But there will be some who like it. Either way, tbh I'm not fussed, it's for us and we're having fun with it.

But I didn't want extreme, so no tubbing of arches, no air-ride suspension, no rat-look paint job (although I love rat-look buses, it's just I'm too old & not cool-enough to have one )

And the first big question was this....



This is not an easy one. VWs famously can take pretty much any paint scheme - two tone, single-colour, psychadelic, metallic, flat, rat....what to go with?

Green?







Strong contender, thought about doing it in a Porsche colour..... but when it came to it... no...

What else? Two tone or single colour?











Like the simplicity of single-colour

Could we do rat-look....? no, but cool....





So what actual colour then. And then it hit us. Keep the original... in a desire to 'customise' it's easy to miss what's right in front of you. We thought we could give it a twist with funky wheels, 'deluxe-trim' (a package of chrome highlights on the bus), a couple of spots and a suitable stance.

These are the inspiration shots....













So we had a plan for the look of the bus. Mildly lowered. Perl White (L87) original colour, funky wheels a couple of accessories and chrome-trim highlights to set it all off.

What a result with the shell


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Wise move with the colour and what a great shell

IMHO, very wise colour, totally future-proofed for anyone who wants it.
Why are the front ducts modified (I think they are cut and spot welds drilled?)

Still waiting to see your suspension plans!

Looks great, I have growing bus envy the more this develops. Love how your guy wrote his questions on the bus

911hillclimber wrote:IMHO, very wise colour, totally future-proofed for anyone who wants it.
Why are the front ducts modified (I think they are cut and spot welds drilled?)

Still waiting to see your suspension plans!

Front ducts bits are screwed / bolted together - we just took them off to get a feel for what was on the inside - they'll be going back on. Will keep you in suspense(ion) about what we did to the running gear Don't get too excited though, it's not at all radical, but it is a bit trick....

Burma-Shave wrote:Looks great, I have growing bus envy the more this develops. Love how your guy wrote his questions on the bus

Yeah, I loved that too - it's a good indicator of their style...

My son-in-law has a '68 Bay and is pondering the stock front end he has, hence my push!

So - now to start putting that all together.

While the body was being finished up and before any paint, I wanted to make a couple of mods:

First up was the dashboard. I wanted to have a radio & some auxiliary gauges on the dash. I wanted a tacho (that can go where the clock is), oil temp & pressure and then a replacement clock. I also didn't want to use any of the options to fit them to the steering column or tacked onto the top of the dash.

I also wanted them to look period and just 'blend'

Searching for gauges, I found some Smith's ones that were used in the Splitty - and this is where the outlaw-ish stuff starts. It's not massively different, but it's also not correct. And it won't be. I wanted it to look how I wanted it...

For the head unit, I wanted something that would look period, but have full modern - and I found this RetroSounds San Diego head unit. Full Bluetooth connectivity for streaming spotify and it also has DAB+ which means it can be used in the UK & on the continent. Perfect.

So I mocked this up...



Which as you can tell means that I'm not going to be leaving my day-job any time soon to work as a Photoshop expert... but it got the job done.

So that meant we had to modify the dashboard - move the radio slot up and add 3 holes for the clock / gauges.



And a dry run (and not a very good photo) leaves us looking like this....






Which I think looks great and is exactly what I was looking for....Note also that we're removing most of the plastic dash-cover. The dash will be painted body-colour and adds to the overall clean-lines look of the bus that I was starting to get a feel for. I'm also starting to see where the 'chrome highlights' can be a theme we use inside and outside - although I would like to get a set of chrome bezels for the main instruments, if anyone has any hints or tips on where to get them, it would be much appreciated....

Lovely details like this will really make it - can't wait to hear more about the suspension

Just caught up on this Richard - fantastic build and what a great project!

Looking great! Does the radio clear all the heater cables etc behind the dash? I know it gets pretty busy behind there on a Bay-window.