DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Thanks Graham, the plan is to send her to Irvs VW Restos (master patina blender)for some blending on the sporadically sanded doors and new sills and then leave as is. May treat the surface with some sort of oil/wax but I don’t want to lose that natural satin finish. I don’t like the whole shiny clear coat look over patina.

In addition to this thought, is the fact that maybe - and I say maybe very loosely at this stage, I may paint it later down the line. This’ll obviously spring new surprises and a mountain of jobs like replacing the whole front end of panels but we’ll see. Let’s get her on the road first.

At the end of May I was working in Leeds, which geographically is many miles from my house but closer to the guy I wanted to do the paint blending on the new metal. He is in the Lake District, so I spoke sternly to the 912 and after an undisclosed quantity of timber successfully coaxed her onto the trailer. I took her to work on the Monday and after work drove the further 5 hour round trip to drop her with Irv. My request when dropping off was quite simple; make her look like a welder has never been near her on the outside, and leave Matt's masterpiece inside as it is. Right you are he said and that was that. I left him with a small list of other little jobs way above my skillset - I'm good with the oily bits but anything bodywork related is beyond my patience level so he's doing bits like fabricating the long gone rear light screw tabs, replacing the leading edge of the decklid where the plate lights should sit but where mine just flap helplessly in the breeze. He also fitted the nearside window, and winder mechanism which I'd grown to hate with a passion due to the first one I bought having missing teeth which were strategically hidden by where the mechanism was parked. I waited three weeks for that piece of shite from the USA, I was well chuffed.

As soon as I have the pictures from Irv I'll post them up, I did have a preview but then I changed phones so don't have them any more so I'll have to wait.

In other news, I am still without means of propulsion due to some build 'discrepancies' shall we say. Corners were cut, timing chains were not replaced so were deemed way off spec when it came to being timed up. I'll leave the rest to your imagination as I'm not one to whistle blow, but I'm miffed off with it so she can stay in the lake district till I'm over it.

Looking forward to see the end result!
Sure you will look forward and get it done!
Summer is here!!

You know what it's like graham, it's all the little things at the end that take the longest. I will love this car, but not after I'm done hating it with a passion first.

Oh so true, racing cars can be worse in my experience....

Intel from Irv would suggest that her stay there is coming to an end - although she is going to his storage unit whilst we wait for the motor to make an appearance. He's been chipping away at the list I gave him to fart around with - and tasks complete are as follows...

•Weld in new fixing lugs for the rear lights
•Roll all four arch lips
•Stop the headlights from sporadically falling out. This was caused by the evident wonkiness of both wings, the front left blatantly having taken quite a punt at some point if the bumper is anything to go by therefore making it a total ballbag to get them to sit right. I didn't ask how it was done, but i'd imagine a hammer was involved. Or he just scared it to stay on, who knows.
•Repair the decklid numberplate light area, this had totally rotten away so a load of magic happened and all of a sudden there was something for the lights to attach too.
•Finish blending. In conversation with him earlier I said does it look like it's had a disproportionate amount of money spent on it, and the reply was no - it looks knacked. Perfect.

And now I sit and wait for the motor.

Heres some pics of where we're at now.











She is also blessed with a V5 from her majesties government.

Nice

How are you going to get an indicator in the front wing? Looks like the ‘bump’ may have taken the edge off the shape a little...

Believe it or not the indicator actually fits fine, no idea how. Only reason it’s not fitted is because I ordered a more orange lens than the faded one I had but promptly snapped it in half getting it out the weapons grade bubble wrap it was in.

Great update, looks... well... looks untouched!!!!

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap

Hope you get your engine sorted to your satisfaction.

Ollie

The problem child returns tomorrow, and I have an engine sat in my garage. So brace yourselves.

We are ready, hurry up!

Ready now?

She came back a day later than planned then I promptly flew out of the country. Not because of what I saw might I add.

Good news!! You'll be ready well ahead on Ninove although I'm nosure what it will look like with a roof tent on top