I’m asking for £24k
Many will attest that owning one of these cars is a journey, so I’ve tried to describe mine here. If you happen to have a copy of Laurence Meredith’s Original 356, this car is the Irish Green one in the buying section at the end, illustrating where the rust gets ‘em! When the pictures were taken for the book, the rest of the car was in boxes at Autofarm.
I bought the car 7 years ago from the bloke who bought the shell and boxes from Autofarm. He had done a light restoration in his garage at home.
I say light because although he sorted out the rust and had it painted (in grey), he proceeded to bolt/screw/clip etc all of the original boxed parts back on the car – including the original interior (albeit with a new headliner).
Since the two interior shots above were taken, I have sourced and fitted a pair of new headrests.
The big non-original piece at this point in the car’s history was the choice of propulsion power in the form of a ‘hot’ Beetle engine, as the original engine was lost. The bloke had gone to trouble of fitting the 356 fan housing so it a looked a bit like a 356 motor.
The electrics were also converted to 12V. Since the car was rust free, running (even the heaters worked!) and complete - but offered plenty of scope for improvement - I decided it was the car for me.
My intention was to sort the chrome, get the interior re-trimmed, acquire some new and/or NOS pieces here and there to generally tidy up the car and drive it. Ever had a plan that went in a different direction? Mine did when I happened across a complete 356C engine being sold by a guy in Germany who was running a British car restoration shop (no, I’m not making this up).
It turned out the engine number was 1,979 units away from the original one fitted to the car – so 1964. And when I say a complete engine, I mean everything was there including flapper boxes, carbs, oil filter canister, original distributor, etc. And so my plan started to morph!
Job one was to get the dynamo rewound for 12V; Job two was to source the necessary new parts to get the engine ready for installation including plug wires, tinware seals, throttle rods, fuel line, exhaust, clutch, starter motor (different ring gear on the flywheel to the Beetle engine), rev counter cable, heater cables + rods, heater silencers. Julian Hunt at Karmann Konnection sorted everything out (and has since seen me spend shed loads more on other parts from them/Stoddard).
Shortly after I’d installed the engine, my wife fell pregnant, and we decided to move house. Neither of these factors helped to accelerate the project! Wind the clock forward to May last year and (having continued to fettle various aspects of the car) I finally got her MOT’d, and had the engine/carbs/throttle linkage set up by Frances Tuthill.
As mentioned above, I’ve spent shed loads with KK. Big items such as (all new) hubcaps, bonnet handle, bumper over-riders (blades were already new), floormats, lenses, door seal sets, wiper arms, reversing light assembly, etc plus a seemingly never ending list of rubber trim/seals! I’ve been working my way through the re-chroming, and have done all of the interior (including the original speaker grille frames) except 1 x rear qtr hinge. And there’s just 1 x window frame (I’ve done the quarter light, door top strip and wind deflector) and 1 x rear quarter frame left to do for the exterior. All re-chroming was handled by Tuthill Porsche.
I’ve also been busy on ebay finding NOS e.g. a pair of SWF rear lights (with original boxes), interior day/night mirror and some excellent used parts e.g. rev counter, 12v clock.
So ….. the car isn’t concourse by any means, but it is very presentable and complete (and goes/stops like a 356C is supposed to). There’s also plenty of little jobs to attend to (do you EVER get to end of the list?), but with the sprog around I don’t get the time to do them, nor is the car getting the usage that I think it deserves.
Sadly, it’s time to hand the baton on. I hope someone likes it!
£24k someones going to get a real bargin. IMHO its worth at least another £5k
