John Harper of DerCarolinaPanzers.com was very kind to open his doors for all, his collection of VW’s and others is something to behold.

The snowmobile is a 40hp driven vehicle and right next to it is the pig bus which was used at Carrowinds I believe, a sweet low mileage Scirocco, a Rabbit, a couple of early Mercedes being the rare water coolers in the collection.

The primo vehicle has to be the 23w barnddor deluxe showing its original paint mostly – reportedly running for the weekend open Haus. This is an extremely rare vehicle and a real treat to have it on show in Charlotte.

An open frame VW bug presumably for a dealer display would have looked stunning in its day, not that anyone dares to do the same today but VW were proud of their simplicity and form enough to show their cars bare and all.

To the album of pictures

New wiring loom from wiring works – this is a 66/67;

To make the journeys more comfortable we chose to fit a lot of sound proofing from secondskin

www.secondskinaudio.com/

Lots of damplifier, followed by luxury liner pro, and then overkill, should be quieter. Put damplifier under the side panes too.

That long panel is not easy to fit – especially with the long chrome trim.

This is as it is today – about 10000 miles;

This is the first fit in the bus. Apparently correct for a 67 we made sure we used German heat exchangers that had the pre-heat on the passenger side, we then plumbed this through the rear tin and used a cap to block off the front tin.

This shows where we ended up putting the oil filter – under the drivers side of the tray, out of the way of stones and debris but still accessible.

Turned brake drums, new slave cylinders, shoes and that ultra expensive one year only correct 67 master cylinder. Dual circuit brakes.

This is the first run early in 07. At this time we were using a 30 pict 3 with an ACN SVDA but we eventually went correct 30 pict 1 and a correct era SVDA. With any luck only the really observant will say this is nothing other than a correct 1500 SP.

We wanted yet more reliability so we chose to replace the whiny 4th gear with a fully rebuilt Rancho stock ratio bus transaxle including RGB’s – just add oil and go they say.

www.ranchoperformancetransmission.com/transaxles/vw.html

New gearbox mounts, front and rear, restored gas tank with new sender, new heater cabels, clutch cabel and accelerator cable and we should be ready for the engine.

Here we are ready for the engine to go back in

This is how it looks today..

Next stop the upholstery shop Donalds Upholstery in Charlotte.

Sound proofing to the top surface of the roof;

Finished headliner – front to back and back to front – very straight

Covers with painted head stainless self tappers – the details…

Front seats, had to source a replacement drivers seat at the last stage due to a broken spring

Rear seats – back section straightened;

Correct year middle seat (minus the handles at this stage)

Fitting up the polished trim to the freshly traffic white and clear powder coated bumpers.

Father in law shaped the trim insert with aplomb

This is post sand blast and off to the paint shop

Check out the 12 gallons of sand that the painter had to remove before etch primer

Primer and small repair finished (90+ hours) and now off to the paint shop;

This is what it started as;

Same deal as the drivers side. Cut it out, weld an inner sill

But the floor baffled us, either localised repair or a new section?

Purchased a replacement VW floor at great expense from Schofield

This is what it ended up like;

Small localised repair to the rear suspension tube carrier;

MOT’d in a hurry, registered her, surrendered the CA title, packed up her up on the RoRo ferry as we’re off to the new world of North Carolina USA.

We then thought long and hard about what to do with the bus, use her as is or get some more repairs done and then paint here to be nice. With all the hassle of titles in NC we decided to get her painted.

Do we drive it or ‘just’ do a light restoration to the rusty bits. The rusty bits were the outer sills – or so we thought. The outer sills turned into inner sills and partial floors too.

As collected from the Thames port

The rust?

This is where we started in 2002;

Once again the Samba came to our rescue but this time we took some time and chose more of what we wanted;

• Original

• Bus with seats

• Deluxe

• Not much welding

Owned and driven by the guys who run Hannoverwerks – now a defunct website but they were all over the scene in the late 90′s.

The original ad pics from Samba;