THE "CONCEPTION", THE BEACHBUGGY BUILDUP I wanted to build a beachbuggy ever since the 70's when I became obsessed with cars in my teens, and especially fibreglass kitcars, figuring that you could get an awfull lot of performance for your money and no rot worries, very important when most cars in the 70's had low grade steel and rustproofing techniques and used to rust to pieces within a few years. At the time I was very impressed with beachbuggys, as they were extremely radical, wild and essentially simple, having the unique qualities of BIG wheels and tyres, big chrome headlights, exposed engine and the total open top experience. Spin forward to my 30's midlife crisis and I spot a GP LWB beachbuggy driving about locally, so I nab the guy and pester him to allow me a short spin in his blue metalflake, General Grabber shod big chrome steel wheeled machine. To the the guy who let me drive this buggy, by myself!, I say "Thanks mate". This was amazing, it was an absolutely fantastic experience, and I've owned various Lotus's, a 911SC and various other sharp road tools. The things that REALLY stood out were, the open top experience, the small steering wheel , total simplicity and the ALL important "FUN" factor, I had to build one NOW. So the plan started, I had Machine7 renovate and spray my 1968 VW beetle chassis and convert it to IRS rear suspension for improved handling (I used to have a Fiat500 which I had tuned so its top speed increased from 59mph to 80mph, and I managed to roll it, not helped by the swing axle suspension tucking in at a crucial moment-SCARY!) Then I started attaching and painting all the necessary bits like brakes, steering , front suspension, rear suspension etc. I decided to go the LWB route as I didn't fancy cutting a chassis up and rewelding it back a foot shorter, sounds like it would snap in the middle. Also, importantly I wanted loads of room for kids in the back, plus anyway I just liked the look of lowered LWB beachbuggy's, long n low. As it was to be lowered I fitted dropped spindles and gas shock absorbers to the front and rotated the splines appropriately at the back, and to help with the rear engine weight I fitted rear adjustable coilovers with shorter springs, as normally coilovers are usually used to increase ride height and have longer springs. This stage of assembling shows the roll bar and Porsche 911 "tombstone" seats fitted, I don't like this design of roll bar as it just looks like it could fold over and collapse if put to the test...... I bought the seats from a Porsche breaker and made up some seat bases to bolt to the VW chassis. I had already made the plunge by buying a Mig welder and used my new found "skills" to make up the seat bases and finish off the roll bar by adding a centre stabilising bar bolted to the rear of the buggy bodywork. It did help that I had a triple garage before my not very surprising divorce, the sad occupational hazard of car nuts. The space available came in very usefull as I could lay the buggy body next to the chassis in readiness for bolting it on. In this pic you can see the sad and crap1300 twinport put in for testing, the front and rear bumpers/cages , the new chrome wheels (8x15 & 6x14 Interceptors) and rear shocks. ( before the coilovers were fitted ) Now we're getting somewhere!, at this stage you've got to bolt the body down onto the VW chassis and seal and waterproof the edges with sillicon sealer, not straighforward as you then find out that fibreglass is not perfect because the body has distorted. This happens because when a body comes out of its mould it starts to contract and flex depending on body thickness and temperature, in practise this means various gaps need filling by the use of skillfull botching.... Here you see the gap in the front where the petrol tank is bolted to, this is where you blow yourself up by trying to weld a modified filler attachment to the tank, you avoid this problem by welding a new gas tank. There are some pretty cool gas caps available especially some of the AC cobra chrome/aluminium types. My next step was to fit aluminium side panels to the lower bodywork to mimic the old Lotus 7's and get a cleaner race look, plus you get to cover the acres of crappy bare fibreglass that make up the lower bodywork of most beachbuggies. On the right is my lovely daughter posing prior to the fitment of the front bonnet, note the intallation of the steering column, speedo, screen washer bag, and brake reservoir. Note also the bar running across the dash rear, this bar attaches to the steering column for some added rigidity. It also serves as a good earthing point for all the instruments and radio.