That will be fun! If you are working on counter tops you must be feeling fairly strong. Best wishes on all fronts!
-Maurice
Contributor
That will be fun! If you are working on counter tops you must be feeling fairly strong. Best wishes on all fronts!
-Maurice
Contributor
Believe it or not but Porsche was the number one tractor maker in Europe for several decades.
BilL D
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I have heard that Mr. Lamborghini started as a tractor mechanic. My brother the car guy and my other brother the farmer talk about Mr. Lamborghini and Mr. Porsche.
Contributor
Lamborghini made tractors. I actually bid on one a few years ago at an auction but couldn’t bid high enough to win. The story goes that Lamborghini went to buy a Ferrari, and Ferrari wouldn’t sell him one, stating that he didn’t want a tractor guy driving his car. Lamborghini said, “Fine, I will make my own car,” and that’s how it began.Originally Posted by Maurice Mcmurry
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My brothers version of the story is that Mr. Lamborghini's tractor clutch burned out and while repairing it discovered it was made by Ferrari. So he set out to make his own.
Administrator
Maurice, thanks for the video
Contributor
That was fun to find! It is not exactly the way I remember it. My mental image from childhood isMaurice, thanks for the video
Paul R. from Jersey ringing a bell and proclaiming "Two Pennys A Mile" I think that may have been in one of my brothers car magazines.
The German Import car shop close by our neighborhood recently changed hands. All of the relics have been lifted up out of the mud and the lot cleaned up. The previous owner of the German Import shop has a son who is a local hero. He had an Impressive career as a Nascar driver.
Administrator
Any of you guys ride a buggy out west?
Out West Buggy Ride.jpg
I ride a Polaris RZR in West Virginia on the Hatfield McCoy Trail system when I can, it sure would be great to take an extended vacation to ride in one of the western states.
Keith Hatfield McCoy Trails.jpg
Contributor
Keith I follow some YTubers and one is Trailmater based in Moab Utah, Matt's Offroad Recovery in Hurricane Utah, and Fab Rats and I can't remember their town off hand. Trailmater will take you on some pucker worthy trails doing recovery's. Sometimes they will say what they are rated but 9 difficulty isn't unusual. Rory is truly an expert on the trails and you will soon figure that out. His old square body C30 Chevy he's modified looks battered but it is tough as nails. It's often head scratching when people take stock vehicles into places and then become stranded. There are many rental places out there to rent SXS and there are excursions that will take you on the trails. Some beautiful views certainly and many places that you have a vertical drop of hundreds of feet on one side and a rock wall on the other side. If you have time check there videos out. While some YTubers are a big production and drama these guys are pretty genuine.
Administrator
Ronald, I am a fan of both Matt's Recovery and Fab Rats videos.
Anyone here seen the new full length VW television commercial that starts with video of a very old Beetle, probably a 1940's model split window?
It's pretty interesting for anyone who is a VW fan.
Another crazy VW Mod.
Gene Simmons Beetle.jpg
Contributor
Yup, Keith
I had my first fiberglass buggy (Manx clone) with a 40 horse in 1968. A guy at work built it, and I bought it from him. Kept it about 8 years and used it as an almost daily driver. We have a little cabin in the rocky areas of the high (5000') desert and went out there a lot when the kids were little.
Sold it because the three kids were getting bigger, and bought a brand new 1973 VW Thing. Put a complete roll cage on it, and kept it a couple years but it was almost useless compared to the buggy, so we sold it and bought a '71 International Scout II 4WD. It was almost useless, way too heavy and it got stuck in dry riverbed sand. One time we were trying to climb up a 34' berm out of the sand and it ran the fan into the radiator. Fixed it and got rid of it.
That was briefly replaced by a Baja Bug (Bobbed and cut down bug) which was pretty useless off road too and we only kept it a week or so. Then, another guy I worked with sold me his home made buggy, which was a shortened platform, like the Manx type, with a superstructure of tubing with simple pop riveted aluminum panels. It was a four seater, dual port 1600 with a VW Bus transaxle. Super ugly, but it had 11" of ground clearance and the lower bus gearing worked out perfectly on the steep stuff. That would go almost anywhere climbing hills in second gear that the other ones couldn't make in first, and the ground clearance was perfect in the rocks. That buggy was fantastic.
I would still have it, but it caught fire while I was towing it to the cabin. We loaded stuff into the buggy including food clothes and two fivers of gasoline. While towing it with our Buick station wagon our young son who always rode in the rear facing back/back seat yelled that the buggy was on fire. A good one too. The buggy had original front seats which had the original adjusters on them. I had never even noticed that, as they were always at the far back position. The two gas cans were on the back seat jammed in by sleeping bags, like we had done many times. Apparently, the jiggling cans somehow made the passenger seat slide forward, allowing the metal can to slip to the floor, which happened to be where the car battery was located. The metal can shorted across the terminals and welded a hole in the gas can, which started the fire.
We were going 65 or so on the freeway and here I am with the whole family, including the dog, in the car towing a gasoline fire with a tow bar. I got it stopped on the side of the road, and I broke a record unhooking the buggy then getting back in and moving the car forward 20'. During all this, the second fiver of gas split a seam and lit off making quite a spectacle. No injuries except to my ego. I was a fireman for L. A. County at the time, and the Ontario FD which responded was my former employer, and there were a couple guys at the scene that I had worked with. I guess you could say I took a lot of 'heat' from them. It was total loss. I still miss it, because the only thing that could stop it was big rocks. It took us down (and UP) places like suicide hill in Anza Borrego, the slot, where it is so narrow your car is riding on the sidewalls of the tires, narrow riverbeds where the narrow walls are 30' high, to pictographs near our cabin, sand dunes in Oregon, etc., and I could still drive it to work 100 miles from the cabin while the family stayed a week at a time.
A few years later my 15 year old son and I built our last buggy, another fiberglass Manx type, using one of the last bodies a local company made. It made a great father/son project, and we enjoyed it for several years. In later years we bought a 2006 Jeep Rubicon, to go along with the one the son had, and used it for 10 years before selling it to our daughter and her hubby. We used it heavily going to many places in SoCal, until my back could not handle the severe bumping on rocky trails.
So, yes we have had some experience in the South West.
Rick Potter
DIY journeyman,
FWW wannabe.
AKA Village Idiot.
Administrator
Maurice, I am feeling really good now. A couple of weeks ago I re-started my exercise routine and my muscle tone is getting better each day now. I can't go the full distance and time but I am getting closer every day.
I had to move the Dune Buggy out of my shop and store it in my cargo trailer recently to make space for the counter top material. I have one of the seven foot long air lift tables that supports the counter top material while I am fabricating. The Dune Buggy will return as soon as the counter tops are installed, at the same time I have some CNC and laser engraving work to do for a sign customer.
Dr. Porsche had a big part of the design of VW automobiles but I read recently that he had a number of other designers that helped with the projects. He also is supposed to have taken some designs from other manufacturers in order to keep the manufacturing pace on time. I doubt anyone knows all of the facts as its been a long time and WWII had an impact but in the end VW produced more then 80 million Beetles and that is a very impressive number. Honestly I am not a fan of the Beetles designed in California and built in Mexico. My 2003 Beetle is one of them and I will be glad to see it go.
Last edited by Keith Outten; 02-18-2024 at 8:50 AM.
Contributor
Stay well Mr. Outten you have a big flock to look after!
Volkswagen certainly has endeared its self to many. We had Karmann Ghias and a Beetle.
The In-Laws had square backs. Mom always put the top down on the Karman Ghia when we got to Grandmas country road, including during a snow storm.
Quite a bit about Volkswagen is written in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
original_90a52779-0ab8-4b17-9fe3-912f6622dde5_IMG_20230601_101343457.jpg
The In-Laws rig, departing New Hampshire, California bound
[OP]
Contributor
One of the funny things learned about VW wiring was if you kept your foot on the brake with the headlights on, then turned off the ignition and the engine kept running until the headlights were turned off or one took their foot off the brake, the engine would keep running. This usually meant the ground on the tail lights wasn't working. This was usually due to oxidation on the aluminum of light socket.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Contributor
Even to this day Ferrari is a pain with all their gimmicks and Clubs. You cant walk in and buy the car you want with cash. You must buy 1-2 entry levels and put your name down in a lottery to get what you really want. Even then your name doesnt get pulled unless you pay off a salesman with 30-50k.
Mclaran from what I read is the way to go. If sticker says 250k its 250k and if you walk in with that cash you walk out with that car. Jay Leno says they will even perform free upgrades if there is a software update or an issue that comes up. And maintenance can be performed by more than just the factory authorized techs. So no $20,000 oil changes.
Not that any of this matters, I cant afford any of them.
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