'56 Beetle "RustoRod" - almost finished

[VW Dave]

A local guy picked up a 'barn fresh' oval-windowed Beetle in June of this year, and within a few weeks he had it on the road; a few tasteful(and not at all irreversible) suspension mods put it right where he wanted it, and he's been driving it almost daily ever since.

I saw it for the first time last month, and I knew right away what I had to do with one of my 'spare' Gunze '56 kits.

While not an exact replica of the real one pictured above, I can safely say it was the major inspiration for this 'quickie' build. I'm scratchbuilding a wood slat roof rack and merged header for it, and a modified 'swamp cooler' A/C unit from a Homie Rollerz diecast lowrider is headed into the right side door window before I'm through. There's a few more pics at the link, and surely more to come:

RustoRide VW

Edited September 13, 2007 by VW Dave

[Randy Kern]

There aren't many real passenger cars that can look cool in a coat of rust, but that Beetle does! Yours is coming along great, Dave. I also like the Empi and 914 'Porsche-look' wheels on old Bugs, too. Can't wait to see it done.

[Chromecop]

Nice project! Me like alot !!!!

[Paul Payne]

you need a couple of very faded and peeled flower power decals, just for additional flavor!

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

That's too cool for words!!!

One question VW Dave...where did you get the BRM's? I'd love to build a Cal Look Bug someday and those rims would be just the ticket.

[VW Dave]

Thanks again for the kind words; this one was a spur-of-the-moment quickie build, but it's proving to be a lot of fun.

No 'flower power' on any of my VWs, big or small....I'm at the other end of the spectrum, I guess.

Marc - If you have a set of pro touring wheels that would work on my Revellogram '71 Cuda, I'll gladly trade you a set of BRMs.

Edited September 9, 2007 by VW Dave

[VW Dave]

New pics added to my Fotki today....I've been a busy little bee over the rainy weekend. The little guy now has a 'swamp cooler' A/C unit and a mildly weathered vintage-style wood slat roof rack:

'Paint'/rust touch-ups will be done once the whole car is done, and I'm not handling it so frequently.

[Matt T.]

That looks great so far, Dave! The roof rack is unreal. Nice scratchbuilding there!

[empinut]

rusto-licious Dave!

suggestion...dump the back a scale inch or 2 and you may like it a little better. In real life you are a spline or 2 too high. Remember, rust buckets like to settle a bit!

The BRM's you have were originally mastered by an old friend of mine, Dennis Chung. A long while back he had the guts to repop the '58 issue 23 window original issue Revell bus in all it's multi panel glory. His small company was called "think small models" IIRC. Dennis also had a family restaraunt to help run, so he pops in and out of the hobby. A few years back he said he was selling off the last of his white metal BRM castings. Herb Deeks also cast these up (with no credit to Dennis as far as i know)...I saw his catalog and ordered some from him, but his castings had terrible pin holes. These are 1/24 scale BRMs and I have a few sets left. They also look great on the 1/24 bus's but I think they actually scale out to 16" rims. Plus they are a little on the flat side. That is why I created the BRM master I have.

keep up the great work,

Bill

[VW Dave]

Thanks for the positives, all. Looks like my barndoors are on the back burner again for the moment, Bill(I still have a few things to work out in my head on them anyway before progressing any further).

At this point, the rear of the oval is as low as it will get...it's lower now than the earlier pics, as I trimmed those silly rubber interior panels in order to let the body 'settle' better on its mounts - I kinda like the raked look, and I'm trying to avoid the 'broken axle' negative camber look on this one.

The original set of metal ones I have came right from Dennis about 5 or 6 years ago, as he was selling them on Ebay; I agree they are a little 'flat' compared to the real ones, Bill, but they are pretty nice overall. They do measure out to 17.1" in 1/24th-scale, but I'm plenty OK with it. After a few years of agonizing over which one of my VW models would get those über-cool wheels, I tried my hand at casting a few spares......and I found out in the process that I pretty much suck at casting wheels. I made about 30 copies, and wound up with only about 12 or 13 usable ones.

[VW Dave]

Got a few more little bits done over the past couple of days; this one's in the home stretch now.

Scratchbuilt header(and bead cone 'stinger' from Michaels ):

I also added a little of my own special 'grime' mix to the swamp cooler, as it was way too shiny for this one:

All that's left now is the possible addition of VW mudflaps from a Tamiya '66, some vintage luggage for the rack, and either waterskis or a surfboard...and a few touch-ups, of course. As always, thanks to everyone who posted comments; this has been a very fun, albeit completely unplanned, project.

[James W]

Nice job on the bug. If it were from the Northwest, there'd be moss growing on it.

Tell me more about the bead cone from Michaels.

[VW Dave]

Nice job on the bug. If it were from the Northwest, there'd be moss growing on it.

Tell me more about the bead cone from Michaels.

Thanks for the kudos; here's the bead cones I got at Michaels.

[djway3474]

I have searched every Michaels and WalMart in the Inland Empire So cal and no one has those bead funnels.

Are you going back to your Michaels again?

Dwayne

[VW Dave]

Dwayne - I'm a pretty 'frequent flier' at our closest store; as my wife is a scrapbooker, we both have good reasons to shop there.....and those 40-50% off coupons in our Sunday paper don't hurt either.

If you need just a couple, email me your snail-mail address off the board and I'll send 'em out gratis. If you need the full 23-pack, I'm sure we can work something out.