Just like Suze Orman, The Wife has approved my next vehicular purchase (in a couple years, after Bull is paid for in full). I’m calling it my “Mid-Life Crisis Car”.
While this may just look like your standard off-road running trail-rail, here’s a little secret: Washington State sez that if I give it a windscreen and powered mechanical wiper, head lights, tail lights, turn signals and some sort of bumper set-up up front, I can drive this on their roads “experimentally”.
Oh yeah! Can you say summertime commuter?
I know I can.
Now, per The Wife, I have to buy it as a kit and assemble the parts onto the frame. I’m not allowed to buy a complete one from someone else. Big effn’ woop. Like I’d do it any other way.
Also, VW engines only. Nothing from a Subaru or Toyota. Oh no! VW made buses.
Lastly, the chiropractor has to give his opinion as to how to not compress my spine with it. Personally, I think he’ll like my overstuffed Corbeau seats.
I doubt that anybody’d be the wiser if it if it accidentally ends up looking like this?
I could just use the Obama-Excuse that he stole from Urkel “Ooops! Did I do that!?!” (Note: even a semi-auto M2 costs more than the entire vehicle, before pintel, or even ammo. To say nothing about the two M249’s)
So, in dedication to my new found “experiment”
Forget railing. Just find a Bug with a decent engine and put the Baja kit stuff on it. Tall/skinny tires and it will go anywhere Buddy and Bull will. You might use up a $5,000 bill, or you might not.
Then you still have a cabin to get you through the Soggy Slog.
BTW, I might just have that Bug you’d be looking for…
Have you seen the movie Dust to Glory? With the proper suspension setup those rails can be insanely fast and as smooth as glass.
The smooth part I like, however, the nose mods required to mount the suspension in baja-rail style raise the cost of the frame up to nearly unreachable heights and are not conducive to mounting a bumper.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not looking into it.
Yes, I read it *will* be a VW engine. But why? With your past Toyota experience, why not a warmed over 20R or similar? Thanks.
Well, if you’d like any advice on VW engines/suspension, feel free to yell at me. Bugs have been a hobby of mine for more than quite a few years.
Erik, The Wife knows that if a Toy mill finds it’s way into the rear of that buggy that I will be dead via my own stupidity in short order.
While a “warmed” 22R is just a couple dozen wrench turns away after going through my parts bins, I’d prolly go with a 4AG out of the GTS line of Corollas or the lovely MR2 instead. Even just bumping up the torque with a stroker kit (from 1588cc’s to 1711cc’s) would be enough to frighten 95% of my passengers.
Which is why, Aaron, I am formulating many stupid questions for you as I write this. The .mil FAV’s and DPV’s used a 2L VW mill, but I was wondering about a 2.2L for street use.
Oh God, send me back thirty years. I believe in order to get to a 2.2L it requires a stroker kit on a longblock. IMO central to all this is a balanced (and lightened) internals and the lever-arm: the flywheel. My Ghia’s motor had one, and the cases were line-bored with a polished and balanced crank. For simplicity a single carb is way easier to maintain that keeping synch on a set of dual delorto’s. I liked the single plenum but a dual is more exciting. Big-valve heads are good too. Basically you’re building a type-4 or Porsche 914 motor.
But you know all this stuff already.
Umm, actually DC, when it comes to aircooled pancake/boxer mills, I know less than the average bear. I had some early work with single Webers and then dual Mikunis on the Corolla 2T and 3T engines and a couple of wannbe Baja 22R truck engines, but after that it was all forced air stuff.
I’m in the midst of getting my diesel knowledge to above par. I’m figuring I’ve got the next 3-4 years to finish that and learn the mysteries of old school VW.
Speaking of 914’s, one of the racers in our local “Historical Class” has an older factory racer with a flat six in it. Six is better than four, so how dumb does it sound to ask how rare are those?