Pine wrote:
To me, there are a few key elements that either make or break a buggy - and they are:
1. Colour
2. Wheels (large rear, small front - on vintage rims)
3. Headlights
4. Indicators
5. Tail lights
6. Steering wheel
7. Front bumper
8. Filler cap
9. Exhaust system
So we are at point 2 (no, point 1 has not been finalised yet!
) - the WHEELS
HW1 came from her maker (the previous owner) with dead standard Beetle rims and hubcaps. I accidently wrote off the two front hubcaps durning the first off-road trip against stones on the side of the (off) road. I then fitted EMPI Sprintstars (actually two wide ones at te rear, and two Rostyles up front, for the blue period, as can be seen on the pic above). I sourced another two narrow ones in the time I did the rebuild, so the moment orange HW1 was moving on her own power, it was with Sprintstars plus trim rings on all fours for most of the rest of her days on earth. I had them sandblasted and powdercoated silver, and always wanted to do the correct black detailing, but never got to it!
After moving up to Gauteng I sold the Sprintstars and fitted HW1 with aluminium 14inch Puma rims (pic below) which I got for an excellent price from fellow Forum member Phantom. Although the Puma rims were very nice, I often regretted selling the Sprintstars and started the hunt to find another set. The buggy was written off with the Puma rims on, only two could be saved and I gave it plus two spare ones to a fellow Forum member who I hope will have a lot of fun with them on his buggy!
This model battery-operated Buggy (which dates back to the late 60's/early 70's) was the inspiration for HW1.
Although the actual model has different wheels, you can clearly see the Sprintstars on the box artwork!
So eventually I found another set of 5.5 inch EMPI Sprintstars (many thanks Chris and Andries), two of them have already been resprayed, and two still need to be refurbished. Fitted the tyres (thanks again Andries) on the two nice (rear) ones today:
BTW, those tyres are AWESOME! The white lettering (like the old 'RealRiders Hotwheels cars
) is done in the factory. It has some odd writing on the sidewall:
BF GOODRICH ALL TERRAIN T/A
Trigard 3-ply Sidewall
30x9.50R15LT 104S M+S
Coincidently the blue Sandshark buggy also came with BF Goodrichs, but the side only says L60-15 M/S. They are too wide for the buggy and rub against the spring plates.
As you can see on the pic above, I have fitted the left wheel with a trim ring (I only got one at the moment), the original Sprintstar center cap, and some nice shiny nuts. This is what I want all four wheels on HW2 to look like. I might consider widening the two 'ugly' ones with an inch or so, to go to the rear, but if the cost is too high, I'll leave it and just put them up front with smaller tyres.
This is a closeup of the Sprintstar cap, Chris from Lichtenburg is in the process of organising repros to be made, and once the machining for the 'mould' is done, they will be available already chromed from the company who makes them in Johannesburg at a very reasonable price. I had repros on the Sprinstars of HW1, but they were more like Rostyle caps, just larger -
The nuts are actually plastic caps I got from Brazil a few years ago, where they are sold for next to nothing in packs of 20. The problem is that they look very nice, but fit so tight over a wheel nut (for 19mm wheel spanner) that you destroy it when trying to take it off. I reckon they are regarded as consumables in Brazil, like valve caps. I will fit nice and shiny studs (with lock nuts!) on HW2 in the end
These are the stickers for the centre caps, I got them from IMPI who had it reproduced exactly like the originals. (Contact him if you want some) They are transparent, so you can only vaguely see the logo when they are sticked on - but how's THAT for attention to detail?
And that's the story of the WHEELS destined for HotWheels (2)
There are many more wheels that looks awesome on any buggy - even standard wide Beetle rims with a deep dish and hubcaps. If I could choose any rim, and money was no problem, I would probably go for the Torque Thrusts as in the pic below, to me they are the ultimate buggy wheel
Agent Orange returns!
The petrol tank sits at a different angle than in a Beetle, the result is that a bubble of air gets trapped at the highest part of the tank, if the filler cap is at the left front of the car (pre-68 Beetles). Not really a problem, except for the fact that you lose about 5 liter capacity of the tank. HW1 had a '67 Beetle tank (with provision for an electronic sender unit), and the filler cap was at the standard position, as can be seen in this pic below:
