Hey,

Just found the forum...

I while ago, I bought the haynes "how to build book" and kinda planned to build a car, but it never happened.

But, I've just acquired a donor car. My girlfriends beetle (70's) has some serious bodged repairs to the body work, and its not worth trying to fix it. We were gonna scrap the lot, but after a bit of giddy discussion with a mate of mine, we've decided to build a Locost and use the bug as a base.

Has anyone ever used a bug as a donor?

I've done a bit of working out, and I reckon that I can utilise most of the floor pan as a base, providing the gearbox and engine support and rear suspension. I'll just have to cut off the frame head and fabricate some front suspension, or shorten the floor pan to use the bug suspension.

Should be an interesting project!

Hi and welcome
You can do whatever you like, but the relevance to the book and what you describe are poles apart and you won't end up with a quick super handling car.
As long as you know what you want if a beach buggy fits the bill that's cool.
You'll get plenty of help here, just make sure you have the right focus

You want to build a car!!!!!!!

Are you nuts?

Who in their right mind would want to do such a thing?????????


Welcome to the madhouse. You are in the right place, although your initial brief may need some calibration to result in a more performance orientated machine.
Are you related to Lord Whippy?

when you think about it, if you build a book or haynes chassis then stick a big engine out the back, your going to have a big empty space up front with no weight whatsover where the engine used to be. Youll be sat fairly far back so not barely any weight over the front wheels which could lead to interesting handling.

I would think either build a beach buggy (very cool but not exactly fast but u wont get much speed from your beetle engine anyway) or get a different donor and build a more conventional locost.

There a a load of projects possible with a beetle as a donor, unfortunately a Locost or other 7 like cars are not really among them. You could have a look at beech buggies, Porsche 356 look alikes or even some really dumb attempts to turn your beetle into a lambo or ferrari! If you want a 7 then flog the beetle to someone who wants to do something with it and spend the money on a scrap sierra or something else with the engine at the front and the drive at the back. If you can't find a sierra just keep looking around for bits. I built mine from stuff I got from people on this site and scrappies.

It is good fun to build a car and good luck with whatever project you choose to do.

Caber

Welcome, if you take a look at this months P.P.C mag some students have made a 7 inspired car and that has it engine in the rear with a short from end but it looks in propotion.

Welcome

Don’t listen to the detractors, sounds a cool project, mind though you can easily turn the bug setup 180degs round so the engine is in front of the gearbox by flipping the differential main cog over. Few people actually have any experience of vw aircooled running gear and fail to appreciate how light and effective they can be. I've a GP beach buggy 1600 and its no slouch. May not have the quite the same power to weight as a BEC but it'll run forever, has loads of torque and comes with a reverse

How about building a formula vee? very simple but tremendous fun

At around 60-70 bhp for a mild 1600 & in 300kg car that's about 230bhp/ton!

Makes a 7 look bloated

You can swap the steel front torsion tubes for aluminium to save quite a bit of weight and use a small fiat rack instead of the beetles steering box














[Edited on 17/2/09 by Mr Whippy]

If you wanthte beetle to come to a happy end [or new beginning ]check out these guys and their radical creations an absolute hoot!

http://sandrcars.freeservers.com/page9.html

quote:

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Originally posted by Miks15
when you think about it, if you build a book or haynes chassis then stick a big engine out the back, your going to have a big empty space up front with no weight whatsover where the engine used to be. Youll be sat fairly far back so not barely any weight over the front wheels which could lead to interesting handling.

I would think either build a beach buggy (very cool but not exactly fast but u wont get much speed from your beetle engine anyway) or get a different donor and build a more conventional locost.

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good on ya mate. if u want to build something a bit different go for it. it sounds like you've already thought about some of the challenges of using a beetle of doner.have a look at the sylva mojo and riot they are both rear engined sevenish styled cars. m.

ok if you inist on using the floorpan how about getting hold of a Sterling nova body

linky

One of my friends had one, nice car though the windscreen comes very close to your face