My past has come back to haunt me.....

[Streetrod]

30 years ago a chance meeting at a party lead to me being featured in a TV documentary about cars. At the time I managed to get a copy on VHS tape but that was lost over 25 years ago and I did not have a digital copy.

By chance today whilst trying to dig up some information on my past I came across a small section of that program on YouTube which was only loaded a couple of years ago. The first shock was I had forgotten what I used to look like with hair and second was how fat I have become.

But the main joy was seeing what was at the time my first ever car. It took me 4 years to transform it into what you see on the screen and in that period I learned to spray, weld, fabricate and build an engine.

The great thing about that car is that I still own it 35 years later and I am about to start its restoration with the help of my two boys.

As for the film itself, what you see has had a lot of artistic licence applied. The car you see us cutting up is not my car and was supplied by the production company, plus when I was asked to do the program my car was still in bits undergoing a respray. The black in the end was only the base coat for what became a candy red finish.

It’s odd to listen to the narrative of the video because what is being said could easily apply today. It just goes to show the more things change the more they stay the same.

By the way check out the adverts at the end of the video, this was a time when performance was not a dirty word

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2qt1eDowr0

Edited by Streetrod on Tuesday 10th May 21:30

Edited by Streetrod on Tuesday 10th May 21:56

[Streetrod]

williamp said:

lovely period piece. Are you the eddie murphy lookalike with the eddie murphy lookalike jacket?

I am afraid so, to be honest I did think I looked cool back in the day, I now know that was not the case

[Streetrod]

After the filming was finished I completed the build and finished the spray job which took another year, the paintjob won a number of awards over the next couple of years :



And this is what it looks like now, rather tatty around the edges and much in need of some love but still generally very solid. The rebuild is due to start over the summer:

Edited by Streetrod on Tuesday 10th May 22:06

[Streetrod]

TR4man said:

That's a shame - I'm just getting the message "this video is not available" when I click on the link.

My son had the same msg when he tried to watch it on his ipad. It works fine on the computer, I have just checked

[Streetrod]

Osmoliver said:

Excuse my naivety, but what is make and model of the car Streetrod?

Looks awesome by the way, good luck with the restoration.

Thanks for the Kind words.

To those not in the know the car is a 1968 VW Beetle. When I bought it in 1979 I knew nothing about how to build a car but loved hotrods after having been introduced to Custom Car magazine by my best mate Andrew who appeared in the above video. I had seen one of the wizard conversion kits and had got to know Chris Boyle who produced them at a couple of shows; it seemed like an ideal first project.

So I wheeled the car into the garage on the first day it bought it and started the conversion. Initially I followed the instructions and within about a year I had a car that looked like the original show car, but after wheeling it out for the first time decided that I hated the proportions so I rolled it back in and cut it up.

This was a brave move as I had never performed any kind of fabrication up to this point. The list of mods I then performed for the first time included:
- A four inch roof chop (very complicated as I had to cut the roof into 13 pieces and stitch it back together, this was made even harder by the fact that the roof is double skinned) I also fabricated the windscreen visor
- I widen the steel wings two inches at the front and 4 inches at the back
- I fabricated the steel running boards
- Reshaped the door openings to include rounded corners
- Removed the door handles and fabricated my own solenoid operated door latch mechanism
- Built a hot 1835cc engine
- Machined wheel adapters to allow the fitment of 5 lug Chevy pattern wheels
- Painted the car metal flake red over black, the graphics being various different coloured candies over silver and gold
- Blah Blah Blah, list goes on and on. Not one panel on the car was left unaltered

All the work was performed in my parents garage by myself

The restoration will give the car a more 60's feel. I want to take another 1.5 inches out of the roof to improve the profile, I think I can do this without altering the screen size. The wheels will be 40's Ford solid steels with chrome hubcaps and possibly white wall tyres. These will sit on a 4 inch narrowed front axel. The paint job will be two tone black below the waist line and Kandy Apple green above with a gold leaf pin strip separating the colours. The interior will be black and green tuck and roll leather on a home made bench seat. I would also like to fit a mid 40's style dash board so the car looks more period. To add a bit of length to the car I will add narrowed 30's style chrome bumpers.

The engine will stay the same as my kids who and 15 and 12 at the moment and who who will be helping with the project will be its future owners as soon as they learn to drive.

I will keep you informed on how the job goes

Edited by Streetrod on Wednesday 11th May 22:26

Edited by Streetrod on Wednesday 11th May 22:33

[Streetrod]

Iva Barchetta said:

I am also of the right age group to remember this from Chelsea cruises and Custom car shows of the early 80s.

Ally Pally etc.

This does look familiar but I have a terrible memory nowadays.

Yep! That was probably me, I was was at shows most weekends during the season