My cousin has one on his land in Mexico and I have driven it several times. It's not really a street vehicle but rather a sort of farm or ranch cart much like the little Mitsubishi Kei trucks that you can buy in el norte. Very crude, loud, slow, uncomfortable and Not something I would ever want to drive on public roads. But to each their own.
EDIT: Please for the love of god DO NOT any of you go to Juarez with a wad of cash to buy one of these things. Sure you might accidentally come out ok, but there is a good chance you won't.
In reply to Ojala:
Would a bag of gold coins be safer
In reply to logdog:
Only if you make me a beneficiary on your insurance.
I still want to build one. Doesn't look very hard.
I think this is a much better execution of the same concept, but obviously not as cheap or third world simple.
Honestly I think that I could build something better than that VW from the junk pile on most any farm
I actually kind of like Land Rover FCs, but I don't think that I would like driving one on regular streets.
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moparman76_69 wrote:
cutter67 wrote:
spitfirebill wrote:
cutter67 wrote:
the real question i have is how do they handle the engine running rotation. do they change its direction or make it up in the transaxle
It in the same orientation as the beetle. Its just at the front of the vehicle. The change is to make the driving wheels turn.
no its not.... its pulling not pushing its reversed
The engine sits behind the drive wheels, same as a beetle. Its the same.
maybe there is a different beetle out there i dont know about but if you slide that motor and transaxle straight back to the rear you would have a mid engine beetle.....it is reversed
cutter67 wrote:
moparman76_69 wrote:
cutter67 wrote:
spitfirebill wrote:
cutter67 wrote:
the real question i have is how do they handle the engine running rotation. do they change its direction or make it up in the transaxle
It in the same orientation as the beetle. Its just at the front of the vehicle. The change is to make the driving wheels turn.
no its not.... its pulling not pushing its reversed
The engine sits behind the drive wheels, same as a beetle. Its the same.
maybe there is a different beetle out there i dont know about but if you slide that motor and transaxle straight back to the rear you would have a mid engine beetle.....it is reversed
You're right, it is reversed. On a beetle trans there are two side covers for the diff, and the trans case is symmetrical. Changing directions is as easy is taking the side covers off, pulling the diff out, and putting it back in on the other side.
moparman76_69 wrote:
cutter67 wrote:
spitfirebill wrote:
cutter67 wrote:
the real question i have is how do they handle the engine running rotation. do they change its direction or make it up in the transaxle
It in the same orientation as the beetle. Its just at the front of the vehicle. The change is to make the driving wheels turn.
no its not.... its pulling not pushing its reversed
The engine sits behind the drive wheels, same as a beetle. Its the same.
The engine in the blue one in the video appears to be facing the opposite way from the pic of the bare frame. Kinda weird, I don't know why they would have made them both ways.
Is anyone else thinking dual engined AWD?
honestly, if you kept the engine facing the same way as the bettle.. with that cab configuration, the shift linkage would be VERY simple
i drove one of those (or something extremely similar also made by VW) when I was down in the caribbean about a decade ago. We borrowed it from a local to move a buddy's music production gear for a concert he was emcee'ing.
It has a great big flat square bed....which is great for hauling big square stuff.
Other than that, it was the biggest piece of crap I've ever driven. As noted above....painfully slow, handling is on par with an old tractor, brakes were heavily rear-biased for some reason and locked up on any moderate braking without a load in the bed, and the interior was on par with that of a golf cart at a public golf course.....
...in Serbia.....
.....except without cupholders or any kind of functional suspension.
After a short 15-minute drive in it, I just wanted to get back into my crappy rental Isuzu subcompact and go for a "spirited" drive afterwards. And that was like a 60hp car in its own right. Seriously.....the un-fun factor on this thing makes a Versa look like a Ferrari.
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in case I didn't mention it, it really sucked.
sounds like a miniture version of the truck I used to drive for a living
Maybe they used the axle gears used on early transporters.
In all of the photos I've seen, no where did I see a heater, boxes, vents or controls for one. Then again it is Mexico.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:
Thanks, now I have to ride out to Hartford one day
Wally wrote:
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:
Thanks, now I have to ride out to Hartford one day
In the Sumer the dealer has about 6-10 old vw's outside. Nice classics to baja's
OK, so the horminga's suck. That doesn't mean that every cab over FWD air cooled vw powered truck has to. The optimistic engineer in my head says it can totally be done.
It's like an NPR got a Type 181 pregnant and this is the aborted fetus.
I work with a mexican who has a second job with an airline. He goes back to mexico 2-3 times a year.
I still plan to go with him one of these times and drive back in a mexican ACVW.
the picture of the empty frame with engine shows heater boxes on the engine
