1960's-ish VW Bus--"Der Beetle Bus"

I saw the theme for this months LMS and just had to get in some how so I figured why not enter my VW Bus.

Initially I wasn't going to build this rascal out of the box. I thought it was hideous when I opened the box but quickly developed a new idea for it which entailed lengthening the body, chassis and roof and using Rick Dobbertin's SBC from the Pontiac J2000 Pro Street kit. Although that idea is now under way, I thought it only fitting that I should build an OOB version in which to display next to the modified one when it was completed to show the contrast between the two builds given that they are the same kit.

I spent roughly two months building this version of the kit up and although it's mostly OOB , there were a couple of drastic departures from the OOB ideas. First off the front wheels stuck outside of the front fenders by almost 1/4" which was waaaaaaaaaaaay too far outside for my tastes. I shaved the ends off of the front axle, used a set of AMT Cragar wheels which I shaved a little off the backside to put the wheel and tire assy back under the fender where it belonged and used a set of AMT "skinny" tires I had in the stash to round out the look at the front. I added a timing cover and a smaller cooling fan to the engine (I wouldn't have wasted my time had I known that none of that could be seen when finished). Next up I trashed the OOB injector stacks and went with aluminum tubing which I polished and installed of the terrible looking plastic chrome pieces. The OOB fuel cell also "exited stage left" and was replaced by something with a little more detail and (for what this is worth given the overall look of the build) realistic. The exhaust pipes didn't look right so I drilled the ends out to give a more true hollow pipe look to them and coated them with Alclad II. I chose to ditch the "wheelie bars" as I didn't like those either. To round things out in the back , the tail lights were terribly thick so I sanded those down to a more desirable thickness to keep them from being a scale 4" thick. The goofy arms, antennas and goofy eyeballs on top of the fuel injector stacks all found their way to the proper place--the trash can!!! 4fvgdaq_th

I just so happened to get the "luck of the draw" and got a clear GREEN molded kit with the metal flakes suspended in the molding. I chose to paint the inside of the body gold to give a green tinted gold look as shown through the body looking from the outside. The decals in this kit are IMO just AWESOME!! Plenty of humor to go round with these and I had a blast with 'em! I used some automotive clear to top things off with the finish and I was really happy with the results. This kit was a lot of fun with a few pitfalls here and there but they were fairly easy to overcome. The front bumper fit was about the only real trouble I had with it.

N E ways here are the completed photos of the OOB version:

I should have some more pictures by tomorrow morning of the interior and chassis.