HMC WBOD news

[JMotor]

Love the Mexi Bug.

Much better with the wheels painted. 

[Bren]

31 minutes ago, HMC said:

Almost forgot, an interior pic.

And some more of the degrading paint..

Patina.

[Bear]

1 hour ago, HMC said:

Almost forgot, an interior pic.

And some more of the degrading paint..

So you're justifying the repair costs by cancelling gym membership, parking with that steering wheel!

[Rustybullethole]

magic mushrooms?

[High Jetter]

See what you did there! 64+ reactions to one post shows how much you were missed. Hope all is ok with you.

[Peter C]

Great to have you back, life is worth living again.

Re-bookmarked.

[grogee]

Losing @HMC was like a stomach punch. I didn't know how to cope without a fellow Tavonian shiter, I felt like I was flying the flag on my own.

But life's balance has been restored and he's back with another wartime jalopy. Beetles are an acquired taste and I have not acquired the taste. Then again I suppose maintenance is easy...

[camryv6]

20 hours ago, Matty said:

Ah looks right. I like my cars like I like my women. Tatty yet usable 😄

And big headlamps ?

[Matty]

1 hour ago, camryv6 said:

And big headlamps ?

Ideally. Need to see where your headed 😁

[djim]

On 9/2/2023 at 7:08 PM, hairnet said:

roofrack and surfboard next?

epic trip for the limo - barnstaple  then

It's a strong look

(on the way to Cornwall in my mexibug in 2006, Dartmoor I think)

 

 

 

[djim]

I realise that it might not be around for long or required but I've just uncovered a bunch of useful Mexibug docs I have saved, including Wiring diagrams, service schedule, adjusting the (hydraulic) tappets, Digifant ECU and 1600i engine spec, parts cross ref with other VAG etc. etc.

Let me know if is of interest to anyone and I'll post it all up. 

[hairnet]

you flash git its was only 10 ish years old

[HMC]

8 minutes ago, djim said:

I realise that it might not be around for long or required but I've just uncovered a bunch of useful Mexibug docs I have saved, including Wiring diagrams, service schedule, adjusting the (hydraulic) tappets, Digifant ECU and 1600i engine spec, parts cross ref with other VAG etc. etc.

Let me know if is of interest to anyone and I'll post it all up. 

Yes please! What became of yours?

[Rustybullethole]

I've a windsurf board i saved from a skip. Happy to deliver for free next time i'm down your way. 

 

[Rustybullethole]

ps; because you're welcome and also so i could look cool as fuck with it on my roof rack heading west. 

Pps; care not the how when why though care lots you're back. full on hero status. chod speed. 

[coachie]

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.

I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.

Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

[djim]

37 minutes ago, HMC said:

Yes please! What became of yours?

No problem, I can't seem to embed a zip here so I'll DM you rather than a wall of PDFs and jpegs. If anyone else wants the info let me know. 

I sold it to a guy who collection missioned down from Manchester to Brighton and drove it back, must have been in 2010 or so. It is currently SORN but was on the road in 2021. There are a few pictures of it floating around online in various stages of pineapple, here is what it looked like when I had it.  

 

[HMC]

I noticed at the weekend that there was an older number plate lurking under the ACE rivited characters number plate at the front of the daimler. So i removed the number plate, to reveal an older one…..

@LightBulbFun looks hand painted?  ill probably put the later one back, or i could sympathetically retouch the older painted one?

[Bazfr69]

Beetles are awesome, I was a serial car swapper until I bought mine.  
 

Love the Mexi. 😎😊

[HMC]

14 minutes ago, Bazfr69 said:

Beetles are awesome, I was a serial car swapper until I bought mine.  
 

Love the Mexi. 😎😊

Ive never had one before really, maybe the same will happen to me 😂

[HMC]

15 minutes ago, Bazfr69 said:

Beetles are awesome, I was a serial car swapper until I bought mine.  
 

Love the Mexi. 😎😊

Have you posted pics of yours up before?

[Bazfr69]

1 minute ago, HMC said:

Have you posted pics of yours up before?

There might be a pic somewhere but they don’t seem to be that enthusiastically received here or on a few other forums I lurk. 
Your thread seems to be (mostly) an exception and I hope that continues. 

[Cookiesouwest]

1 hour ago, Bazfr69 said:

There might be a pic somewhere but they don’t seem to be that enthusiastically received here or on a few other forums I lurk. 
Your thread seems to be (mostly) an exception and I hope that continues. 

Are the mexibug's frowned on / disliked because they are not authentic German?

They are still bugs though. They should be embraced.

[Bazfr69]

9 minutes ago, Cookiesouwest said:

Are the mexibug's frowned on / disliked because they are not authentic German?

They are still bugs though. They should be embraced.

Sorry I meant Beetles in general, not the Mexi. There seems to be a contrarian attitude towards aircooled VW’s or perhaps the ‘scene’ when it comes to their acceptance on a mixed marque forum.

The club I’m a member of over here embraces all variants and I think the majority of air-cooled specific groups are the same. 
 

For the record, my car is a ‘72 1300 and as it’s slightly lowered at the front end might just fall under the ‘pineappled’ banner. (How droll) but I’d have been just as happy with a later car, Mexi or German. 

[Jim Bell]

That bug is the cats knees and the bees pajamas. 

Lovely. 

[Bazfr69]

1 hour ago, HMC said:

Ive never had one before really, maybe the same will happen to me 😂

I’d wanted one for years but was distracted by all manner of other kit, I finally bought one when I realised that if I didn’t buy one soon it would be another car that I’d be priced out of. 

I think it was around five years of thinking about it before a car came along at the right time for me and although there are times when I wish I’d bitten the bullet sooner, I’m not sure I’d have had the same appreciation for it that I do now. 

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, HMC said:

I noticed at the weekend that there was an older number plate lurking under the ACE rivited characters number plate at the front of the daimler. So i removed the number plate, to reveal an older one…..

@LightBulbFun looks hand painted?  ill probably put the later one back, or i could sympathetically retouch the older painted one?

interesting find! Its certainly not a contemporary mass produced number plate front that I recognise, so i'd tend to say that yeah hand painted/home made jobby  

but I have forwarded it to my good friend Stuart who is even more of a number plate nerd then I am, and ill let you know if he has anything to say on it  

 

nice find on the Bug, its nice to see a Volkswagen of any kind and especially a beetle thats nice and stock and not been pineapple'ed to within an inch of its life! 

 

and glad to have you back!  

[wuvvum]

31 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

even more of a number plate nerd then I am

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

well ok, let me rephrase, he has a lot more years on me  in that he has been physically studying and collecting number plates for I dunno 25 years?

so he just has the head start on me thats all

 

I first came at it from the Routemaster angle first, London Transport number plates have always been fairly unique, in they are literally  a black plate with transfers applied to them a number plate in the truest sense  ,which give them a fairly unique look, they are genuinely white on black rather then silver on black

so I have always noticed from a very young age when an RM was on the wrong style of plates, for example the Routemasters on heritage Route 15, always had the correct style of number plates, but the RM's on heritage Route 9 did not, just having generic silver on black plates, thats always looked naff to me

and of course the refurbished RMs and RML's generally always got retro-reflective plates

so for many years I have always noticed that, and as such noticed modern naff silver on black "reproduction" plates, but I never looked into it much deeper then that

 

and then fast forward to 5 years ago, came the Invacar angle, I wanted to figure out that specific detail on them, and at about the same time I got a good education from @MorrisItalSLX collection, into all the different styles and types out there, and it then it just snow-balled from there

 

its much like my DVLA side, thats borne out of the Invacar side of things  Invacars "existed" on it so I wanted to figure *it* out, helped by my interest in computers/vintage computers in general

once I learned that it was all still running on systems going back to the 1970's the vintage computer nerd side of me was like "I gotta figure this out"  and then I discovered the vast history of it all, all the things that happened, the policies that came and went and I found that fascinating in its own right 

and again just all snow-balled from there!

 

thats what I like about my own mega-thread, anyone can read back from page 1 and see how I managed to figure things out as they happened! where i go from complete idiot, to complete idiot who knows far too much for their own good about Invacars  

[somewhatfoolish]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

interesting find! Its certainly not a contemporary mass produced number plate front that I recognise, so i'd tend to say that yeah hand painted/home made jobby  

but I have forwarded it to my good friend Stuart who is even more of a number plate nerd then I am, and ill let you know if he has anything to say on it  

 

nice find on the Bug, its nice to see a Volkswagen of any kind and especially a beetle thats nice and stock and not been pineapple'ed to within an inch of its life! 

 

and glad to have you back!  

Signwriters were common enough back then; if a plate was lost or damaged knocking up a handmade plate was probably a regular thing.