Del Bicknell's Bug 'GAWSH'

After nearly 3 years of hibernation, GAWSH has now come out to play again. A change of job location and a 90 mile round trip each didn't agree with my pretty white Cal-looker so a sensible Lupo 1.7Tdi undertook the task. But although resigned to the garage, GAWSH was always ready to shake of the dust of the years and shine brightly again.

Time out for GAWSH presented an opportunity to tackle the one and only job that I hadn't been able to sort out, whilst he was being used as a daily drive. The engine bay, rear transmission and motor.

I had a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve, more looks than oomph. Whatever I choose for the motor would have to look right, against GAWSH's clean white looks. Definitely NO colour (He's strictly Black'n'White) It was at the Sandown Volksworld show in 2002 that I spotted what I was after A Porsche fan kit in woven carbon & smoked glass fibre. Lovely (Oh and costly too, but what the heck!) But it wasn't until October 2002 that I finally got around to dropping out the old 1600 motor. I then set about stripping the engine bay back to bare metal, followed by primer and white hammerite. Thoughts then turned to what I'd do to up the engine spec. An easy task when you have Max Morley on your side. We drew a line on cost and talked about future upgrades and Max built a superb 2.1Ltr 'Stroker' engine for me.

With no intention to drop the box out, clean and paint it along with the underside - it happened! Not quickly though, as I'm one of those perfectionists who's never satisfied with cutting corners and many hours were spent in preparation.

Then came the time to start re-assembly. However with an untimely back injury plus a project that had quickly grown beyond my DIY skills, not for the first time, I dropped in to see Grant Eagleton at BeetleLink. We talked through the challenges and I happily stepped aside to let Grant work his magic.

The final result is superb as with all the work I've had done on my 3 previous Beetles at BeetleLink.

With Insurance via Chris Knott with Heritage completed, I'm now off the PO to get the Tax sorted and then we're OFF

BIG SMILES now the order of the day.

He'll get a good polish and clean up ready for Sandown Early next year so keep an eye out for GAWSH