SS100 “replica” Project Car

[CaddmannQ]

Last year I bought this custom 1980 fiberglass kit car, which is on a Volkswagen chassis from 1973. About 800 of these fiberglass bodies were produced by a company called Antique and Classic Automobiles. They vanished into the world of legal bankruptcy about 35 years ago.

Anyway, nothing about it is antique or classic. This was a kit put together on a rusty and repaired Volkswagen chassis, evidently by some total amateur, without much patience or skill.

The extent of the chassis repair and existing rust was concealed by a lot of paint and body sealer when I bought this car. Since I live in California and this car came from South Carolina I expected the chassis to be totally rusted out anyhow, but I was surprised to find that only the front half was rusted out. Since the serial numbers are stamped on the rear half of the chassis I decided I could cut the front part off and replace it without a problem.

Well of course it is an enormous problem, And I’ve been working on the solutions for a while.

What I did not expect was that the car would be damaged upon delivery, having a bent rear subframe and lots of gasoline which had leaked into the carpet and upholstery + padding. It also got into the wiring and washed the colors off of the wires. Evidently this wiring kit was all white but the wires have been dyed different colors after the fact. I had to strip the entire wiring harness from the car, but frankly it needed removing anyway, as you will see.

I stripped the body completely off the car and did analysis of everything I could, uncovering a world of ugly welds, rusted stove bolts, and crookedly aligned body panels.

So here is a photograph of me in the car in my garage, a photograph of the car in South Carolina as purchased, a photograph of the chassis completely stripped of the body, the set up of my fender brace reinforcements, and an aging computer geek, crawling on the floor, doing out-of-position tack welds for your amusement.

Hey, check out that patriotic new welding helmet! (You can check out my new TIG welder in the thread High Quality TIG Accessories.)