In October of 1999 on my way to work a white tail buck ran out in front of my '67 double cab while I was doing about 50 miles per hour. I was okay, but the truck was badly damaged …
"Once upon a time", it was late Fall 1987 when I got a call from my good friend Dan Ryan who lives in New Jersey. He said that he came across a Volkswagen pickup and wondered if I might be interested in it. Dan is more of a V8 "motor-head", so he wasn't aware of the difference between a single cab or double cab, and he wasn't sure if this was worth pursuing, but he knew that it was one of "those old ones" with two windshields that I asked him to be looking out for. When he said it had three doors, I asked, "Are you sure!!!"
A few months passed before I was able to take time off from work and go look at the bus. Since Dan said it was only off the road for about a year, I decided to take a chance that it would run good enough to drive home. So, in February of 1988 my son Rob and I got a cheap one-way flight from Buffalo to Newark. We lived in New Jersey from 1968 to 1979, so Rob had friends to visit there too.
Dan and his son Kenny picked us up at the airport and we headed directly to the location where the pickup had been stored. We arrived at a parking lot adjacent to a funeral home, and there was this ugly bus sitting behind a large pile of snow. Even though the truck only had one owner and a mere 76,000 miles on it, it was pretty sad looking with several coats of brushed on house paint in various colors covering the rusted body. But it was my first chance ever to get a double cab and holes in the back cab floor big enough to step through didn't deter me at all. So Rob and Kenny went to work moving the snow pile while Dan and I hooked a battery up to the bus to see if it would run. The engine turned over okay by hand, so we checked the oil level, poured a little gas in the carburetor and fired it up!
The brakes were shot, and the motor was running kind of rough so we had to opt for towing the bus to a local VW repair shop to see what it would need. For several years in the 70s I had worked part time at Hodi's Auto Service washing parts, stripping cars and watching the Master repair VWs. That was Lajos Hodi, known to his customers as Louie, and we had kept in touch over the years after my family moved to Barker, New York.
When we arrived at the shop, Lajos, in his heavy Hungarian accent and usual lack of enthusiasm for my "project cars", looked at the truck and laughed. Then he said I shouldn't waste my money on junk, but he could fix it. After putting the truck up on a lift, he went to work refreshing the brakes with new shoes all around. The master cylinder was also questionable so Lajos rebuilt it right on the car. He did this type of repair regularly and it still amazes me to this day. Instead of pulling the master cylinder, which would have meant replacing the mount bolts, the brake lines and possibly the pressure switches, he rebuilt it without removing it, to save the customer money. Just pull the piston, hone the cylinder and add a rebuild kit without disturbing anything else. We also changed the oil, lubricated everything, adjusted the valves and did a minor tune-up. With a set of borrowed NJ license plates we were ready to rock & roll!
Rob and I spent another day visiting our friends and then we decided to head home in the truck. Yes, we drove home with no registration and no insurance - more often than I like to admit! No, I wouldn't do this today, but the 400-mile trip went without a hitch. As Ernie Able would say, "the VW force was with us." I think the heat must have been working at least a little too, because there was quite a bit of cold air coming in through rust holes in the back floor and I wasn't really cold. If not for the floor mats covering the holes, it probably would have been pretty frosty inside the bus. Or maybe it was because I so elated driving this cool split windshield truck that I probably wouldn't have cared how cold it was! Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part; when I had questioned Dan about paying for the truck, all he would say was, "don't worry about it". He never did tell me what he paid for it, he just handed me the title.
Over the next year and a half, I drove this ugly but cool truck to work every day and everywhere else in any weather. With reduction gearboxes and studded snow tires in back, this thing would go places that I would dare any of today's prissy SUVs to try. One day I wanted to go get a load of gravel to fill low spots in my parts storage area behind the barn. So we went to a nearby gravel supply and asked them to fill it up slowly while I watched the suspension and tires for overload. I don't remember how many yards it took to fill, but I do recall the guy loading was simply amazed that we had almost a ton of gravel and the truck was not bottomed out! It was however enough weight to distort my side gates quite a bit.
During this first year and a half I learned to respect the ability and convenience of my double cab, so in turn I began making general repairs and fixing some of the holes in the body by welding in patches and priming them whenever I had time. Never with the intent to restore the truck, I just wanted to keep it solid and reliable. The paint on the outside was now a mix of barn red, gray primer and rust brown. Occasionally I would take it to the do-it-yourself high-pressure car wash, and flakes of the house paint would always blow off, leaving this spotted color.
One day after leaving work the motor gave up about six miles from home. I wasn't exactly sure what happened yet, but knew it wasn't good because there was oil all over the road. After getting towed home by a friend, I pulled the motor and found that a connecting rod had come loose from the crank and had poked through the side of the case, so my favorite ride was officially dead - for now.
After about a month or so of driving my other truck, a Rabbit pickup, I decided that I really missed the versatility of the crew cab and had to have it back on the road. The Rabbit would get 40 miles to a gallon of diesel and had loads of heat, but you could barely get two adults in it. The double cab comfortably carries five adults and/or up to one ton of cargo!
Over the next few months the double cab got a new motor, IRS conversion, a new front beam, a $500 paint job and a few other amenities. It was a very inexpensive "restoration" using lots of on-hand parts, but it changed the looks of the truck so drastically that we referred to it as "resurrected" from then on.
In the spring of 1991 Agnes and I attended an inaugural VW show with our "new" VW double cab. It was a beautiful sunny day in New Jersey's Liberty Park, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, in full view of the World Trade Center and Ellis Island. Agnes and I were quite surprised at the attention that our truck was getting. VW type IIs were just becoming popular on the east coast and we had the only split in attendance that wasn't falling apart with abuse.
Over the next two years we went to nearly every show within a 500-mile radius of Buffalo, taking first place trophies everywhere. I was just amazed because I had never intended to make this a show truck, and with that in mind, many of the repairs were made more with practicality in mind than for show competition. After getting a centerfold feature in VW Trends magazine in August of 1993, we accomplished all we could in the show scene and went back to vending toys and parts at those same events. We would vend from the bed of the truck and people would always stop to ask questions. I enjoyed explaining how the modifications had been made.
With nearly 50,000 miles clocked since the first motor died, the truck was still running great and looking good, being used regularly during summer months. Over the years I added lots of improvements like the sound system, bed cover and color-matched bra, etc., etc. Of all the cars I've owned including '54 & '68 Corvettes, a '59 Chevy convert, a dune buggy, a chopped ragtop Bug, several Chevy vans and lots of other VWs, this one by far draws the most attention and is the most fun to drive. Little kids always smile when they see this truck coming.
In October of 1999 on my way to work a white tail buck ran out in front of me while I was doing about 50 miles per hour. I was okay, but the truck was badly damaged in the nose, the main wiring harness was cut and the passenger door was sprung. Within a matter of days my classic insurance settled up with no questions asked using my repair estimate. But, if I was going to completely disassemble the truck and start over again, I was going to make some of the upgrades that I had been just dreaming about. So instead of spending all that money on labor, having someone else fix it for me, I once again began collecting parts to improve my ride.
To make a long story short, after four years, and a lot of work the truck is once again moving under it's own power. But in the mean time, it has had the following improvements; three rust free gates to replace my patched up gates that were once again rotting away, a new nose panel, dash support and heat tube to replace the damaged stuff, all NOS lights, new engine cover, gas flap, late model fuel tank, side door, new interior upholstery, stainless steel brake lines, new CV joints, Porsche 901 five speed transmission and 2.0 liter Type IV motor. I have to admit I spent more than 1.5 times the insurance money to resurrect it the second time, but yes it was worth it. On October 18, I drove it across town to get it inspected. There are still a few bugs to work out, but the 5 speed and 2.0 liter feel great. Now maybe I can get back to one of my other projects.