Rotary Car Show, Wesley College. 2013

Despite forecasts of rain, Sunday 6 October 2013 turned out to be glorious spring day. Consequently there was a terrific turnout for the 2nd Como Rotary Car Show. 179 cars attended. Here's a selection of some of the highlights.

I got to park the DKW with the Porsche section. Neat!



Gorgeous Porsche 356

The Mercedes-Benz Club were out in force http://www.mbccwa.org.au/

A pair of Mercedes-Benz 220s.

Stylish interior.

NSU's ground breaking Ro80 rotary engined car. Unfortunately the Wankel rotary engine was the car's weak point and after some years of trouble and poor performance they began to break down. Once the engine failed, the car was basically unrepairable, consequently very few Ro80's remain on the road. However, in the 1980s Mazda developed a successful rotary engine, allowing some NSU's to be saved by transplanting in a Mazda engine (which is approximately the same size as the original NSU engine). There are several others scattered around in Western Australia but this is the only one registered for the road.  It is now powered by a Mazda rotary engine.

The NSU's Mazda engine. The engine is surprisingly small for such a large car. But then Auto-Union, who owned NSU, had long experience of manufacturing cars with small, economical engines.

Lotus sportster

Jaguar E racer



French 1925 Amilcar

A couple of Bentley's

MG TCs


1930 Vauxhall T Type Hurlingham


A couple of blower Bentleys. The black Bentley caught fire during an interstate rally in 2003 and was burnt down to the chassis. A heroic restoration managed to get the car back on the road and in the magnificent condition you see it now.

The owner of this 1920s Fiat had a nice set of photos showing the terrible condition it was found. It took three years to restore the car, then the car was almost totally destroyed when a fire swept through his garage. Everything past the firewall was burnt out. Although many people suggested the car was beyond saving, he set about re-restoring the car. It took 18 months full-time effort to complete restoration of the car. It highlights how robust old cars can be and that nothing really is impossible if you're determined (and have a lot of time to spare!)

Plymouth

Rileys

MG TF and Austin-Healy


1948 Lincoln. An amazing machine

1946 Buick and 1950 Holden 48-215


Plymouth Belvedere - aka "Christine"

Jaguars



1951 Bristol Brougham

Facel-Vega - quite a rare French car... why wasn't at the French Car Festival??
Ferrari's

1965 De Tomaso Vallelunga. One of only 2 right hand drive Vallelunga's built. This one features a Lotus engine in the back seat. It would be a very noisy ride!

Mustangs

Valiant Club

Mustang Club

Photos from the Rotary Club - http://comorotarycarshow.com/2013-cars-2/

VW Karmann Ghia - New addition to the family

A year or so ago Shelly called me into the lounge to show me a scene from a movie she was watching. It was the well known 80s teen movie 'Pretty in Pink.' The star of the film, Molly Ringwold, was driving a beaten up pink Volkswagen Karmann Ghia (an early low-light model no less!). She said, "that's the car I want." Deep down a little voice inside went "YES!" because I've always loved the Karmann Ghia.

I thought it would be fairly easy to find one, but I was very wrong. While there are quite a few for sale, finding one that hadn't been too molested (chopped, dropped, slammed or otherwise messed about) or met Shelly's stringent acceptance criteria was a challenge. We had a few false starts, offers that fell through, and other disappointments, but we've now purchased one. It needs a complete new paint job, but that's fine as Shelly wants a red car.

The car is in Melbourne and will be shipped over to Perth in the next fortnight.


Interior looks good.

1200cc engine

Floor looks okay. Not rusted out.

When finished it should look something like this -

http://karmannghia.org/sales_lit/color_combinations.html

Update - 27 September 2013
The car is on its way




Update 9 October 2013
The car has arrived!




I had the car dropped off at V-Dub Repairs and Spares for the mechanical once over.

http://www.v-dub.com.au/

Update 25 October 2013
The car is now home.  It's running a little rough and still needs quite a bit of work done to bring it up to scratch. Next week we'll take the car to K-Paz Painting for a full strip down and repaint.


For the next step in the car's restoration, go here: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2013/12/karmann-ghia-project-painting-begins.html
And the follow on (because there was always more wrong): https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2014/03/vw-karmann-ghia-progress.html

Some links -
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/car_info_volkswagen_karmann_ghia.htm
http://www.karmannghiaconnection.com/history.html
http://www.karmannghiaownersclubaustralia.com/
http://www.karmannghia.com.au/
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewforum.php?f=7
http://the-nautilus.blogspot.com.au/

DKW Panel Beating 2013

The DKW

Oh dear!!

They put the warning "do not drive or operate heavy machinery" on drugs for a reason. For a couple of weeks in August was laid low with a dose of the flu. In fact, this winter the flu has taken me down three times. On one of my days, wallowing around in man-flu misery, I had to move the DKW out of the driveway and, in my stupor backed straight into the fence. Great!!! Actually I said something quite else. So, the baby had to go for some medical attention.

I took the car to Karson at K-Paz Spray Painting, who did a great job repairing the damage. The panel looks fantastic and he was able to match the paint perfectly.

While the car was in the shop I asked Karson to look at the front wing. When I bought the car there were two small bubbles in the paintwork, both about the size of a ten cent piece. The front bubble cracked open shortly after the car arrived allowing moisture to get in, causing the bubbles to run. By this time the two bubbles had become one long cracked bubble, almost a foot long. The panel was removed, stripped back and repainted. Fortunately there wasn't really any rust under the bubble.

The bubble as it originally was. It got much worse!

And is now gone!

I am very happy to recommend his work. He can be contacted here - https://www.facebook.com/pages/K-Paz-Automotive-Spraypainting/128098420553883?fref=ts