Our next VW project

Since we have completed the beetle convertible I've been increadibly bored :-) and so mid last year I began on the next project - a VW kombi limo. I've played around with a couple of sketches to mimic what we think it will look like (not sure about colour yet!):

After some thought as to how long we want it we finally decided on two additional 'middle' or sliding door length sections. That would make the van around 7m rather than the standard length of 4.5m. We did quite well in finding the three suitable donor vehicles that each had their own little problems and so it didn't feel quite so bad cutting them up! Chris and Sandy have kindly made some space in their nice big concrete floored shed for me to work in. So over the last few months we've cut up the three vans into the sections that we needed, pulled some usable spare parts off the rest and then took the remainder to the scrap metal guy. We are now at the stage where we have all the sections we need inside the shed and removed all the left-over pieces from around the outside of the shed to tidy Chris and Sandy's place up a bit! I suspect that there won't be much progress for a few months after April and so a decent tidy-up was needed before then obviously. The plan at this stage is to have the parts welded together and on wheels so that it can be towed to the VW nationals in hamilton in Easter 2008. That gives me another year to align, cut, weld together and reinforce it. Below are some pics of progress to date.

The above was donor number one, which will be used for the front section, and so was cut just behind the sliding side door.

Donor number two will give us the rear and as a bonus this camper was a factory sunroof van so we will have a nice large sunroof above the front end of the bed to look at the stars at night!

This last one we got really cheap as it already had sunspension and everything stripped out from it. But as we only wanted the middle third (the sliding door length) that was no problem.

Below are pics of each of the vans cut, and the last photo is what we have in Chris and Sandy's shed now. Note that the last photo shows the middle section from the silver van on its end with the underside visible.

And the remainder went to the scrap metal guy in two loads:

A new arrival on its way

Finally! Have been meaning to update this page since last year, but never got round to it. As most of you should know by now, we are expecting an addition to the ‘family’ in early April. The due date is 3rd April so we’re getting pretty close now to the peace and quiet being shattered at home. Beck is doing really (and has been pretty good throughout) and is starting to get pretty big now - and still has a few weeks to grow! Below are a couple of prints from the scans at 20 weeks just after we got back from our germany trip. We had to laugh as it looks like baby is laughing in the print - in reality we think it was just opening its mouth ready to suck its thumb. Still looks funny though!

The print below is the baby's face which looks rather like that of an alien than a human - but we have been assured that's normal! :-)

We didn't want to find out what the sex of the baby was. We decided that we'd rather get a surprise in April, and besides it makes it more fun for others to buy baby things as they should be fairly nutral. A good way to slow the flood of baby items pouring into baby's room!

Beck had her baby shower a couple of weeks ago and the way she described the aftermath is probably quite appropriate; she said our lounge looks like the baby factory monster threw up in it. So we're pretty sorted for most things now, we have a cot from one of Beck's mum's friends, a pram from Beck's dad and maz, getting a highchair from Beck's mum and rex and my parents are making us a change table. Beck and I have bought new curtains (Winnie the Pooh) and painted some draws for in the baby room and another of Beck's mum's friends said he will supply us with some nappies and baby creams, etc. Bring on 3rd April!

That'll do for now. Will try and get permission to take a pic of Beck on day to post on here too!