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Big Air Buggy Story By Matthew Davis I love to get involved in projects, One day I was offered a VW Type 3 by this little old lady that had it in her back yard under tree's and bushes that almost covered it completely and were growing even inside it. It must have been there for Donkey's years, It was rusting away badly. The motor was rooted it looked like it had caught on fire at one stage, when i first saw it I thought I might turn it into a BAJA offroad but it was too far gone. |
| I took it home and stared at it for about
two days wondering where I was going to dump it. I started to cut it up thinking yeah I'll make a Trike no I'll make go cart with VW tyres. Then I saw it all I needed was a hell of allot of water pipe so I got one and two inch pipe and started welding. It was not easy cause I never had built anything so big before. All I had ever built was go carts and mini bikes this was like the Titanic. |
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Several weeks later and two or three boxes
of welding rods and about 20 Grinding disks. I had something that looked like it come out of the movie MAD MAX road warrior. I had two long reach KONI shocks laying around that needed little modification and before long the rear end was standing on it's own. |
| I had a Diahatsu FJ55 that I had Wrecked
and sold for parts. There still was a pile of junk left in the corner of the garage, I used the master cylinder and brake booster, and various brackets and nuts and bolts off that 4x4 Who says Jap 4x4's aren't useful. The next thing was where was I going to get a motor from as money was short. I finally Painted it red and then I new for sure it was going to be quick. |
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One day I had gone to check out how much
a motor was going to set me back. I went to a VW wrecking yard it was too much for me that's forsure. And asked the owner if I could work there to the value of a motor. After explaining that I needed a motor badly and that I had worked in Sydney in that very trade. And that I was very quick at dismantling he could not be happier. I was there for about 10 weeks and i did everything dismantling, cleaned parts, sorted, Labelled. I finally got a 1600 flat motor and it ran sweet. It also had a thunder exhaust. |
| I had a couple of friends from Sydney
coming to see me and we hired a 4x4 and a car trailer and took the Buggy to the sand Doons a couple of hours from the city. It was awesome Jumping and going sick over the Doons, we had a great time with it. I ended up selling it to a man that had Parkinson's Disease, he wanted it to have some last good times with his son. It really cut me up I remember he was looking at it and thinking is it ok and I said to him Jump in, He did and I told him that don't worry I built this buggy and it will do the job you want. I was sad to see it go but I knew it was destined to give him and his son loving lasting memories. That's my Big Air Buggy Story |
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