The blogger one man and his mustang – ’66 restoration project mentioned that he had the first frost last night, which prompted me to comment that we had been getting frost almost every night since the 3rd week in September. I also mentioned that we have several project cars. He replied that he would like to see photos of our project cars. I remembered I had done some on a frosty morning about 3 years ago, but when I found them, all I got of nearly complete cars in the frost were front views of the ’66 VW and the 1980 280 ZX (Tristan and David have the 280 ZX pretty well restored now). I only got parts of the ’76 Sun Bug and the 1960 Rambler in the frosty morning shoot, so the photo with Tiffany leaning on the hood of the Sun Bug shows the best shot I have of back of the Rambler behind her, besides the closeup of the trunk handle in the lead photo. The only photo of the Sun Bug in toto that I could find is one done by Susan Graham when we were having the houses torn down, that she has on her blog for her Photography Master Cup Nominations on February 19th of this year.
Off Center & Not Even 
My parents used to have a Beetle VW. With the five of us we went on holidays in this car. I can’t imagine everything fitting in, but it did at the time… 😉
It’s amazing what you can fit into an old VW Beetle. They have a lot of room inside.
I want to drive it myself once… But I’ve heard is hard work driving it.
VW Beetles are easy to drive. You would love it. They are not so hot on heat in the winter. You freeze in stop and go traffic and get a hot foot on the freeway;-)
My father told me the peddle to clutch(do I say it right?) is very hard to push down, if you know what I mean???
I just want to drive in it once… Just to experience it.
You can handle a stiff clutch. Or just drive it without the clutch! I’ve had to drive our VWs without the clutch many times after the clutch cable broke. I’ve changed clutch cables in the wee hours of the morning, once late at night in a super market parking lot in the middle of winter. Changing clutch cables on a VW is NOT easy.
Never driven without the clutch… oh, and never changed them either. 😉
The clutch is really difficult to replace because you have to pull the engine. The clutch cable (the cables I’ve replaced) runs through the tunnel from the pedal to the engine.
Are you a mechanic too!? I couldn’t change it if I wanted to… 😉
I’m a reluctant mechanic. Back in the days when cars had simple electronics and carburetors, I did most or the maintenance and mechanical repairs on my cars and motorcycles myself. Today I do very little work on cars, and haven’t had motorcycles for years.
My father is a mechanic, but can’t work on those new cars. They’re like computers, there’s almost nothing mechanical about cars anymore. I don’t like it. That’s why I have an old Toyota Starlet, so my dad can still fix it… 😉
Thanks for the shout out Timothy for my little ol blog, much appreciated. I didn’t expect you to put the pics up that quickly, but what a fantastic set of pics. People should be queuing up to take those little beauties of your hands for a restoration project. Thanks for posting them.
Love pics like this of old cars with character waiting to be given a new lease of life.
Were you trained as a mechanic or just self taught? Once a petrol head always a petrol head, don’t you u get any urge to go out a fiddle with the cars, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself!
My dad and a friend of his who owned a mechanic shop taught me how to work on cars, and I’m a self taught motorcycle mechanic. I never had a real love of mechanics (did it out of necessity) so I don’t have an urge to tinker with old cars these days.
Thats cool to be taught, i’m learning the hard way I think, by doing it myself. But one lesson I have learnt is simple, get the right tools for the job. It makes life so much easier.
The right tools and a good shop manual make all the difference. Having a neighbor who’s a retired machinist with a set of industrial lathes and millers also helps when you need parts made or customized;-)
Rofl. I have the manuals, I have most of the tools but the rest would be a dream!
Thanks for the shout out, Tim. The opportunity for photography you and Laurie gave me was incredible. 🙂
About a year ago I did a maternity shoot, and an old red pickup made the best prop. Fun stuff!!!!
Thanks, Susan. I was telling Bruce that I don’t find my own, familiar junk that interesting, so I never really photograph it, yet I photograph other people’s junk all the time. You’ve found our junk interesting enough to get award winning photos of it;-)
😉