5 may 2019 - Fun
THE VW BEETLE BIKE BY CLYDE JAMES CYCLES
Japanese Inspiration
“My friend Doug came through the shop one day after finding this drawing and asked if we could make his dream of owning the world’s first VW Beetle Bike a reality. After some planning and budget management, we started the task of building the bike from a picture that was illustrated by a man all the way on the other side of the world. Needless to say, we had a lot on our plate, but I was confident that we could make it happen”
The Build Begins
As with many custom bike builds, an upcoming gathering or show is usually the motivation that drives the timeline. In this case it was the OBC 2017 gathering in Las Vegas that was scheduled for April 19. This gave Clyde and Doug about 3 months to complete the bike from start to finish.
In the spirit of creating a problem and then a solution, Clyde and Doug decided to make two suicide doors with a full interior and upholstery! As you can imagine this required many long hours of hard work, but in the end, it turned out to be worth the extra effort.
The Challenges
“Paint was also an issue…deciding what color combination and style of paint job we wanted. After much talk and deliberation we ended up going with turquoise blue and cream to give it that old school Bug look.”
Clyde enlisted the help of his friend Tony Cano, owner of Evo Time Customs in Fort Worth, Texas who is also known as GMG Tony for his work on the TV show Fast & Loud. With only one day left before needing to leave for the OBC show, Tony, Steven and Clyde stayed late at Tony’s shop to knock the job out.
“So the rush was on! We had to get the bike assembled before the long drive to Vegas that night. We assembled everything in about 5 hours, taking our time to make sure nothing got scratched. We made the first official test ride at 1:30 am that night. After we knew everything was complete, we all went home to get ready for the trip. Within a couple hours we met back at the shop and headed out on our 18 hour drive through the desert to Vegas!”
Sweet Success
“Within two hours of unveiling the bike at OBC 2017 I was able to talk with Hotaka Saito through Facebook thanks to RRB forum member Brian Palmer. Hotaka was very happy that someone had finally made his drawing a reality.”
The Future
(817) 726-9461
Source: http://www.ratrodbikes.com/vw_beetle_bike
4 may 2019 - Meetings
For the last 30 years or so my 1st of May pilgrimage goes to Hannover May Käfer treffen… it’s an awesome show with a huge swap meet, we always have a ball… some impressions….
3 may 2019 - NEW
Big news this week from the Media, they brought out that the fault for Trump’s popularity is the fault of the Media… now try to figure that one out… it’s like shooting yourself in the foot, reload your gun and shoot again!
One and another can be the result of the speed of life lately… Laptops, computers, iPads, Facebook, Internet, Whattsapp, Instagram, Cell phones, Text messages, Netflix, only to name a few… is life so much better as before the millennium when we didn’t have all of that? I don’t think so. And the simple reason for that is that we don’t lack any desire anymore. We all want it now and here, immediately.
Well at least we keep the desire going… We’re continuously developing new parts and don’t care how long it takes, we’re happy as long as the result is good. Our aim is to build everything we make in the quality VW used to make it back in the day or even better, why not? If it takes, one, five or ten years we don’t mind, our aim is set to quality and that’s it! It’s nice to keep that desire… we feel good, fit and healthy, ready for our next run….:)
We started up three new products last couple of days and took them to the drawing boards. They may take at least 6 months before finishing, one even up to a year, even they’re relatively small items. But the desire burns…
This week we present you the new product samples we’ve been working on at least 3 years… with our whole Bus silver weld through sheet metal program. That desire burns as well. As you know our goal here is to make every single part that’s on a bus, so you could, theoretically, build a complete bus together.
What is your desire?
Maybe not recognisable for most of you, but this is the metal part right above the door of your splittie bus. It’s the part that sits between your cab door and your roof… guess you can visualise it better now…. perfect fit and quality, BBT approved production…
0890-865 Connecting profile A-B pillar left (inner and outer) – Bus 07/63-07/67
0890-866 Connecting profile A-B pillar right (inner and outer) – Bus 07/63-07/67
We all know the rockers, and they existed in several colors and qualities… but ours are stamped on Die-Cast tooling. Exactly like Volkswagen used to do back in the day. Not finished by hand, but finished by tooling.
Simply to guarantee the same perfect fit on every single one of them.
This is the complete rocker, inside out, so easy and fast to replace. This brings restoration to a much easier level!
This is the closest you can come to a NOS part. With the exception ours are better protected with the silver weld through primer inside out, what NOS don’t have….
0890-305 Sill under loading doors (complete) – Bus -07/67 TQ
There was a day we thought there was only one model of those crazy springs… did we know there were two… of course with the different height of the engine lids it makes sense… sometimes we just don’t think deep enough…:)
We made the new spring 100% to OE specs, fits like a champ and is strong enough to do the job perfectly. Your choice for the best available!
0438-273 Engine lid support spring – Bus 08/71-07/92 (25.50cm)
The “other” spring for the engine lids made from Dec 1963 till July 1971 and for all treasure chests on pick ups built from Dec 1963 all the way up to end of bay window production is available under our BBT reference 0438-272
Next we have a part out of our front fender program, another desire…:)
Now we supply the steel wire tubes you find on all original fenders between headlight bucket and inner fender (body) to guide your electric wires in style. They have been used on all VW beetles up to 1959.
Our fenders will carry the tubes automatically on the headlight buckets. But we decided to offer them also separately.
Why VW made them in steel is still a big question, but fact is they’re always rusted out, mostly missing and without your car is never perfect. This is the perfect solution to replace your old rusty worn out or missing headlight wire tubes with perfect reproduction ones.
0180-050 Headlight wire tube headlight bucket to body, pair – Beetle -07/59
We got a new load of our high quality rear spring plates for the IRS rear suspension. Happy to have them back in. Ready for immediate supply.
1436 Spring plate cover ‘IRS’ (European) OE
1721-960 Cylinder head T25 – 1600cc Diesel 85-89 / complete
395 euro excl.
That was a big chunk of desire here….LOL, enough of that… we all like to wish you a relaxed weekend, leave that phone off, nothing is that urgent. You will be surprised what a relax feeling that is, question is, can you still handle that relaxing feeling???
More BBT news, next week, stay tuned!