One of my all-time favorite commenters here is The Right Honorable Justy Baum. The comment sections at CC have been graced 2,286 times by his wit, erudite analysis, wry insights, dry humor, keen reminiscences and…his avowed dislike of swing axles, especially when they’re showing a wee bit of positive camber. So I dedicate this shot by Cohort contributor Benoît of a VW displaying not a hint of that vice to you, justy. No fear of the dreaded deadly tuck-under!
So is this the cue for him to complain about negative camber, and uneven tire wear? Just kidding Justy, I always look forward to your comments! And the patina on this Bug is quite nice. I thought Benoit was in Canada, but this shot looks taken in the EU, judging by the plates in the newer cars in the background.
KOS’THOR Fuckin Motors (hey, it says so on the Bug) hails from France.
https://www.facebook.com/RatRodFrance/
If you’re going to run this amount of negative camber, you need to dial-in some toe-out to compensate. How easy is it to adjust the toe on Beetle rear suspension ? (The only VW I ever spannered was a booted Polo – Derby ? )
Reminds me of something
Looks like its halfway through the slowering process a narrow front beam is already in but no fat tyres on yet, you can go real low by cutting the floor pans out and replacing them with flat panels but over here you cant go anywhere speed humps will leave you stranded.
If Nosferatu could drive, this would be his car!
It would seem that this French Wolfsburger – which sounds like something McDonalds might offer only in the heavily-forested Loiret region, and in fact, might well do – has been fitted not with the usual camber compensator but the lesser-known camber over-compensator, which, alas, like all such human reactions to inadequacy, creates just another set of issues. In this case, it results in a somewhat-undrivable thing that also leaves the indelible and unfortunate impression of a brown dog permanently in mid-process of gaining relief on the lawn.
It could, though, just be broken. Allow me to explain.
A thousand years ago, or the early ’70’s, whichever seems less, I was exposed to the traumas of swinging axles. There were simply too many of us for a normal Holden, and we over-reproduced lot were condemned to motoring about in that current fad-mobile but then just an old rustbus, namely, a split-screen – not to mention split seats, panels, and exhaust – VW microbus. Here, as my father and us seven kept up a pace that could only be described as furtive, the axles of swing reached their highest level of danger, in fact, literally so. The drive shafts came out the side of the box like the sedans, but at the wheel ends, there was and is a drop-reduction gearbox, which not only added some decent unsprung weight to the swingin’ party, nor just a nice subdued scream in all gears, but it raised the whole centre of gravity up several inches as well. To these fine boxes were attached alleged brakes of cast iron, and then 16 inch tyres with sidewalls about the height of a Greek grandmother, meaning all-up that it was a very long way indeed from gearbox to road. (Indeed, I believe that in more remote bits of Greece, the grandmothers were employed to walk under the gearbox and reach up to loosen the oil plug, etc, which saved on buying car lifts, but I am digressing).
Thus, sitting upright, high on a bench seat, one didn’t motor in the van so much as teeter. It could be a test of nerves, especially with my father’s desperate calls of “”Lean left! or Lean right!” on certain roads. Hence the trauma.
But more to the point, once, on an innocent day’s teetering to our gran’s place – no, the oil did not need changing, it was purely social, and anyway, though Greek-sized, she was of Irish descent – we ran over a bump, and I presumed it was a big human, because then we were shot at. Well, not really, but the noise sure left the ears ringing. The torsion bar had snapped, and we all tumbled left and backwards as it dropped to the new ride height. After we had all stopped fighting and got off the top of eachother and out, the rear looked just like the French machine in the photo. On one side, anyway. (And yet again, we came home after dark on a tow-truck, an old International that I think in retrospect we should have just bought, so often did we use it, and anyway, we all somehow always squeezed in, it was faster, and it had not only a radio but a heater, but this too is a digression).
So you see, this bug in France might just have hit two bumps at once, and is simply waiting for the tow-truck, which I must say, Dr N, seems no solution to the problems of swing at all.
Btw, I feel compelled to point out that I am rarely right and never honorable, but I will take the compliment in the spirit intended, and also state that after 2,286 tries, I am very near to completing a comment that makes entire sense. I thank you for your patience in the meantime.
Childhood trauma can be so formative.
16″ tires; it must have been a fairly early bus. And worth a fortune now!
And this comment makes perfect sense. But I enjoy them either way.
Thanks for reviving a memory.
Around here, about that same thousand years ago, and also involving a Greek: there was a Kraut Can with a trunk-lid cartoon picture of Diogenes drawn as Mr. Natural carrying a lantern . The name “Diogenes” was painted in similar semi-circular fashion to that of the lead photo. I saw the car several times in the area where my Uncle lived; an older part of town with a disproportionate number of college students due to cheap apartments.
I had to ask my mother who “Diogenes” was, and upon receiving the answer, I was left to wonder who the owner of this Hitler’s Revenge was, and why he so revered the ancient Greek.
Later learning led me to believe that there must have been some common ground between a historical figure who was obviously bat-sheeet crazy, (slept in a clay pot, argued with Plato and mocked Alexander the Great, got sold into slavery for his reward) and a guy willingly driving a Vee Dub.
(For the record, I had a ’67 Beetle in high school, selling it to a classmate about two weeks before it burned. It did not have a cartoon painting on the trunk lid, which was smashed into the engine about two hours after I bought the car, and which I “straightened” again by beating it with a hammer.)