July 2005, Küby is pretty clean, but it still has no top to protect our heads from the rainy days... So I have to take care of its convertible top, and its top chassis as a starter - which is in a rather bad shape...

I nought the top on eBay US. A brand new high quality top, for a little bit more than 260 euros, it's merely impossible to find in old Europe...

The front rail, rusted to the bones, is replaced by a NOS one, brand new in its VW package, found for 150 euros on eBay Germany. You can always find the parts you need... It's just a matter of patience! Now that I'm protected from rain, I still need a clean interior to match... Between Doumé (thanks dude!) who gave me an almost complete interior, and seat covers found on eBay Germany (encore), I finally manage to replace the old, crappy, black interior with a Khaki Green version in pretty good shape... Here we are!
Küby is, at least, ready for looooooooong cruisings... Below is a picture taken at Menton's annual meeting in August 2005. It's been a long way since the first visit to Küby...



As planned, this is not a show car... But this is the ultimate cruising machine when you live on the French Riviera like I do!

I originally planned to keep it 1 or 2 seasons... But finally, I got attached to it, it's so funny to use... Nobody would touch it, you can park it anywhere, drive it with the windshield down... I even use it to carry large object, as the two rear backrests fold down providing a large platform... So useful to me!

You guessed it folks... It would be pretty difficult for me to sell my Küby!

There's pictures we'd like to see more often... The Porsche production line, during the 356 era.
Wet sanding of the bodywork, all done y hand... Aaahh, t'was the good ol' time! You probably noticed, the 3 men trick to fit in the gearbox... Looks like they know their stuff, uh?

Definitely, there's some gems on YouTube...

As I don't have the required skills to create the mould (and I was rather scared of screwin'up my master!), I call for help my friend Seb, of DinkyGarage, who's job is fiberglass stuff...

So, this is a 5 pieces mold that Seb built out of my master (which won't survive the operation : R.I.P!).

The numerous grooves (doors, hoods...) obliged us to multiply the number of mold parts... Unless the removal from the mould would have been impossible... Once the mold created, we still have to take a first shell out of it... December 2006, the very first shell comes out of the mold!
Here are some teaser pictures of the thing, the bare shell just put down on 4 karting rain-tires equipped wheels, which I will use to motorize it : Highly cool, isn't it?

I'm more than happy of the result... There's still a lot of work to come, but Seb obviously made a great job... Many thanks dude!

OK, the shell is out, let's make a chassis to put under it!

Still trying to get a new toy for a reasonable price, it was out of the question to ask a professional body shop for Küby's paint job. So it's only homemade stuff, full D.I.Y., thanks to a few friends help...

However, I had a time dead-line : everything had to be done within a weekend, not to disturb the activities of my friend who let me do it at his work place... So, everything will be done on 15 and 16^th may 2005!

We built kind of a paint cabinet, just to get rid of dust... Well, this is the easy par, let's first prepare the body! Here we are, the openings have been painted... The "only" thing left is the body to get its coats of green sauce! OK, its finally painted! Last, but not least, we still have to put back everything together! And let's do it as fastly as possible, looks like a storm is coming... I'd like to give a gigantic "thanks" to Fred, Aurel', Xav'Yeah and Alex for the great help!

Obviously, in such conditions, the paint doesn't look like a show car one... Far from that. But trust me, it's not too bad either! And within a 600 euros budget, it was difficult to do much better... Even though, thinking about it...

I used industrial type paint (usually used for trucks). It's a little bit less shiny as normal car paint, and there's way less colors available. Actually, I must admit the final color of Küby is pretty far from what I originally expected... But I like it anyway.
However, this industrial paint is much cheaper, and way more resistant than normal car paint. And as I still want to keep this toy low budget... That's perfect to me!

Floor pans, after an vigorous cleaning with metallic brushes, is brushed with two coats of black Hammerite (Hammerite is an anti-rust paint, containing glass micro-spheres, and looks like a gel : it isolates the metal from the air's oxygen, therefore preventing rust...)... The result is even better than I expected!

OK, finally Küby looks presentable... It still needs a top, clean seats, and let's go cruisin'!

Like every kid, I ever wanted to build my own go-kart with a lawn-mower engine... And years are passing away, and we never build the go kart...

Then one day, I found the realisations of VW-Bratz, a UK base company, which now has disappeared. Wow! Not only it's a DIY go-kart, but it even looks like a VW! I definitely need one! (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm 6 years old in my head... So what??)

Those mini splits are pure perfection marvels, but... Well, this perfection has a price (300£ the shell, around 450€)! (see on FreeBugRiders the "pour les gosses (For Kids)" thread to see pictures of those VW Bratz splitties). Plus, 1.60 meters long is pretty big, therefore bulky to bring on a meeting.

I then found Mini Buggies in Netherlands, superbs as well, little less bulky, but less original, and still a little bit expensive (260€ the shell alone) for a toy I'll use twice a year...

So, I started to think about making my own model of mini-VW... I first started thinking about a mini bay window combi, then a beetle... But finally, the Thing is way easier to make! Plus, I own a real one to take measures on, and this will definitely be more original!

So I started taking all the measures on Küby, my Thing, then I transfered it into a 3D model using Sketchup. I decided to make it scaled 1/3 : this is the same scale as the VW-Bratz Splitties, if I meet some one day, well make a perfectly scaled 1/3 mini-meeting... And a 117cm long shell by 50cm wide is a good compromise between bulkiness (therefore transport) and "comfort", the final goal being to give it an engine and drive it... Here is the 3D model... Now I have to build a wooden master out of it, using the numeric model's measures. So, after buying a router and a few woodcuts of MDF, I start making a master as close as possible to the original one...


Here we are! July 2006, the master piece is finally ready to go, now I have to make a fiberglass mould out of it to make the mini-Thing shells...