I got the email with the phone number early Wednesday morning, and by 7:00PM Wednesday night I had my trailer hooked up and was headed towards Laughlin, Nevada. Those who have been on our occasional Mojave Road runs from Baker, CA to Laughlin know our affinity for staying at the worst hotel on the strip: The Pioneer! That's where I landed at 12:30am Thursday morning to check into my $27- room. By the way, we stay there (even though it is truly horrible place where you wear your socks to bed) because you can park directly in front of your room and keep an eye on your buggy, trailer, etc.
Anyways, up at 6am and off to Golden Valley, Arizona, a small town about 40 minutes from Laughlin to get the buggy. While I don't have any history yet, here is what little I do know about the car:
The guy I purchased the Utility Manx from ended up with it and a Joe Poty buggy when he purchased an auto shop back in July of last year. Both buggies were titled, so he fortunately had notarized title from the previous owner. I’m hoping to contact either the prior owner or his family from the address I have on that paperwork to get some history on the car. The utility sits on a Type III chassis which is in rough shape. The body itself is in excellent structural condition with really thick fiberglass and absolutely NO small fracture cracks or signs of damage or repairs. The gel coat, however, is in horrid shape, with the glossy outer layer worn away leaving just a high grit sandpaper-like feel coming from the exposed metalflake. Inside the trunk area however, the gelcoat is in excellent condition as if nothing was ever put back there. Checking it against an older Meadowbrook glitter chart, I can see the original color matches their Sand 2E metallic.
My plans for the car are first to get Bruce & Winnie to verify it, then take it up to David Barrett at Manx Chassis in Sanger, CA. He’s agreed to build a custom rolling chassis for me with a link pin front end and an IRS rear end. While I know it may bother some that I’m not keeping it on a VW pan, the Barrett chassis, in my opinion, is vastly superior to a shortened pan car. I will try and leave the rest of it as old school as possible. But, if sometime down the line someone wants to convert it to dead stock, they can always throw a pan under it. After the chassis is built, I’ll have the body re-gelcoated in the Sand 2E color, rewire it, restore some stock VW seats, and install a pancake motor.
I’ll keep you posted as the restoration comes together, but I’ll admit it’ll take some time to get all of these things done. Here's some photos of the "MAX" Utility MANX:
- Pioneer early morning.jpg (169.46 KiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility as found.jpg (4.12 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility as found 2.jpg (233.6 KiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility Pioneer on trailer.jpg (3.51 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility rear view side yard.jpg (224.21 KiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility hatch open.jpg (2.76 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- utility dashboard side yard.jpg (2.55 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility roll bar side yard.jpg (2.99 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility support.jpg (159.8 KiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility Gelcoat.jpg (4.37 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- Utility Color Chart Sand 2E.jpg (3.23 MiB) Viewed 12257 times
- IMG_1746.JPG (2.34 MiB) Viewed 12217 times
