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'63 Volkswagen Riviera Camper, Rat Rod, Rat Bus on 2040-cars

Year:1963 Mileage:99999
Location:

United States

United States
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Okay, I bought this one about a year ago with big plans for it, but I’ve since found and bought the Walk-Thru that I’ve wanted so I’m going to pass this one on. It’s had some pretty shoddy body work done to it and was generally a mechanical disaster when I got it. 
If you plan on restoring it, you’re going to want to replace the inner and outer rockers on both sides. The outers are pretty solid thanks to all the Bondo somebody packed into them, but they did a crap job shaping and sanding. There’s obvious Bondo at the left rear vent and wheel well, as well as at the “hand hold” on the rear hatch.  
The floors are surprisingly solid as you can see in the pics. Most of the undercarriage is in very good shape as well, save the rockers and one outrigger, also shown in the pics.
The brakes and wiring are all sorted now, as in it’s safe and legal. 
It’s got working Headlights, High Beams, Tail lights, Brake lights and Turn Signals.
I’ve done a good bit of work on the engine and it runs like a Bat out of Hell. I don’t know what it is, but I’d guess an 1835cc based on the power it has. It was reported to be a fresh rebuild by the guy I bought it from. I’d be inclined to believe him. It runs very strong and tight. It climbs hills like a Chevy and cruises down the highway at a pretty good clip. The speedo works to within a few mph. It says 62 and the gps says 65. It will cruise 70 easily, but with no interior and the awning windows flapping around in the wind the noise gets a bit obnoxious at that speed. I recently put a fresh distributor and a brand new Bosch Alternator and a new fan on it. It’s got a brand new higher end battery too. The front tires are in very good condition, probably 80%. The back tires are not as good at around 40%. The wipers work when they feel like it.
The ride is solid and awesome. The suspension seems in great shape. It hugs the road nicely and it turns like it’s on rails. It’s a blast to drive (I have done a few trips to the Redwoods and up and down the CA and OR coasts in it).
It’s got Stainless Steel Gimbaled Marine Drink Holders! …and a Parcel tray stereo mount that I have never seen in 30 years of owning bus’s. I don’t know if it was factory or aftermarket or custom made, but it’s a great fit and it’s really nice the dash has never been butchered. The rear window rail is there and in perfect condition. It also comes with a pre-cracked passenger side windshield. All the other glass you’re going to have to crack yourself. And yes, the roof rack stays with it.
I have over 100 pictures that cover just about every inch of the good, the bad, and the ugly. email me at cynicalsailor@yahoo.com for the link.
The way Bus prices are going I’m half tempted to keep it for later, but I could use the money to fix up the walk-thru. 
All in all, this is a great Rat-Rod just the way it is, or if you’re looking for a resto project, there's a whole lot of good Bus here and it’s the last year (early '63) of the small rear window and is a pretty rare model. It’s currently registered and has a clear Oregon title.
Thanks for looking and happy bidding!

Auto blog

Europeans get first crack at new Golf Variant wagon

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Just last week, when we brought you news of a new Volkswagen Golf variant out and testing in Europe, we had no idea we were being so literal with out description. For it seems that VW has every intention of calling its new Golf wagon, making its Geneva debut, the "Golf Variant."
Odd/interesting sobriquets taken as read then, there's a lot to like about this new small wagon from VW. The Variant will shed some 232 pounds in this generation, and will come to market with two efficient TDI engines. Volkswagen isn't giving us displacement figures for either yet, but we're told the diesels will come with outputs of 110 and 150 horsepower. The 110-hp TDI BlueMotion Varient will be good for a whopping 71.3 miles per gallon on the European cycle, when mated to the six-speed manual transmission.
The German automaker has brought along an all-wheel-drive 4Motion version of the Gold Variant to bow in Geneva, as well, and a natural gas-burning TGI BlueMotion is said to be "in the pipeline."

Porsche board members facing another ˆ1.8B lawsuit over VW takeover bid

Mon, 03 Feb 2014

Back in 2008, Porsche got the bright idea that it could take over Volkswagen in the midst of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Ignoring that this was a catastrophic move for the Stuttgart sports car manufacturer that that eventually resulted in it nearly going bankrupt and eventually being taken over by the same company it sought to control, the aftermath has left Porsche Chairman Wolfgang Porsche and board member Ferdinand Piëch in the crosshairs of seven hedge funds that lost out during the takeover and are now seeking €1.8 billion - $2.43 billion US - in damages from the two execs, according to the BBC.
See, investors bet on Volkswagen's share price going down, partially because Porsche said it wasn't going to attempt a takeover. But Porsche was attempting to take over VW, having bought up nearly 75-percent of VW's publicly traded shares. When word broke that Porsche owned nearly three-quarters of VW (which indicated an imminent takeover attempt), rather than go down like the hedge funds bet it would, VW's share price skyrocketed to over 1,000 euros per share, according to Reuters.
Naturally, when you bet that a company's share price is going to drop and it in turn (temporarily) becomes the world's most valuable company, you lose a lot of money, unless you're able to buy up shares before prices jump too much. This led to a squeeze on the stock, which the hedge funds accuse Porsche and Piëch (who are both members of the Porsche family and supervisory board) of organizing.

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

Tue, Jun 23 2020

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.