Top Twenty Five T34s: Earliest Restored 1962 Coupe The Whole Restoration Story
Karmann Ghias are like children, you need to have another one to keep the existing one company and out of trouble.
Well, that was the best logic I could come up with at the time. We previously had two Karmann Ghias, our 65 model roulette green type 3 and Theresa’s 1967 model Lotus white/Texas brown hood Type 1 convertible. The convertible was sold when our daughter came onto the scene; she is now 16 and too big to fit comfortably into the back but still loves being in it. That’s when I saw the solution to the problem, yes another Karmann Ghia. The KG in question was a very early Type 3, built 20 November 1961 (chassis 0002910) and finished in all black with a red/white interior, exactly the same as the car featured in the very first sales brochure. It was produced within a couple of months of production commencing and is currently the 4th oldest one known to survive and probably the oldest Type 3 of any type in the UK. To take a step back, the reason that this early car appealed to me was because of its similarity to the 3rd type 3 KG I had, a black\white roof 1964 with red interior. Additionally I like all the early details that were on the first cars at the start of the 1962 model year. Problem – the car was in South Africa where it had spent all its life, except for the first month after its delivery via a dealer in Denmark. Its first owner, a Mr Storck-Nilsen, then took it to his home in Bishops Court, Capetown. The seller said it was complete and in reasonable condition but my knowledge of type 3 KGs over the last nearly 30 years made me very sceptical of this. I had photos sent across and could see from them that a lot of the early features of the car were actually missing, correct badges, trim, correct engine! Luckily I had most trim items in my stash of spares acquired over the years (now very depleted). There were still enough of the original features left to make it a good restoration challenge, plus the car had not been restored before and at least it would therefore be original rust I was buying. After negotiations we agreed a price that included shipping to the UK and the car arrived over here in January 2003.

First impressions of the body work were not too bad but it was clear that the whole interior was unusable except for patterns and that some serious mechanical restoration was also needed. The chassis however could only be compared to the car that Fred Flinstone drives as there was just a large sheet of plate steel pop riveted to one side of the car and little more metal elsewhere of any quality left. I decided my plan of attack was to split the car from the chassis and restore the chassis first whilst I though how to tackle the body. The mechanics were not a major concern in my mind and I knew someone who was breaking his early low mileage 62 Notchback as a result of an accident. I managed to buy the complete engine to replace my incorrect one, including the new early, and difficult to find, cylinder heads that had been fitted just before the accident. So all interior and exterior trim was removed and then in late 2004 the body was removed from the chassis. Unfortunately by them I had managed to acquire a non serious but still rather irritating illness which stopped me doing too much work on the car myself; so the MIG welder was laid to one side and a professional brought in. In the meantime I tracked down replacement chassis sections from scrap Type 3s for the repairs, mostly from Type 3 Detectives. The pan was restored and then shot blasted and powder coated. Whilst that was happening I stripped the front axle, reconditioned it, including new period shock absorbers and steering damper, new early wheel cylinders, steering box, tie rod ends etc. plus a coat or two of paint. The rear sub-frame was stripped of the transmission and this was taken to Peter at Cogbox, the seller had mentioned it kept popping out of first. When it was stripped it was clear that reverse would also have been a problem and that it had been wise to repair it whilst the car was in pieces. The sub-frame, axle tubes, backing plates were all blasted and powder coated and then I rebuilt the whole assembly with new sub-frame mounts, shift rod connector, gear shift bush, all brake components and more period shock absorbers.The early slotted wheels were blasted and repainted in their proper black/ white colours and new tyres and original style wheel embellishers fitted.

The chassis, front and rear axle assemblies were then joined back together by me and my wife Theresa, - great fun and also very encouraging to see a rolling chassis without the ground being visible through it. In the meantime my friend had been checking over the now disassembled replacement early engine that I had bought, we decided that it needed new piston & barrels, camshaft and followers along with new bearings and oil pump, most everything else was well within tolerance due to its low mileage. The only problem met was that the replacement barrels were slightly different from the early ones; I had to have a small amount of machining done to the heads to enable a fit. 2 pieces of the early engine tin ware were missing from the replacement engine and John Figg managed to track these down for me in France. With an NOS carb fitted (the original one has been retained as, like the gearbox, they are numbered parts that relate to the car) and various other new ancillaries the engine was finished and fitted to the rolling chassis.

What a body! – Restoration of the body shell for a 1962 model Type 3 Ghia: What’s maroon and crunches? – That’s right – the sills on my type 3 Ghia. I was expecting the sills on the car to be bad under that horrendous maroon paint, but as I stripped the car of its interior and exterior trim some other unexpected horrors began to appear. The rear screen pillars were rotted through in several places, the dashboard corners at the bottom of the windscreen, were also rotten as a pear, both caused by leaking screen seal rubbers. Under the pounds of filler, whilst there was no actual rust, the upper section of the front panel was crushed beyond repair. If you remember that TV ad where some guys beat an old Hindustani Ambassador car and make it look like a Peugot 307, then the panel finish they achieved resembled that on the Ghia. The car had suffered a bad frontal accident and the front panel had then been badly ‘beaten’ to the point where the metal was no longer re-workable. One door was also holed through and split along the razor edge and the spare wheel carrier was none existent. If I thought these areas would present problems then more was to follow.

I had to make the decision to farm out the bodywork and spent a while looking at various body shops. I wanted someone fairly local but who wouldn’t be phased by the extent of the work required. I had already used John at Chesterton Coachworks for the chassis repairs and as it hadn’t seemed to put him off I decided to ask him to take on the body shell repairs as well. I had seen some of the work he and his team had done to various cars ranging from Rovers, Austins, Porsches & Mercedes up to Bugattis and Ferraris and was really impressed by the standard achieved. The car was duly trailered over to John’s workshop and left for him to assess. I sent the car over with 2 front panels, one donated by Clive Richardson and one from a car being scrapped by Type 3 Detectives. I bought the complete front end from Type 3 Detectives of the car that was being scrapped; It was a 1966 model that used to belong to our long departed KK magazine editor Mike Thompson. The funny thing was that he had the car repaired using 2 NOS wings that I sold him and now here I was buying them back some 15 years later for 3 times the price with built in rust! I also sent the car over with outer sill panels and front and rear wing repair sections and one new headlight bowl and a section of dashboard again kindly donated by Clive. The belief was that there should be enough panels to recreate that crushed front end and sort out the sills to give me a repaired bodyshell, wrong again! I went over to John’s after a week to find the front wings and panel had been removed as planned plus one outer sill. What John found was that the front sections of the inner wings and what remained of the spare wheel carrier frame had been damaged in the accident and needed replacing. Turning to the sills, the outer ones were of course in need of replacement and, as expected, so was the middle strengthening membrane. What I wasn’t expecting was how rotten the heater channels within the sills were and how bad the bottoms of the inner sills were. Additionally John pointed out some other major areas such as the need to replace the bottom door hinge mounts on each A post due to metal fatigue and a few other sections here and there. Decision time, abandon or carry on with the restoration? After discussing it at home and spending a few days thinking it over I made the decision to go ahead with the repairs. I knew the car couldn’t be in better hands; the additional cost would mean it would just take a few extra years to make it onto the road, and with another T34 to drive there was no rush. With the green light given the spare wheel carrier was recreated and new bottom door hinge mounts made. The inner sill was removed from one side and the doorframe braced up to prevent twisting. John and team then got to work recreating inner sills and strengthening members, making pressing tools to form the membrane indentations etc. The heater channel was then repaired and the whole inner sill, heater channel and strengthening membrane were assembled together and fitted to the car as one unit. This was followed by repairs to the outer sill, sill ends and then the rear wing repair panel. John paid particular detail to ensuring he repaired the car in the same was as it was built. This resulted in a car, which has the early form of sill to front inner wing formation (abandoned on later cars I presume to prevent water being trapped in the front wing bottoms) and which looks as close to original as possible. The process was then repeated on the other side whilst the spare wheel carrier was fitted. Attention then moved to repairing the corners of the rear wings under the rear bumpers, dash board, front and rear screen pillars and various other small areas.

Attention then turned to the front end. The first decision was which of the three front panels to use, The Good, The Bad or The Ugly? There was no good, so it came down to the bad or the ugly. The panel off the scrapped 66 was discarded, as it was mostly filler, the original off the 62 was unusable so it came down to the panel donated by Clive off the 68 car which we had fun cutting up a few months before. Before the front panels could be worked on the front inner wings needed attention, new front sections were made and new top edges welded on to enable the replacement wings to be fitted onto. The repair sections purchased from the club were then grafted onto the bottom of the salvaged front wings and they were then loosely fitted in place along with the front panel. Sections were then inserted to fill the missing gaps, including the bottom of the front panel. Once everything was recreated at the front end the front wings and front panel were removed from the car and welded into one complete section before refitting back on to the car. It’s amazing how much difference this action made to the feeling of progress, the majority of the difficult work had been in recreating those sills and making a complete jigsaw of the front end but that few hours work just transformed the appearance of the car. Money finally ran out as did John’s available time and I picked the car up still needing headlight bowls fitting and final gaping and filling to be done. Once I got the car back I arranged for it to be blasted to remove all the paint and check there was no hidden rust. Luckily just two very small areas showed up but the Blaster bent the passenger door. Luckily John hadn’t got round to repairing it. My luck increased when, whilst at the 50th celebrations of the launch of the KG, I saw a NOS door on a stand, even greater luck it was for the passenger side and for a 62 model. Problem – there were already 3 of us in the 65 Type 3 KG at the event plus our luggage, how would I get it home? Our long time Chairman, Derek Frow, stepped in and ferried it home to me after a detour to France and then via John Figg. What it is to have friends! The body shell now rests at home at the moment, waiting for a lottery win to fund finishing of the small amount of bodywork and then painting. Three years of work so far but looking so much better and all down hill from here. This has made the bodywork sound easy, I can’t tell you how fascinating it was to drop in and see the work being done on the car, the work required was far outside of my capability and, I am sure, outside that of many other bodyshops. None of the great work John will be visible once the paint goes on but I will know what effort went into it and I always have the 3 albums of photos!

Restoring the interior of a T34
My early 1962 T34 had spent all its life out in South Africa. It had a hard life from heavy use, intense sun and, when it rains, an awful lot of rain. This had all taken its toll on the interior, the dash board tops and bottoms were scrap, the seats had been recovered over the top of the original covers and door panels, carpets and boot linings were virtually none existent. On top of this various holes had been drilled in the dash, the ignition switch was missing, as was the early all white gear knob, Type 1 Ghia red dot heater knob, heater vent covers, early all aluminium rear view mirror, window winders, seat side trims and various knobs etc., etc. On the positive side the correct early seats with the Type 1 Ghia round seat slide adjusters and heavy solid brass side mounted and chromed seat rake adjusters were still there. Repairs to the dash were taken in hand by John who was doing the body repairs and I concentrated on two things, finding the missing parts for the interior and restoring the seats and side panels and other parts. Good old e-bay came to the rescue with new door top covers and lower padded dash rail (63 version that had to be adapted to fit), Mark Poulton supplied the upper padded rail from the club spares supply. The difficult to get white plastic interior door release inserts were tracked down at the VW Classic in California for a couple of dollars, including the handles! A lot of other bits were sourced from my secret stash at the back of the garage, taken off a 62 car scrapped back in 60s, including the gear knob and rear mirror. Other bits like the early heater knob and a replacement clock (NOS for £5) were tracked down at UK meetings like Volksworld and Stanford Hall. The biggest challenge was the seats and side panels. I initially made contact with early model owners in Germany to try and track down the original red and black cloth seat inserts (now available through Scott Taylor). My research led me to establish that the last of the material had been used up a couple of years previously. I decided to go for the original alternative of white outer and red inner leatherette panels and door panels. A fantastic amount of help came from Lee Hedges in the US who had already worked with a local trimmer to restore his own 62. Lee sourced correct materials for me from TMI and worked with the trimmer to produce fantastic reproduction seats. His trimmer had also found that by using a TMI type 2 middle door trim panel that it was possible to re-create type 3 Ghia door panels with the correct seamed look. In the meantime I stripped the front seats down to their frames, welded up some broken parts and re-sprayed the front frames in their original Silver Beige colour. The rear seats were also stripped and unfortunately I found that the lower seat base was rotten. I made a new one out of marine ply, shaping and contouring it as necessary to provide the correct frame to rebuild the seat on. At the 50th year celebration of the KG I was lucky to find 2 correct seat side trims from Mick Blondin, this saved me chopping some later ones about. I was now ready to fit the covers but was a little worried about the state of the padding on the front seats so I decided to use a trimmer to fit them. They came back quickly, but not to my desired standards and I ended up taking the covers off and redoing them myself. The end result is now fantastic and I can’t wait to see them in the finished car. For the carpets various folk gave me templates from early cars as they are shaped differently from later cars around the seat rails, heater vents, controls and some other areas. I then had a square weave carpet set made up by Newton Commercial in the UK. The dash board instruments all needed attention, the clock was too far-gone and was replaced with a NOS one, the fuel gauge/instrument cluster just needed a clean and re-paint of the bezel, but the speedo needed serious attention. It was the original KM one and slightly different even from other early ones. I stripped it, cleaned the mechanism and zeroed it. The needle was painted with a match sourced from Hobbycraft and the perspex face polished to achieve a good end result. I also did the same with a slightly latter MPH speedo so I had the choice of which to use when I come to fitting up the car. To finish the dashboard I managed to source a nice period radio and then tracked down a NOS radio faceplate and knobs (last ones in stock). I managed to pick up a complete set of used, but excellent condition, front and rear boot linings and they finish off the areas really well. I have also made up a cardboard liner for on top of the petrol tank and have sourced the correct grain grey Hardura material to fit to the rear boot compartment (used on Jags). The last major piece on the interior that I completed was to recondition the steering column housing and indicator arm. Luckily the arm wasn’t broken, as they are incredibly difficult to find being broader than ordinary type 3 units. There was corrosion of the alloy underneath the paint on both the housing and indicator arms so both were bead blasted and I then re-sprayed them. Refitting all the wiring was next, a lot of which had to be replaced and then the fitting of a replacement ignition switch unit. I fitted a replacement headliner bought from Lars Neuffer which looks great – for our 65 myself and Theresa created it ourselves for a fraction of the cost but I didn’t have time on this occasion. I recovered the rear parcel shelf and at the same time a major piece of work was the creation of the correct coverings in the same material as the parcel shelf for the small shoulder pieces next to the shelf – these are covered in black plastic on later cars.

Re-assembly and getting ready for the road:
The final push to finish re-assembly was the offer of having it displayed in pride of place at the entrance into the VolksWorld show in March this year (2009). The re-sprayed body had been fitted to the chassis, with a correct body pan seal nailed to the chassis rail and complimented by quantities of RTV sealant in spots where an older style sealant had been evident when I took the car to pieces. Bolting down involved engaging all of the chassis rail bolts loosely and then the front and rear mounting bolts were inserted and tightened, the chassis rail bolts were then tightened, going from side to side to ensure even tension and good fit. Once the shell was fitted then the front and rear boot lids were attached, the doors were left off at this stage for 2 reasons, they are complicated to fit up and leaving them off provided more room in the garage to work on the interior of the car. I also fitted the bumpers at this stage to protect the car. I then fitted out the dash board starting with the air vent boxes\drain tubes and wiper motor and assembly, both of which had been rebuilt, and then moved on to the upper and lower dash pads. The steering column, cowl and indicator arm were then put loosely in place whilst the instruments were inserted. I used an old push button light and wiper unit which I had rebuilt from a number of units including new button covers in the initial assembly. Unfortunately the integral washer valve leaked (often the cause of many problems on the electrics to the early cars) and the resistor for the variable wipers and dashboard lighting failed as well so this unit has now been replaced by a NOS unit which seemed to cost as much as my first house. With the wiring at the front completed I fitted the steering column to the dash and attached the steering wheel. For a change of scenery attention then turned to fitting out the rear boot area; this included making the new boot floor liner with the Hardura material previously obtained and fitting the boot lining material, luggage compartment switch and light, seals and the transfers in the air intake area. I continued with the boot theme and turned attention to the front luggage compartment. The horn and light relays were fitted and the lighting loom put in place, this enabled me to fit the horns, front lights\fog lights and wire them up. The wheel jack was clipped in place, but not before a piece of carpet was glued onto the inner side of the front nose panel, as originally done by Karmann, to prevent the arm of the jack damaging the metal work. With the petrol tank in place, along with its vent pipes, I was able to fit the front luggage lining material and bonnet rubber and with that both luggage compartments were done.

At this stage I thought it would now be easy going; just wiring under the back seat to go plus the doors and rear quarter light\panel areas to complete – wrong! Under the back seat presented no problems, just the wiring to the battery and regulator to complete which was easy. When I came to fit the trim to the rear quarter windows (the top rubber\aluminium trim was already in place) I just could not get the chrome supports for the quarter windows to go in place correctly and had to resort to much persuasion and minor metal reshaping\removal. Once that hurdle was passed I then met the next one – the reproduction rear window seals – they are too thick in places and far less flexible than the old ones and the window would just not fit. I took the seals off my 65 and with them in place everything was just about OK. I had to resort to chopping more and more rubber off the new seals until I got a half reasonable fit. It was the same story with the doors, they just didn’t like the idea of going back together, even the one that had originally come off the car proved difficult, quarter light frames wouldn’t line up, trim panels were too big, window glass came out of their lifter channel – never ending! Eventually I got everything to be a reasonable fit for the show, knowing I would want to adjust later because it was not to my finished standard. I moved onto the checking of mechanical components, filling the brakes and bleeding etc and then final wiring connection and firing up of the car. The engine started first time but the electrics were a different matter, I called in an auto electrician from the next village 3 days before the show; we managed to rectify all the major problems between us and that was when the battery (taken from my 65) died. I ordered a new 6 Volt black case one from Stamford batteries but it didn’t arrive in time for the show. The car was kindly trailered to the show (no MOT or registration) by Lee from the paint shop (just set up a covered car transport business and doing delivery work to and from VW in Wolfsburg, so the right guy to have) and looked fantastic – all the 7 years of hard work was worth it although I knew there was still some work to do. The battery arrived on the Saturday and I was able to take it to the show on the Sunday and drive it out of the show and on to the trailer for the journey home. Once back home I had it MOT’d and licensed – 278 XUT - So now just the final few things to attend to – I lost momentum after the show due to heavy work and study commitments but am now back on the case and she will be up and running soon – look forward to seeing you at shows soon. Accessories lined up for our 1962 model T34 There are many cars out there that benefit from the addition of accessories to either make them more attractive or eye catching. There are other cars where the styling of them already says enough and adding too much in the way of additional adornment is like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa. For me too many accessories on a T34 add very little, roof and boot racks are certainly things that in my eye add nothing to the car. I’ve seen some great customised T34s over the last few years though and these have also tended to be subtly done without loads of additional features added. I’ve tracked down a few accessories for our 62, not sure that I will fit them all but here are details of some of them. Accessories Parcel tray Reverse switch & Light Original NOS CoCo mats Mirror int\ ext White VW Mud flaps Full horn ring Exhaust trim Radio\fitting face plate Gear lever extension