Okrasa Special

[Fastbrit]

Sadly, Keith, David Small is no longer with us. I knew him since the 1960s when my brother and I first went to the local VW dealership, Barnet & Small. It had been founded in the 1940s by his father, selling British Jowett cars. When the VW came along, the company became one of the very first Volkswagen dealers in the UK (about 1953). Later, they also sold Porsches, as was common until the 1960s. I still have a 1965 brochure for the Porsche 911 that David gave me.

I first saw this car back in the 1970s, tucked away under a sheet in the back of the workshop. All I knew was that it was a 'Karmann Ghia special', and everyone at the dealership referred to it as such. The dual-carburettor set-up intrigued me – it was the first Okrasa engine I'd seen in real life. When the business was eventually sold in the early 2000s, I got a call from Noel Armstrong, their long-serving sales manager (back to the 1960s – their parts guy had also started back in the 1960s, and still owns a 1959 Beetle) saying. 'David asked me to give you a call to see if you'd like his car?'. It didn't take much thought.

I had a long chat with David about the car, and his plans for it. Glassfibre bodies were popular back then (as they had started to be in the 1950s, especially among people making bodies for Ford-based 'specials') and it was seen as the wonder material, allowing many small manufacturers to make exotic bodies without recourse to aluminium etc. He was inspired by the Porsche racing cars of the era, the 550 and RSKs in particular, and told me his plan was to clothe the body in a 550-style body, homemade in glassfibre. Even the wheelbase was the same. It was based on this conversation that led me to buy a set of panels off Barry Martin (Martin & Walker) so that I could complete the car as David had described. When I showed him the visuals, he was tickled pink.

Sadly a house move, loss of storage etc meant that I wouldn't be able to see the project through so, after a long period of thinking, I made the hard decision to sell the car. And that's where Steve stepped in. Good luck with it and I look forward to a drive when it's done!

[Steve Wright]

Okay, next installment. When I moved workshops a couple of years ago I was faced with the task of moving my cars. Do I trailer them or drive them? I decided on the latter, so I gaffa taped the body down, put a few bungee cords on, taped plates on it, and drive it! So there's no point spending a small fortune on building an ally body, especially if gaffa tape is good enough for race cars at Classic Le Mans.  It must have been a crazy sight, not least of all this tall kiwi dude doing a small dance in the middle of the road when he got to the new workshop. In all seriousness though, it was wonderful to drive the car properly on the road: handling is lovely and benign, lots of suspension travel, really chuck-able through the twisty stuff, and quick as. This is going to be one hot little car when it's done.

[Steve Wright]

[roland]

this is awesome. Great looking (paper) car!

[Jesse Wens]

now start building it up with more paper and wallpaper glue. Trabant style, could be strong and light

[Black Sheep]

That looks the bollox , just love how the KG roof works with that body 

[Jon]

Great work!! What a great way to design a car!

[So.Cal.Life]

     Keith , sorry to hear David is no longer with us , and thanks for filling in additional background and history about the car, its going to be something very special and one bitchen little hot rod , the icing on the cake is all of that history. I can hardly wait to see it finished , I love it.          KG

[Steve Wright]

I have to say we wouldn't have started out designing it this way! Barry Carter (my mate who is a coachbuilder and all round good guy) says it would've been a LOT easier to start without the roof but there you go. It's part of the history of the car so it has to stay. The FT newspaper was all we had lying around. I did toy with the idea of covering it in 1960's Playboy magazines, but my kids come up to the workshop at the weekends so I didn't want to have to explain to my daughter why I had pictures of naked women plastered all over the place! The paper has been remarkably good in giving us an accurate rendition of what the bodywork will look like but we've been caught out a couple of times as the cramped confines of the workshop are very different from the harsh realities of it parked outside on the street.

[Martin]

just love it!, and a great story to go with it...

[Fasterbrit]

I like this project! 

[Rick Meredith]

Great back story Keith

[So.Cal.Life]

     Steve, you dont really need any help from Heff, the car stands alone as sexy as its going to be!!!              KG

[Steve Wright]

Okay, here comes the daily installment! Things get a bit technical at this stage (well, beyond me anyway). In order to get from the wireform buck to the ally bodywork, we needed to create wooden bucks for many of the panels. This meant taking a female "mould" in plywood of the existing wireform, then creating a wooden male buck that followed the curves and contours of the female mould. The front and rear areas also needed hammerforms, these are sturdy male moulds which can be used to shape the ally over. I should've pointed out that when I started on this project I promised myself (and Barry and Ian) that we would only use techniques, tools and technology available in period, hence the use of an English wheel, no power tools, etc. While this has made things a bit more tricky at times it's felt like the right thing to do, as the car when finished will (hopefully) look like it's been found in a barn, wiped off with an oily rag and taken racing. So no shiny new paint or fancy new bits. Enjoy. Cheers, Steve

[Steve Wright]

[Steve Wright]

[Erlend / bug66]

That's pretty freakin sweet

Make me one?

[Steve Wright]

hey. i did think about "productionising" things so we could do a small batch, but the effort involved would never justify the price!

[Fasterbrit]

Quick, delete the shot with the mig welder and bust out the oxy-accetylene otherwise you will have broken your golden rule - of only using tools that were available back in the 50s and 60s!

Only joking, the project looks amazing - reminds me of my apprentice days making Jaguar bodies out of aluminium...

[Steve Wright]

 aaargh! not knowing one end of a welder from another I didn't realise that transgression.  Barry will be summarily whipped! 

[Wout]

Awesome (longterm) project!!!! 

gr
Wout

[Lids]

At this point i wish i wasn't a maths teacher and spent my time doing this.  Makes me wanna do a course of some kind.

[beatnik beetle]

Hey Steve, WOW..it's looking good and really coming on..don't let Clarky near your Playboy collection though  ..I'll be keeping an eye on this thread thats for sure and thanks for sharing mate Si

[Nico86]

Amazing work!

[Steve Wright]

Next installment. We figured it was probably wise to get the car out in the light of day to make sure it all worked and that out on the reality of the road it all hung together as it's too easy to lose perspective in the confines of the workshop.



So we walked around the car, slapped each other on the back congratulating ourselves on the work, and then...

[Steve Wright]

Realised she had no arse! Lots of head-shaking and discussion, before we decided the only option was to chop off all the wireform buck and re-do it. sigh.





This option was considered, but the tail was way too long for the rest of the bodywork:

Way more curve being given to the bootlid:

before we ended up with this:

[Steve Wright]

The rear subframe that you can see in the last photo will be removed, so we're left with just the rear of gearbox and linkage showing, plus the exhaust stubs. This is another area where we've got to get the underlying components sorted before we can finalise on the bodywork. I'm figuring on either a four into one Sebring 356 style exhaust that comes together in a collector over the gearbox, or a chopped down standard muffler with all the baffling removed, that has two into two (i.e. two into the silencer) before exiting out the silencer in two stub exhausts, again like the 356 sports exhausts. This little lot brings us up to about May of this year.

[71CALRIPPER]

[vwcab]

This is over the top,AWESOME work!!!!
 

[andy M.]

Quick, delete the shot with the mig welder and bust out the oxy-accetylene otherwise you will have broken your golden rule - of only using tools that were available back in the 50s and 60s!

Only joking, the project looks amazing - reminds me of my apprentice days making Jaguar bodies out of aluminium...

Matt you silly boy, the first practical  mig welder was patented in 1949

Andy