Actually the beam strenghteners were fitted from the factory by vw for specific countries. I know Thailand , Japan , got them. Yes all type 1s. The csp unit is a direct replica of those support.
Somewhere in my pile I have a VW service bulletin that shows how to make supports but I don't recall that they look like the CSP ones (or by extension the ones from rural countries). It makes sense that those countries got the supports. I got to go to some pretty rural places in Japan and even in the late '80s the roads were less than perfect. I can imagine that reconstruction-era Japanese roads were quite cobby.
I still wonder if those supports offer anything more than a sense of security on street-bound cars like ours. Consider the load path (the direction that the bars would direct any force into the chassis). Those supports address longitudinal deflection (like hitting a big rock or rut) but not so much lateral (like chassis twist like you'd get with super-fat tires on a road-race car). Cal-look cars, by definition (small tires up front) don't generate much lateral load anyway.
Christ on a bike those CSP supports are SPENDY! They're just four steering-box clamps and two lengths of carbon-steel tubing flattened on the ends! Man, before I split with that kind of dough I'd buy a set of real Thing supports and weld flat tabs to the beam. Even if shipping cost as much as the part you'd be 155 Euro ahead of the game! And you'd have an even better design (not that I think it would do anything for a street car mind you).
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1516229
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