Andy's RHD 1966 Split Bus

Andy had owned his UK RHD Bahama blue/white Split for a number of years and had done plenty on it to get it how he wanted mechanically, with a narrowed beam and IRS and a big engine. It came to us as the bodywork was showing its age in a few areas; Steve tackled the body repairs, modified the incorrect ‘67 only rear hatch to work with the ‘64-66 lock and handle recess and dry fitted the deluxe trim. The final job before the whole Bus was painted in the same colours was to change the late front indicators to bullets. Bahama blue is a Beetle colour but works really well on a Bus of this age. We then built it back up with new rubbers and added deluxe bumper trims too.

Andy had decided that he wanted to swap the wheels from polished EMPI-style 5 spokes to genuine 16” Porsche Fuchs - 6J in front and 8J at the rear. This meant that the Bay Window-based IRS fitted to the rear was too wide, so - after countless measuring/calculating - we swapped the rear to Beetle-based IRS suspension, which is over 30mm narrower per side and worked perfectly with the offset of the wide Fuchs wheels. We also had 8mm removed from the rear stub axles and drum snouts and relocated the split pin holes, to facilitate the fitting of the original rear Porsche centre caps.