10 minute read
Star quality
Starqualıty Words Mark Walker Pics Reeve Photography Ltd More than just a rolling advert for his business, Andy Finch’s wild Baja Bug was a birthday present to himself. At least the paint job was…
epending on which Baja feature in this D issue you read rst, you may already know a little bit of information about this car from the other one. If you’re reading this one rst, the story is that Spike a.k.a. Andy Finch, along with Mike Downham, had a plan to import a couple of old school Baja Bugs from California for some good cheap fun.
But when they arrived, they just couldn’t leave them alone, and the two full tilt show cars you see on this month’s cover are the results.
Of the two, it was Spike’s Baja that really had ‘the look’ when he bought it. Originally a Zenith Blue ’67, it had been painted dark green at some point, before the sun burned a lot of the green o and the roof ended up covered in surface rust. With a few tough-looking Baja mods, it looked solid and purposeful, and Spike took a bit of a social media beating in some quarters for stripping o all that hard worn patina and painting it.
He’s not one to back down from a discussion, though, and quickly pointed out that he might have kept the patina if he lived in California, but he doesn’t, and a car like that wouldn’t
last long in the UK.
Besides, Spike is well known as a car painter, so seeing his name next to a patina car would seem like a bit of an oxymoron. More than that, though, he knew in his mind what it was going to look like as soon as he bought it: “It was always going to be a full on, ’70’s-style build with Tangerine Kandy,” he says emphatically. Desert stormer
e car was posted for sale on the Vintage Baja Bug Pics Facebook group by a regular contributor by the name of Moessner ToddMarion, who’d built it with his friend over a four-year period. ey’d both worked together at Edwards Air Force Base in California and, as it was less distance to drive across the desert to get to work than it was to drive on public roads, a Baja seemed the logical answer.
With the daily commute across treacherous terrain in mind, this was more than just a regular Beetle with a Baja kit bolted on – much more in fact. e rear suspension was converted to ing / Type 181 IRS with Type 4 drive anges and CV joints. Notched double spring plates allowed two inches more droop travel than regular spring plates, while FOA shocks were tted to the rear with matching travel and valving to suit. e balljoint front beam had its shock towers extended to take longer travel Fox shocks and had limit stops welded onto the arms.
With AC disc brakes on all four corners, with reinforced caliper mounts, it was more akin to a racing machine than a street Baja. Atlantic crossing
At $5,200 it was a bit of a steal, even with a 1641cc engine that was past its best, and Spike wasted no time in becoming the new owner. It nearly didn’t happen, though, as the previous owner was aghast when Spike said he was going to ship it to England. Even in the USA, Baja Bugs have become a niche part of the VW scene that is completely separate, almost a bit subversive, to the street crowd. ose that are into it do their best to protect their own. e deal was done, though, and when the two cars arrived in the UK – right in the middle of the Covid crisis – the boys took stock of
their purchases, promptly throwing the ‘let’s just make them drivers rst and enjoy them’ mantra straight out of the window.
To the horror of the patina perverts on social media, Spike immediately stripped his car and delivered the ’shell to the media blaster for a deep clean.
Meanwhile, he got on with painting the oorpan, which was then despatched to the capable hands of James Wotton to be built up to show quality while Spike wholly focussed on what he does best – body and paint. Burial ceremony
A decision was also made early on about the rattly old 1641 the car had come with. Despite having a sand seal installed, desert miles are pretty hard on a VW engine and this one had given all it had on the Edwards AFB commute over the years, so it was given a burial ceremony and Mark Prosser at Autotechniks was called in to build a
Seems the Bugeye style is the one everyone is hot for in the Baja resurgence. Tip: classic Mini headlights are a much better fit than Beetle ones
More crazy paint detail is evident on the fuel tank, and notice the bonnet pins that secure the abbreviated bonnet, due to the absence of the factory lock mechanism with a Baja kit
When building a Baja, you have to throw away all preconceptions about VW tyres. 235/75-15s on the front? Yes sir
solid 1776cc street engine for the car. Nothing too lairy, but one capable of turning the big tyres that came on the car. e original plan was to run the single Zenith 32NDIX carb that had been set up for the 1641 engine. is is a Porsche 356 carb that is still a staple of the VW o -road community to this day, due to allegedly being capable of 10,000 miles once set up correctly, without any of the usual fa ng that some carbs seem to need. Try as he might though, James Wotton couldn’t get it to run right with the 1776, so a single Weber 40IDF was called in instead.
Like Mike’s car, the wheels are also a mixture of real Jackmans (this time on the rear) and Jackman-style replicas on the front, but they were deemed good to go again, just as soon as they were blasted and given a few coats of gold paint. The day of the Jackman
How do you tell the di erence between real and fake Jackmans? If you look at the pictures, you’ll notice the rear wheels have a squared-o section between the spokes, whereas the replicas have more of a radius. at’s the rst major clue. A real Jackman will also have a J logo stamped into the front face of one of the spokes. Bu bu .
With the ’pan in capable hands, it was ‘just’ a case of painting the body. Whether you have any experience of painting cars or not, I’m sure you’ll be aware of the di erence in the amount of time it takes to paint a car in a combination of metallics, ’ akes and candy nishes, compared to a single solid colour. It’s not just the time that escalates, but the material costs too, so when Andy says he has hundreds of hours in the paintwork (120 in the masking stages alone!) on this car, you can start to guesstimate what a paint job like this might potentially cost you. Birthday boy
Obviously, it’s a good advert for his business, but there was a more personal reason behind why he went the route he did with it. We’ll let Andy explain: “I painted my rst car on my 18th birthday and, when my 50th was coming around, lots of people were asking me if I wanted a party etc. But what I wanted was to paint my own car on my birthday.”
Dash was given the custom paint treatment as well. Those switches are for headlights and wipers
We’re willing to bet this outrageous Mexican blanket trim job is one Steve Thirkettle at 13 Stitches isn’t rushing to do again. The car needed something radical and boy, did it get it!
With more colours and a tighter pattern, the headlining is even more outrageous than the seats. We think it was a wise move to keep the colour in panels bordered by black
You won’t see too many VWs built with single twin choke carbs these days, but the off-road guys still do it and, as that’s how this car came from the States, the format was retained, albeit with a new 1776cc engine and a 40IDF Weber in place of the Zenith 32NDIX
The original Baja kit was retained, but you can bet a whole lot of hours went into finessing it and the way it fits the body. Note how much the inner wings have been cut away, too
So how much might a paint job like this cost? “If a customer were to ask me to do the same job, it’d work out around £30,000.
“ e chance of someone ever spending that much painting a Baja is slim, so that was another reason why I wanted to do it to my own car,” he adds.
Seeing a car like this in pictures is one thing, but seeing it out on the street is another thing entirely. Film star looks
“I drove it into central London for a giggle one Sunday and parked it on Brick Lane. at experience was the closest I’ll ever come to being a lm star, but it also made me realise there’s a whole generation of kids who have never seen a
Baja, and don’t even know it’s a Beetle.” e plan was to keep the car and display it together with Mike’s car at e VolksWorld Show in March, but when Spike let Paul and Mark at Type 2 Detectives put it on display on their stand at one of the Goodwood Members’ Meetings, its fortunes changed rather suddenly.
“When someone o ers you £75 grand… I’d have been a fool to turn that down, wouldn’t I?
“I’d love to build another one, but the thought of the hundreds of hours in body and paint alone puts me o doing it,” Spike adds. “Still, at least I can say I did it, and I did it on my 50th birthday. Well, some of it anyway, the day didn’t go on that long!” n
The build
Spike’s Baja, as it arrived from California. The patina pervs cried when it, along with Mike Downham’s car, was stripped and blasted
Not a junk pile, just all the parts that went off for blasting, including some pretty trick, beefed up, off-road components
James Wotton at Vee Dub in Welling is Spike’s go-to man for mechanical work. It’s the same parts, just looking 100 times better
We don’t have the space to go into all the details of the paint job here, but it started with a tinted primer, then a silver base coat to really make the colours over the top pop. After that the blue and green details went on, followed by two different oranges and the graphics, with the whole lot buried under multiple coats of lacquer
