Welcome to my VW Thing page. Here are some pictures of my 1974 VW Thing. The first set of pictures show what she looked like when I first got her. The second set gives you an idea of where she is now. If you are here for the wiring diagrams or engine swap go to the bottom of this page for links.
Exterior mods include a new top, frame and glass side curtains from The thing Shop. I upgraded the front brakes to disks and added LT215-75R15 BF Goodrich Radial All-Terrain tires on 15" Centerline rims. Due to tire clearance problems I am using wider fiberglass fenders from The thing Shop. I'm not especially happy with the quality of the fenders I received and will be changing them for the new pre-runner fenders from SoCal Imports. I recently received a notice (on 5-3o-03) that their domain name had been hijacked so this link is the current one. The Thing shop does make some fine products but sometimes it seems that they send out some junk too. I'll elaborate on this when I write up the H4 headlight conversion article. The front suspension is stock and the rear has been reset to stock to compensate for the accumulated fatigue in the rear torsion bars. Since I can't bolt the rear bumper on I mounted an oil cooler and filter on the left side
The interior is basically stock with the exception of a glove box door and seat belt hooks from The Thing Shop. There's also a Gene Berg locking shifter and a VDO oil temperature gauge that I placed in the dash panel just to the right of the speedometer.
Future mods will include: New seats from Beard. Wider and longer rear trailing arms. Wider rear fenders from SoCal. A 6 point roll cage.
(7-31-01) A friend tipped me off that there was a Thing in a San Jose Pick N Pull. It was pretty picked over but I was able to get a yard guy to help me chop this section off. He literally started to hatcheted it off and we took turns doing the deed. The clip is mint and I now have all the sheet metal to repair the damage to the left rear bumper bracket mounting area. You can see the damage in one of the Treffen pics above. It doesn't look too bad from the outside but is so severe underneith that I can't mount a bumper. Most good or hard to get parts were gone by the time I got to the yard but the window and frame are still there as well as an undamaged wiring harness including the ubiquitous electrical test plug. I have to admit that I didn't set out to get this huge corner from the car. I was looking for doors and a good trunk lid but unfortunately they were spoken for by a nice lady who works there and needed them for her restoration. As you can see we were just able to get this clip loaded into the trunk of my Dad's Continental.
If you're interested in...
the disk brake conversion page go here.
the Subaru 2.2L engine swap page go here. (Note: This project is officially dead)
the Type 4 engine swap page go here.
the 930 CV joint upgrade page go here.
the electrical upgrades and wiring diagrams go here.
the steering column upgrades for lifted Things go here.
Check out my for sale page to see what I have available.
* Treffen photos courtesy of "The real Thing Gene"
All other content ©1997-2003, Thomas M. Ainlay
