Vintage Friday Update: '74 VW Thing!

Here's the follow up to that Thing! The VW Thing! A good buddy of mine is an avid VW fan and has taken it upon himself to restore a 1974 Volkswagon Thing. He bought it in its original condition looking like a real dog. Price was $1500 as is with rust spots the size of a fist! It was so bad when he purchased it in Long Island, NY practically no one believed he could make it worth the 120 man hours of fixing, welding, sawing, sewing and restoring in any other way, shape and form-but he did! Take a look:

A little bit of history on the Thing-it was modeled after Germany's WW 2 war vehicle with optional independent four wheel drive! (That's enough to make a true Jeepster jealous!) Based on the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia platform the Thing boasted a 1600 CC dual port carburated motor. Some 15,000 were manufactured but the American car buyer didn't have much of a stomach for its styling calling it ugly. To note, out of the 15K produced only 200 were the army green you seen in his photo! The paint seen in this owner submitted photo was authentic VW paint from that time peroid. The restoration parts were from www.thethingshop.com based in Arizona. (This is the place to find all things, well, Thing!) All things considered, (sorry, I had to) this was a long project that took a bucket of sweat, a pint of blood, and an unlimited supply of oil! (I mean tears, to finish off the saying properly.) But that's what you do when you're car crazy!