I'm glad to have a place to share the story of this thing finally. This car is very special to a couple people, but mostly me. I've driven this car more than anyone else ever has since it was built, and probably had more fun in it too. But to get to that we have to start at the beginning. Lets turn the time clock back to 1972 the 1st street rod nationals had just happened, and Model T's are Hot. Bill West was working on a project, a 1/2 scale VW powered model T panel. He had the body, ch***is, and drivetrain put together when he got a new copy of Rod&Custom, and lo and behold there was Jim Babb's It-T-Bits Subaru powered mini T. Upon seeing a car, that to Bill seemed too similar to his own, he lost interest in the project. It eventually was sold (still unfinished) to Les Jarvis, who at the time was the was the "Circulation Director" at Street Rodder (And sister magazine Truckin '). Les convinced Bill to work on finishing the car. and that leads us to the first (that I know of) appearance in a Magazine. In the February 1975 issue of Street Rodder, in an Editorial written by Jim Clark, about Les Jarvis' very diverse Stable of hot rods. But then we step back in time a little bit for the second appearance in Street Rodder. In the March 1975 issue Pat Ganahl writes about what it takes to build a set of fenders from scratch. In the beginning of this article you can see the earliest picture of this car, Presumably as Bill sold it, with a full of actual AC Cobra wheels, that were off of a cobra that was wrecked locally. This picture is from Pat Ganahl's collection, presumably taken the same day as the above photo in the article. But by the time we get to the end of the article, we see it with the American Racing 12 spoke Magnesium wheels (the same ones that are on it today) looking much more like it was when finished. The first show for the "Finished" car was do***ented in the November 1975 issue of TRUCKIN' magazine. The article tells the eventful story of Les Jarvis, and Robert K Smith (editor for Truckin) in their journey, towing the T on a trailer (behind a 1975 Buick of all things) to Bowling green KY where the 3rd annual truck nats were happening. It also notes that the car was not finished, and they got it running once arriving in Kentucky. In the issue of Street Rodder from the same month was the article on the Street Rod Nationals #5, hosted in Memphis, TN. The street rod nats happened one week after the truck nats, and so they stuck around the east side of the country to attend it as well. It garnered a bit of attention in Memphis, and @Nick32vic found this image on a Fotki photo album from the show. It also caught the eye of the "compe***ion" aka tom medley from Peterson publishing, who took this photo, excluding any and all adverti*****ts. Later in the November issue of street rodder, Pat Ganahl wrote an article about building a seat. and wouldn't you know, its a seat for a certain little panel truck! You can see the partially dis***embled T in the background, so I'm guessing this was part of the thrash to finish the car before the trip to bowling green. The next time the T makes an appearance, is in the April 1976 issue of street rodder, At a 'local show' in Anaheim, CA that the TRM publishing crew turned out big for! they brought 5 street rods, 2 bikes, and 2 trucks, all built by staffers. right out front is the T, proudly displaying the logos of Truckin' and Street rodder. On the bottom of that page we see a young Pat Ganahl, polishing his 32 Chevy, and again in the table of contents page, we see him polishing on it, with a familiar panel in the background. Again in the same month, but in Truckin', it had the T's first full feature! This is also the first mention of the T having a new owner, Gordon Swearingen. (I actually found this article, while re-sourcing photos for this thread) Then in August of 1977 the little T gets its day in the sun. The cover of Hot VW's. It was not only on the cover, but on the contents page, A Three page spread, And A For Sale ad in the back! This article is a hot mess of wrong info, The frame was not built by Pete&Jakes, as I was able to get ahold of Jim Jacobs and confirm. (it is also 2.5 x 1.5 not 2x2) A**** other things it also states that the steering box is out of a Mustang, but its from a fiat. Regardless, it was its moment of fame. After this, it really drops off the radar. Years ago I talked to a Guy that remembered seeing it drive around (and almost bought it) while he was in high school, but other than that, nothing. This is when my Friend, Mike comes in. Mike moved here to NW Missouri after living in CA for his whole life. He had actually he had built a VW powered Rod in his past, and generally likes weird stuff. This led his friend Rick, who was visiting from CA, to tell him about the little panel truck he had seen back home. Rick got Mike a number for the guy who owned the panel, and Mike started calling. Finally after a few calls, He got told, if you want it, come and get it, before I sell it to someone else. So Mike and a buddy made a flash trip to CA to pick up the Panel, and he stopped on the way back at one of his favorite places to get tamales. (how its moniker was born) At the time I am a 14 year old , who loved VWs and Hot Rods. I grew up with a Dad who had custom trucks and old cars all the time, so I knew everyone in our local car scene. Like many towns we have a local Car Cruise on Friday nights during the summer. We didn't always bring a car, but we usually went by to talk to our friends. One particular night we drove to the cruise and I spotted this... thing... on a trailer, sitting high above the other cars in the lot. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I knew it was cool! It bridged the gap for me between hot rods and VWs, both things I was into, and boy was I excited. I walked around it a bunch of times, and I talked to Mike, who was just returning from his trip to CA, and hadn't even taken it off the trailer yet. He let me sit in it, and I loved it. Little did I know, I would one day own this.
Didn't Ganahl write about it on his Rod and Custom blog?! I have every issue BUT the Truckin' feature.....love these Volksrods!
I've got most of those old articles, but thanks for putting this together in 1 place. . Yup, love me some VolksRods, since at least ~'67. Marcus...
Yes he did, Here: "The Mysterious Mini T" no problem! its been fun digging back into the history to write it all down. I started a thread (that got locked) about 5 years ago, but even then I hadn't found some of the stuff that I shared here.
There's something really appealing about this. It reminds me of the series of Corvair-powered Renault(?) showrod kits Revell did in the '70s.
This thread makes the new OT forum completely worth it. I really looked over the Tamale wagon at The ROC, even talked VWs with you. Super cool car, but the history.. wow, off the charts! Seriously, thank you so much for posting this.
I thought about building something similar years ago as I had a TT closed truck cab and a wrecked 63 Cal Bug with a 1835 engine. The plane was to make the cab into a panel, and the rest as this one is. The TT cab would have had a least a little more room. Now this has me searching Fordbarn for a cab again....
chapter two, or "the period mike owned my car" Once Mike got the T back home, he stuck it in his little shop and started tinkering on it. It was pretty much as the articles showed it, other than a respray in lacquer, blue with black fenders, and a recover of the original upholstery. It had an motor in it, but it was junk, so Mike had our buddy Pat build him a simple stock style 1600. Mike did a bunch of stuff to make the car nicer, cleaning the interior, and making a top and having it covered. he also added a empi rear disc brake setup, that made it actually stop. during this, we found out where the weight balance of the car is, somewhat unintentionally, because mike jacked it up in the rear, then installed jacks under the torsion housing, but when he let it down, the rear went down and the front of the car raised! so right in front of the rear axle is about the center of the car, weight wise. (for reference, the car weighs 1350 pounds, and only 440 is on the front wheels.) After he got it put back together, Mike took it to some local shows, here it is at our local VW show. (the bug is my high school car, maybe it will get a thread one day.) he also took it to out to the vw cl***ic in pomona, in 2012, which I have no pictures of, but people took note, as the photo caption on this image from Ultra VW proves, in the June 2014 issue. the only drawback to driving it around was... It drove terrible. It had a wandering problem and was super stiff and unpredictable. So after tinkering with it awhile, Mike decided rather than rebuild the car and change it, it would be better to build a new car. So he built a T-bucket in the vein of the dragmaster and fuller cars. It weighted right at 1000 pounds, and boy did it scoot. he actually used the front wheels from the wagon to mock up the T bucket initially. In the meantime I have built and rebuilt my Bug, and started to show a liking to the wagon, to the point a started a very similar project. So when Mike and I were driving down to KC one day and he asked me out of the blue if I wanted to own the tamale wagon, I quickly said YES! So I went out to his shop to look it over and help him move it, bolting on a set of rollers to get it moved to his storage container, where he had agreed to store it till I had room to take it home. A couple years go by, with me visiting it, usually to steal a part to keep my bug running. one of those trips I took this photo of the interior. I got married, started working full time, and began to build a house. As soon as I got garage doors hung in the house I started preparing to bring it home. We went out on a warmish Saturday in October 2017, and retrieved it. after moving Mike's other VW powered panel out of the way, we got it out and ready to load. Next stop, its new home. after a little shuffling and figuring out where it was gonna sit, I tucked it in for the winter as I finished up the house. Join us next time, for part three, learning to drive.
I would like to see pictures of the similar project you started before buying this and more pictures of Mikes other panel when you have time. Thanks.....
Those fenders are surprisingly cool! Similar were thought the height of rakishness in the early '20s, as on these Dagmars: They were known as "military fenders". I've long thought they could work on the right kind of hot rod.
@BigJoeArt I was hoping you'd post about this. Man between this and that V-Bucket your friend Mike built I'm seeing clearly how a V-rod would scratch several itches!
Hahhahahahahaaaaaa... Got bit, did you!!!??? , , ;D ... Good on you. Nice thing is, women & kids love the things(usually), streetrodders(except the very few who know what they're looking at) hate seeing acvw driveline in a "ford" body - & it's usually 'gl***, so WTF - really???, & the acvw guys(except the very few who know what they're looking at) hate them 'cause it's not all acvw/volkswagon. . So just where, exactly, can you go to piss off so many folks at once, with so little effort, at such a low cost, & have so much fun(perma-grin on your face). ??? & today, literally stupid amounts of power, reliability, & even fuel economy, can be built into the little acvw mill - if you want even w/o a single genuine vw part. Not as cheap as in the past, but nothing else is, either. Go for it - I *dare* you... !!! . Marcus...
Well, then. We *need* more info. Inquiring minds need to know... Please n thankyou, kindly. "Patiently waiting...". Marcus...
haha sorry guys, I guess I've neglected this thread a bit. I'll see if I can dig up some pictures this weekend. I was there helping for the whole build of Mike's white T. I actually did the first wheelie in it... ON GR***! no joke. stay tuned!
ok, its been long enough. lets get back to this. ok, Spring 2018 dawns, we are living in our house, and I have a giant open shop. So I got to cleaning, I dug out some parts and got the engine ready to run, And one evening, my buddy came over and hit the key while I fiddled with the carb, and she barked back to life. shortly thereafter I backed it out of the shop, drove it up and down the driveway, and into the next bay. (those who've seen my shop, check how clean and empty it is here!) I drove it around town for awhile, and other than the rear tires being out-of-round-rocks, it was fun. I did have to make a makeshift seat, since the seat that I got was a few pieces of thin batting with a piece of carpet over it. It makes the perfect car to go shopping in, and gets the looks from people. The early years of my ownership were full of teething issues, some of which (read most) were caused by my young ignorance. this was a photo from the time I tried to take it to KC for pete and jakes open house, but the wind was blowing too hard the wrong direction, Instead of slowing pace, I hammered down, and it got hot and unhappy before we got too far. so I drove it home and rode in the white bug with my buddy.
As above stated, the Remington rear tires were junk, and even though it had the turbines on it in the magazine, I had to install a less ugly set of wheels. Enter my buddy Eric, and his stash of wheels, that included a set of 5 spokes. he agreed to sell me the wheels, and then asked if I knew anyone that needed a set of pie crust cheater slicks. well, of course. and then they were mounted... and boy, that's WAY better.
Then about that time It got into a minor fender bender. It got hit on the tire on the driver side, the fender got a little kink in the lip, and the chrome split wishbones folded like a cheap suit. so I took it as an opportunity to install some parts I had acquired earlier. I had previously bought a set of hairpins, so I could gain some adjustability to the caster (which was at 0 with the split wishbones, It was hairy to drive) so apart it came, and back together it went. I didn't even pull the wheels off the axle. (foreshadowing) the caster made all the difference, and I started driving it everywhere. I made it to Red Oak, and a few other shows, along with visiting friends. then I got the opportunity to set up an art booth at Jam'N'Gears in Omaha. I decided I was gonna try and drive up to the show. well........... I was going through a town at about 45 miles an hour, when the car tried to dart into opposing traffic, due to the driver side wheel bearing locking up. (remember that foreshadowing?) I had to wait for a tow truck, and then drive my daily up the next morning to the show. the whole way, I was thinking about how the next weekend was Greaserama, and how I didn't want to miss it. .
when I pulled the nut and washer off the spindle I was wholly unprepared for what I saw. Pure carnage. I wound up having to use my plasma cutter to notch the inside race enough to pull the rollers out one by one. then I had to use a grinder and eat most of the way through the race so I could get it un-welded from the spindle. and then I had to deal with the marred up spindle. they are chrome, original to the car, with beefy custom steering arms, so I couldn't just swap them out. So I slathered them in blue sharpie, and proceeded to slowly hand file the surface until the bearing went on smooth. after what seemed like forever, I got them dressed and ****oned up. and then it was Saturday. we had a group meet at my house, and we drove down to Greaserama with no problems! I was hopeful 2019 would be a better year, and boy was it. .
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