Final Paint!

A huge hurdle has been reached with the final painting of the M346! Five years from when I disassembled it into 34 million pieces and now it's showing signs of its rebirth. Chemo shared these photos with the T34 owners at the VW Classic (which I missed as I was in Germany on business) and now shared them with me. The L554 Cherry Red may look differently under the yellow lamps of the shop, so he's taking new ones outside to see the real color hues. But my inital impression is one of great contrast between the body & roof and of an aggressive look with the two-toned scheme.

Visit to Darmstadt Germany

I was in southern Germany on business and had a couple extra days to spend visiting with two T34 owners in Darmstadt. Jorg Fischer owns two amazing T34s: an unrestored Anthracite & Pearl White 1963 with manual-crank Golde sunroof & a restored Pearl White 1963 Cabriolet, one of five known to exist worldwide! Tobias Ebner also owns two T34s including this nicely restored Emerald & Pearl White 1963 Electric Sunroof. We met for steak dinner & Martzen beers one night and then the next day went for a beautiful T34 cruise into the edge of the Odenvald forest for some amazing photos. I was able to take a ton of reference photos of the M345 to help my M346 restoration and was also able to see the M341 details up-close. Did you know that the rear side seat vents are rotated 90 degrees on all M341s? Strange but true ...

Porsche T34 Interior Light

Just got an great tip from Franck Boutier in France about a Porsche 356 interior light that seems to be an excellent & reasonably priced repro for our T34s! It's stamped Hella, is 80mm, has the right shape, the inner edge is painted silver, it has an ivory switch knob, takes a 10W bulb, and they have the long 6V bulbs as well. Priced at $35 you can order part #NLA-632-101-03 from Stoddard in Ohio USA at 440-951-1040. The repro light was not in-stock but after a quick check with thier purchasing girl the rep said they expect to have more in mid-June and will accept orders now & ship it when it comes in. It's listed as fitting Porsche 356-AT2 & 356-BT5, all Cabriolets & some Coupes. That's a huge stroke of luck, as we've been seeing NOS ones in the $200 range and used ones for $100-150. A perfect repro one for $35 seems like a steal! Thanks, Franck!

Off to Chrome Shop

Thanks to a local plating shop source from Bob Walton I was able to gather the chrome parts and get them sent off. Expected costs: $250 per bumper (3pcs), $60 per guard (for the pot-metal pointed style), $25 per headlight ring, $60 vent frame, & $10 per license light ring. I'm having the four holes in the front bumper piece filled, dented/rusted hub caps fixed, and extra holes in the headlight rings filled (all at no extra cost). Warning: be sure to have the studs in your pointed guards masked-off so they don't get dipped, as the acids will eat the studs down to little stubs rendering them useless (been there, done that).

NOS Pointy Guard

My wife always laughs at me for spending so much time searching the web for T34 parts, theSamba, eBay USA, eBay Germany, & emailing with so many T34 owners worldwide. But I got the last laugh this week when I scored an extremely rare NOS pointed bumper guard (right front) from an old friend in Ohio, Phil Lucas. Phil used to be involved with Bugs For You (Orange CA) and was recently doing some spring cleaning. Franck Boutier shared the ad with the PureT34 e-group and within a few seconds I had fired an email to Phil asking to buy it. He responded, "The T34 group is strange, I'd had this part listed for 90 days but only now you asked about it at 3:41 and Paul Colbert replied at 3:43! And the PayPal fees were $3.43 to accept your payment!" Strange & wonderful numerical coincidences! My wife still doesn't get it ... but that's OK, I'm thrilled with this score.

First Look: Paint!

Chemo just sent me the first-look photos of his paintwork, L41 Black roof & pillars with L554 Cherry Red dash. The body will get shot next and then it'll be delivered to San Diego. WAHOO!!!

Body Dolly

I've got little extra space in the garage for the reassembly process, so I decided the best way to store & work on the body & chassis would be to design a wood body dolly. Over the weekend my son & I built a 72"x65" rolling platform that will allow the painted body to be stored above the chassis. Total cost was $175 and it took several hours to complete. The wheels have locks when the dolly is rolled out of the garage into the driveway with a ratcheting strap to secure the body to the dolly.