Custom Karmann Ghia
- Saturday, 23 February 2008
- 3 Comments
Custom Lowlight Karmann Ghia
Sometimes inspiration for a car project comes from the most unlikely sources, and a TV show that specialises in 'modernising' Yankee muscle cars might not seem the logical place to start with the restoration of a Karmann Ghia, but for 39-year-old Las Vegas real estate agent Ron Johnson, that's right where he started. "I knew exactly what I wanted to do from day one. My vision was inspired by Chip Foose and the show Overhaulin'. I've been a huge fan of this show and I love the clean, simple lines, together with modern conveniences and modern horsepower, brakes, seats etc. I love the look of his cars, too, with larger modern chrome wheels and lowered as much as possible while still being driveable," he told us enthusiastically.
And having been into Karmann Ghias for the last 20 years (this is actually Ron's third coachbuilt), there was only one car he had in mind for the transformation. As luck would have it, he'd started a resto project on his second Ghia - a '69 convertible - many years before and not finished it, so the ideal car was waiting right there in his own garage. Or was it? "I dug back into it and started to get estimates for paint and bodywork. But the deeper I dug the more problems I found, so I decided that if I was going to do this project correctly, and without spending a fortune, maybe I should look for a better donor Ghia body."
In the time between buying the '69 and the new millennium, things had moved on somewhat and the search for another car soon led Ron to the Samba website. "I did some major research there," he laughed. Having always loved the look of the early 1950's lowlight models, Ron decided to start looking for a lowlight convertible project car to replace his '69 with. As anyone who has looked into buying a Karmann Ghia will undoubtedly have found, decent lowlights don't come along very often - decent lowlight convertibles even less so - but Ron finally found just what he was looking for on eBay. It sounded too good to be true, and sadly that turned out to be exactly the case. "The car looked and was described as a solid, rust-free donor. It was basically a shell with a rusty floorpan and was missing almost every bolt-on item and the entire interior," he recalled.
For the full story check out the April 2008 issue of VolksWorld magazine. On sale on 22 February and then available through back issues.
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April 11 09:43
Siobhan Fitzgerald
Ooooooh!