Dropping Science – ’79 Bay Panel

If you were trying to describe Matt Balls' 1979 Bay Window Van over the phone to a good friend you'd probably use words like rusty or ratty and if you were to drop the fact it was covered in horrible mildew it probably wouldn't sound like anything special. However, if you were to mention that it's got Type Two Detectives painted down the sides and is the lowest Van you'd ever seen, they'd more than likely say something like, ‘Ooh, that Bus!'
The Bus in question is of course the body-dropped Bay Window Panel van built and owned by Matt Balls. The Bus is a late '79 Right-Hand Drive Van that came into Matt's ownership back at the start of 2008. Matt has an unhealthy addiction to lowering Type 2s and he works at Type 2 Detectives and spends his working week slamming Vans. Since Matt has been part of the team, they have probably lowered more Vans than any other company in the country, if not the world! And that means that Matt has been responsible for lowering more Vans than anyone else. They've come up with ideas that have seen customer's Buses get lower and lower to the ground - we're talking about their own dropped spindles, made in-house, and link-pin front suspension conversions for ball-jointed Bay Windows.
We asked Matt how he first got into VWs and he told us, "I just loved them since I was a boy - the lower the better! I started building my first Bug with my dad, who also loves VWs. We spent over a year building it from start to finish. We even sprayed it in a single garage on the side of our house. After it was MoT'd I did what most 17-year-old kids do with their first car - I smashed it to bits! My dad rebuilt it and I have never been allowed to drive it since."
So what was his next VW? "Well, I moved away from VWs and had a BMW, Pug, Fords. But every time they weren't just low, they were slammed!" So how did he get back into VWs? "About eight years ago a friend of mine bought a Camper and he wanted to lower it. I knew Paul Medhurst from school and knew he worked on VWs so I went to him for advice and that is when my new life started at Type 3 Detectives."
It wasn't like Matt didn't have any experience working on cars, though, as he'd been working as a mechanic at a local VW specialist since leaving school. Matt started helping out at weekends building ‘The Rustybus' project and it wasn't long before Paul offered him a full-time job, on the subject of which he told us, "How could I refuse? Slamming cars for a living!"

For the full story on this car make sure you pick up a copy of the October 2009 issue of VolksWorld

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