Project 311 – ’72 Type 3 Fastback

It's funny how small the VW world is - or at least was, before the advent of the Internet. In the 1980s in England, if you were young and into VWs, you went to the ‘new wave' shows, you read VolksWorld and you pored over Colin Burnham's Air-Cooled Volkswagens book. Depending on where you lived, you may have read a few copies of Hot VWs or VW Trends, but that was about where your influences stopped. Consequently, people were more free-thinking and adventurous in their styling ideas. Not everyone got it right, of course, but it was a fun and exciting time.
Angelo Amato grew up in that era, bought his first VW at the age of 16 and cites his early influences as Paul Gibson's ‘Roofless Racing' (the yellow roadster Beetle we featured in 1991) and Alan Smart's tube-framed Oval. "I was elated when it [Roofless Racing] came up for sale, albeit needing a lot of TLC, but I knew the car was built well, so I bought it and have never regretted it." That was always going to be someone else's build though, and Angelo had a lot of ideas of his own so decided to put them into practice. "I don't like to follow the crowd and I liked the late model Fastback as it's a bit of an underdog - you know, ugly in standard form but with plenty of room for improvement. I wanted to show that they can look good, especially the Fastback. Everybody wants Squares or Notches, early ones at that, but not me!"
Though the car only made its show debut last year, Angelo has owned it since 1991, having given it what we here in the office like to call a '90's restoration - i.e. a quick repaint and a tonce up - once before. This time though, he decided to go all out, doing a proper, body-off restoration and rebuild that took some seven years to complete, in between work, family and house commitments.
"I was inspired by the German Look though, if I had to call it a look. I'd call the car ‘Euro-look' but, as I said, I don't like to follow trends. I see it as more of a GT car style really - something you could jump in and cruise off for miles across Europe in comfort. That's the theory, at least!

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

SUBSCRIBE
Never miss an issue again by setting up a subscription to VolksWorld magazine!

VW WALLPAPER
You can download a wallpaper from this feature for your computers desktop in our VW Wallpaper section.