I've known many guys that were looking for the early aprons with the "H" pattern stamping in them. They were restoring previously restored cars, or cars that had suffered accident damage. Until now, the only way to get the correct apron for your early car was to find another wrecked car to pull a donor section from. While surfing the net, I came across this site from Sweden:
http://www.wolfparts.com/Some of you might have seen this guy's work before over on the samba. He is the same guy that presses louvers into stock W decklids to make them look like a factory convertible pressing.
Take a look at these pics:
You'll have to put your own decklid seal retaining strip, latch, and backside heat shield on the apron, but it looks like a decent piece. (What does Pat from Thailand think about this metal work? He's our resident expert!
) The only thing is at $551 for an apron, it's quite expensive.
My big interest in this, is that someone
IS REPRODUCING early parts! Could this be the start of something bigger? I've asked many people why a company like West Coast Metric, or even VW themselves aren't taking the original dies, stamp molds, and tooling and reproducing OEM parts. If you look at the American car market, GM licenses the rights for small businesses to use their tooling and produce factory spec parts! Meanwhile, we in the VW industry have to deal with poor quality parts that are being made in Taiwan because our aftermarket companies won't pay to keep quality control. Why not make inexpensive parts in Taiwan with OEM guage steel and original presses obtain from VWAG?
What do you guys think? Would VWoA or VWAG be willing to work with us?
Scott Faivre
Where are these presses today?
