Fridolin W12 project!

Hej guys,

a dutch "friend" I know through a dutch forum is building a true dream car, and I think you'll appreciate it!

I'll keep this thread updated with new pictures!



His name is Ruud, and has built a few hot dubs in the past (mk1 vr6, mk1 20vt etc) and now he has fallen in love with a fridolin!! But it's a fridolin with a twist

He's building it in "Hotrod" style!

The bottom is "channeled" 6 cm's in the chassis to get as low as possible with the airride that will be mounted!
He also had to make a bit more space so he'll be able to fit his 20" Coddington wheels...
In the engine compartiment he's planning on putting in a 1.8 20vt with 225bhp

He's doing all the body work by hand, because all the parts he needs aren't available anymore

I thought they were "Body Coddington's" but I was just told they are "Torq Thrust's 2 in 8x20"

At this moment he is working on the "body" and is doing all sorts of bodywork!

These were the parts that were on the car, as you can see not in a great state...





Everything is done by hand!!





Normally the vw-logo is on a mount, since he didn't like it he removed it from the hood:


He welded in a mount for the indicators in the nose:


Same part but from the inside:


The nose is being assembled again, but there is still a lot of work to do:





These were 17" Gragar wheels, but he didn't think they were large enough

21:11:2005

The engine Ruud is planning on mounting:




After seeing those 17" Gragar wheels and knowing they are to small to get the result he wanted, Ruud went shopping for some 20's

and these are the ones that will be on the finished article





He's planning on using the hubs, bearings and brakes of an Audi S4!



`





These are those Audi S4 brake discs (Ruud counted 52 parts when disassembling them)

17-02-06:

The new wheels Finally arrived!

23-05-2006:

He's now starting to strip the car to bare metal! When it's completely bare and all the rust is gone he'll have it painted in Epoxi (primer)

At least the doors have no rust



01-06-2006:



Ruud stripped everything off the chassis he didn't need, since he's doing a completely independent suspension made of Bug 1303, porsche, audi, and Porsche cayenne parts

These are the parts he used to start off his "suspension" project

(Audi TT Quattro)

New chassis parts arrived too, these bottomparts are from a Karmann Ghia


05-06-06

After stripping the body to bare metal he found a few "bad" parts and started to make new pieces by hand-molding sheet metal!

05-08-06:

The rearwheel suspension finally starts to look like something!








12-08-06
Now that the suspension is finally done, the car can actually sit on it's wheels!

24-08-06:

Ruud picked up some nice 4 piston Brembo's




Can you guess off which vw this rear suspension came from??

Since the sidepanels are to bad to actually be used, he had to fabricate some hisselve because these babies aren't for sale

The way he started:

and were the sidepanels are supposed to be





the old unusuable parts:



AND, since the last 2 rear suspensions he made weren't "good" enough he made another one...


Obviously the cardboard will be replaced for a proper adapter



21-11-2006:

The second sidepanel is finished too:



He's going to make the sides a bit longer than it was originally, this way the car will look even lower!









After seeing some more pictures from some hot rear ends of other Fridolins he saw that he made a mistake in molding the rearcorners, so he re-did them!



here you can see the curve he missed previously!

Normally that curve is behind a bumper, but hey details are details...

Some more body work:

02-12-2006:

The rear corners:



He had to modify them, because he needed more space to clear those 20" wheels.





04-12-06:

Today the painter was finished on those bodyparts that were pearlblasted and primered (done with electricity)
That way it's much easier to see which parts still need work...



This part is really bad and still needs lots and lots of work
[img]http://www.volksforum.com/albums/files/2/5/4/3/geglaspareldplaatwerk006.jpg[img]









So, at least now you guys are up to date! As you can see not an easy project, and it will propably won't be ready this year :?

Ruud also isn't sure about what engine to use, he sold the 1.8 20vt engine, and is now thinking about putting in a W8 engine or something else..
Maybe an RS4 engine, but nothing is sure yet! At the moment this wonderfull guy is out of a job and he doesn't want to buy an engine when he isn't sure there is money coming in in the next few months...

I'm in love with this project and can't wait to see it finished, I think this will truly be one of the nicest VW Hotrods in the world!!

Forget the W8 engine... he bought an W12 engine for it!!

Like it belongs in there


Space enough in the back too!!

he fitted the doors last weekend, he could only do one since he was missing a few pieces of the other

But now he can make the other panels fit on the bottom!





That's about it for now, the car needs to be finished before W'see 2008

bloody hell thats some skill going into that

WOW,that is going to be so cool,nice to see something totally different.

WWOOOOOAAAA!!!!

ha ha I wondered if you would post this here kevin, its gotta be said this is an absolute monster of a project.

Thats amazing

KIN ELL,
That is awesome ,
would love to see/hear it running.

Looking cool as, I'd be interested to see how much power a W12 would put out with tweaks! Quality rare-rod!

Thats amazing,your friend is very talented to be able to fabricate all his own parts including the body panels,truly a one off and will no doubt be fantastic when its completed,keep us updated

dsmithmobile wrote:Thats amazing,your friend is very talented to be able to fabricate all his own parts including the body panels,truly a one off and will no doubt be fantastic when its completed,keep us updated

I was asking Kevin about this on oe, the guy thats building it had to make his own panels as they are rarer than rare now, obselete years ago id imagine, and every frido that you see is probably 99% hand built apparently!!! wa wa woo waa!

that is a work of art. wish i had the space and money to do something like that.

HOLY CRAP!