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Wed Feb 25, 2004 1:23 am

Has anyone seen or purchased the ghia bumper from eisparts.com? It looks good in the picture. It's $375 for the front. As part of my restoration, I need both front and rear clean bumpers for my 65 ghia vert.

Wed Feb 25, 2004 5:25 pm

Depends. Reviews say the bumpers are made in India, aren't stout, and WON'T interchange with German parts. Don't get me wrong as the best wrenches I have are made in India. It's your call.

Wed Feb 25, 2004 6:59 pm

I bought set when they first came out and they were on sale (try typing ESIFRIEND into the box on the order for-- used to knock 15% off). I figure they cost about as much as getting nice straight originals rechromed.

Anyway, I didn't have a decent set of originals worth re-chroming so I took the easy way out. I figured they would get me on the road and I could take my time finding good originals.

Are they OK? Depends what you're looking for. If you're building a show car get originals. If you're doing a daily driver they are probably plenty good enough. I doubt they'll last as long as the originals, but they will probably get all banged up before they rust out anyway. I would rather bang up repros than originals. When these get ugly I'll just throw them away and not shed a tear about it. Might even buy another throw away set to replace them.

I would give them a solid B maybe even a B+ for a grade. Paint the inside with a good paint and I think that will help quite a bit as far as rust.

Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:31 pm

what coad mentioned is a must ( IMO) for any re-pop bumpers... ghia or bug

wipe the backsides with wax and grease remover and paint them or undercoat them... and keep them waxed with old fashioned thick ass paste wax real good... they will not rust near as fast.

Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:34 pm

try www.Karmannghia.com

Thu Mar 04, 2004 9:33 pm

I bought not only front but also the rear bumper from EIS last year.
At that time (mid 03) they put the rear bumper on sale too.

When I got them my car was not ready to put the new bumpers on yet.
The chrome looks great, the weight and the thickness is about the original,
BUT the metal work is not smooth. It is weavy like you can still see hammer marks on it.

Last month I did try to install them on to my newly painted Ghia.
The rear bumper doen't fit at all. After a few days of figuring out I found that the right end section were made wrong, there was no way to put it on.
The front one was not too bad to install but needed a lot of patient and needed over 5 hours to do. And there's risk of bumper scractch off your paint since it won't fit perfectly.

I later found out that they stop selling the rear bumper. And I did not contact them for help or return since I bought the bumper over 6 months already.

What I did was get the original bumper rechromed for $100 a piece.
Again, for the EIS bumpers, the Chrome is good (tripple plate), the thickness is about right, the hardware included, but the metal work is weavy and not smooth.

Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:10 pm

Thanks for the info. I'll skip the EIS bumpers. I'll look into rechroming my old ones or buy some that are already restored. How much does it cost to rechrome all 8 pieces of a rear bumper?