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johnshenry
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Joined: September 21, 2001
Posts: 9405
Location: Northwood, NH USA
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 Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject: Wolfsburg West floorpans... |
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They are listing them for '55 and earlier now. The pic looks the same as the pressing for the later '56-'71 kind, but they might have just used the same pic.
Does anyone kno0w if they have the correct pressing, esp. the rear inner corner contour??
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John Henry
'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab |
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Matthew Tolbert
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Joined: March 27, 2004
Posts: 707
Location: Georgia
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject: |
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that will be very cool if they are correct pressings.
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Matthew Tolbert
1958 ragtop
1961 doublecab
1965 Notchback S |
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splitjunkie
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Joined: April 04, 2006
Posts: 4185
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| Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:20 am Post subject: |
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those are all new pictures. The shape in the battery tray area is not correct (it is still later style with the battery back farther on the pan) but the width of the entire depression does not appear to widen out like the ones they sold before. If the width is correct it would now be easier to graft that rear section and move the battery depression forward on a set of these. The only other differences I see is that they come with the correct seat tracks and they are not mounted.
If they are really the same thickness as original that is a good thing too.
Not quite there yet but appears to be an improvement.
their older ones:
The new ones:
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Chris
You know, a lot of these scratches will buff right out... Jerry Seinfeld |
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OvalTeenAZ
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Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 661
Location: Arizona
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| Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| i wonder if they should be 56 and down because 56 pans are very close to pre 55 and 57 and up are way off...????? |
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johnshenry
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Joined: September 21, 2001
Posts: 9405
Location: Northwood, NH USA
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| Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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Tony Moore replied and confirmed that the floor pressing is the same between the '55 and earlier and later ones, just the seat tracks supplied with them are different. As Chris pointed out, you could graft in that inside rear corner of an original as it seldom rots out, and have something pretty close....
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John Henry
'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab |
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splitjunkie
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Joined: April 04, 2006
Posts: 4185
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| Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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These look really nice. They indeed have the strait sides of the rear trough so it should be possible to modify these to the earlier style as long as you have the back portion intact and you move the battery depression forward.
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Chris
You know, a lot of these scratches will buff right out... Jerry Seinfeld |
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[email protected]
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Joined: September 22, 2002
Posts: 1244
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| Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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"Just move the batery tray forward"?, this sounds like you really have to hack theses to make them work in pre 55 cars Bummer.
Im, still waiting for correct floors anyone have a a 55 oro lder oval I can steal the floors form? |
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splitjunkie
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Joined: April 04, 2006
Posts: 4185
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| Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 6:23 am Post subject: |
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| [email protected] wrote: |
"Just move the batery tray forward"?, this sounds like you really have to hack theses to make them work in pre 55 cars Bummer.
Im, still waiting for correct floors anyone have a a 55 oro lder oval I can steal the floors form? |
I don't think "hack" is the work I would use.
You can see that the major differneces are that the depression for the battery is very close to the end of the reinforcement stampings on the old style pan. Also note the contour of the inner portion at the back.
The two ribs at the front of the rear well depression extend up the sides and to the flat part on the old ones.
There are also some differneces at the front of the pans where the pedals are and with the pressings for the ribs that the front.
I think that it is the best place to start if you have the rear corners still intact and possibly the front pedal area that we have had for a long time.
I can't say that I blame Tony for going this route. How much market is there really for the old style pan's? This is much better than the orange pans that they sold before which were nice. There is really much more market for the 55 and later cars so this is a good compromise.
Based on some of the stamping details at the front of the pan I suspect they bought the old tooling from VW Mexico rather than having new tooling made.
All in all these pans look great. Yes it would be nice to have 100 point correct early pans but these can be made to look correct with some work.
I will be buying a set and modifiying them.
Now if they can just make some good heater channels....
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Chris
You know, a lot of these scratches will buff right out... Jerry Seinfeld |
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Brezelwerks
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Joined: March 17, 2003
Posts: 1421
Location: Tyngsboro, MA
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| Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:34 am Post subject: |
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| splitjunkie wrote: |
| [email protected] wrote: |
"Just move the batery tray forward"?, this sounds like you really have to hack theses to make them work in pre 55 cars Bummer.
Im, still waiting for correct floors anyone have a a 55 oro lder oval I can steal the floors form? |
I can't say that I blame Tony for going this route. How much market is there really for the old style pan's? This is much better than the orange pans that they sold before which were nice. There is really much more market for the 55 and later cars so this is a good compromise.
Based on some of the stamping details at the front of the pan I suspect they bought the old tooling from VW Mexico rather than having new tooling made.
All in all these pans look great. Yes it would be nice to have 100 point correct early pans but these can be made to look correct with some work.
I will be buying a set and modifiying them.
Now if they can just make some good heater channels.... |
I agree Chris. If the market/economics were truly there I have to seriously believe at this point Tony would of already made a more exact set made. Asking a volume production Asian manufacturer with large tooling capabilities to produce these things just because they could do it, is still a very very big stretch in my opinion given what I know about the dynamics in this niche of the market over the past several years now full time, the numbers just aren't there for items like this.
Plus similarly, I only see maybe 8-9 folks so far after thousands of views on the split fenders thread that say they would actually commit to buying a set of front fenders (selling in what would likely need to sell in the $1K range), and even at that price thats not going to pay a fraction of the tool costs.
The vert W decklids that were reproduced I see somewhat differently as the resto/semi-custom market (80% of which are really ovals) is and has been after vert W decklids for some time, so to some degree you can afford somewhat to take an uncalculated risk especially when you own the operations, just to test and see if they would sell, and if nothing else you sort of become an instant celebrity in this niche pretty quick.
But I would have to believe the next time you start thinking about doing similar sized items or even larger, to feed into an even smaller authenticity driven market, you would really have to nail down some real numbers here to justify moving ahead. Even if you own the production operations I would have to believe the well of charity is only so deep.
In this case the WW approach here makes good business sense, you would leverage the decent tooling you have, recognizing that this early market niche is usually more than capable and can usually afford making any of the mods they need to in order to dial things in. Sure its nice to slap things in, but in this case my gut feel is that even hiring a good shop to make these small mods for you will cost alot less than buying a completely new retooled authentic set out of the box from Asia, and you'd have them sooner than much later, plus you'd be feeding more of your hard earned dollar back into your own local economy, just something to think about. |
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