Saving Emiko: 68 RHD Restoration in New Zealand

[TheFop]

Looking good! those winder mechanisms came up beautifully.
When you rebuild after paint don't forget the anti rattle buffers for the glass, I did mine the other day and they make a massive difference, I can't explain it but the car just has a nicer more refined feeling when you drive.
I suggest also fitting the rear Qtr glass as I see the screw holes are gone, the outer chrome strip screws needs to be pretty accurately placed or the strips a bugger to fit.

Very jealous, this is going to be an amazing car.
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Rusty 61 RHD Karmann Ghia Coupe - Resto in progress....slowly
Stock 69 LHD Karmann Ghia Coupe - Driver
67 New Zealand Spec Beetle - Being rebuilt
63 New Zealand Spec Beetle - Going Baja!
86 T25 Westfalia - Family Fun car

[kiwighia68]

[KGCoupe]

[kiwighia68]

[c21darrel]

[DorianL]

[kiwighia68]

Excerpt from the novel, Saving Emiko:-


The Landrover raced north at the speed limit. Barefoot Matt and Anonymous occupied the front seats and Vaishna and Emiko the back seat. The child was strapped into a booster seat between the women.
Behind them in the load section and among the men’s hunting and climbing gear De Villiers lay on a thin mattress. He drifted in and out of consciousness. When the pain and discomfort reached the point where he felt the need to scream, he shut his senses down and imagined that he was in the Kalahari with his Bushman companion, !Xau. Hiding from the South African army during the day and running long distances towards the Namibian border at night had been an ordeal until they fell in with a small band of Bushmen. It was there that De Villiers learned how to enter the void between the conscious and subconscious mind, what he thought of as a zombie state. The Bushmen entered the zone at will, but only after drinking a potent concoction the women made of desert plants and insects.
They danced, progressing in a circle, stomping their feet in the dust, making strange noises, mimicking the animals of their desert hunting grounds until they were in a trance. In time they fell down and lay where they had fallen until the next morning.
Their dreams would be the topic of conversation when they came to.
When thinking about it later De Villiers could not be certain that the events he experienced while in the back of the Landrover were real or dreams from his zombie state.

The Landrover slowed down rapidly and came to a stop. De Villiers heard Barefoot Matt call out. ‘Get in the back and lie down with him. Take off your shirt.’
De Villiers tried to open his eyes but the lids were too heavy to move. He drifted off again. There were voices but they sounded distant.
A hand softly stroked the back of his head. Fingers weaved their way through his hair. The smell of blood was overtaken by something completely different, a woman’s smell. He struggled to open his eyes.
‘Don’t look,’ a familiar voice whispered in his ear. Vaishna pulled him tightly against her chest. He felt her bare skin and warmth against his cheek.
‘Don’t look,’ she said again.
The voices became louder, more insistent, as the back doors of the Landrover were opened from the outside.
‘So what do we have here?’
De Villiers half opened one eye. There was a well-shaped breast between him and an armed policeman at the back of the Landrover.
Vaishna sat up slowly, taking her time to gather her bra and shirt.
‘What’s going on here?’ the policeman said.
She ignored him and started to fasten her bra at the front. She let the elastic pull the clasp from her fingers. The policeman stared. De Villiers looked on through eyelids closed to mere slits.
‘He’s got cancer, and the chemotherapy is making him sick,’ Vaishna said while buttoning her shirt.
‘And what are you doing back here?’ the policeman said. ‘You should have a seatbelt on.’
‘I’m just trying to comfort him a little,’ she said.
There was nothing to look at any more. ‘Yeah right,’ the policeman said, and closed the doors.
‘Move on,’ a different policeman’s voice said near the front.
‘What are you looking for?’ Matt asked.
Shut up, Matt, De Villiers thought. We’ve got to get away from here.
‘Don’t really know,’ the policeman said. ‘Looks like a war has broken out between the gangs back there. Two dead.’
I still don’t know what happened there, De Villiers thought. The policeman smacked the side of the Landrover with his hand. 'Move along,' he ordered. 'We've got enough sh*t without having to answer tourists' questions.'

‘You looked!’
‘I didn’t,’ De Villiers lied.
‘You did too,’ Vaishna said. ‘You think I’m stupid?’
‘Not stupid,’ De Villiers whispered. The pain was back and he grimaced. He spoke with great effort. ‘Certainly not stupid. Many other things, but not stupid.’
Vaishna climbed back into the passenger compartment, fastened her seatbelt, and leaned back to speak again. ‘What other things, then?’
‘Dangerous,’ De Villiers said. ‘Very dangerous.’
Vaishna turned her back on him.
‘And beautiful,’ De Villiers managed to say before edging towards darkness again.
‘You looked!’ Vaishna said. ‘I told you not to look.’
I couldn’t help it, De Villiers thought. How could I not look?
In the dream that followed he saw the perfectly symmetric volcanic cone of Mount Taranaki against a clear blue sky, but instead of snow, the top of the mountain had the shape and colour of a woman's breast.

De Villiers slept fitfully the rest of the journey to the doctor's house, his head on a makeshift pillow crafted out of a duffel bag filled with ropes and climbing gear laid over two AK 47s and Vaishna's pistol. Two weapons of war and a pistol that could be linked to the shootings back at the shed where the police had found the bodies. And all unlicensed.
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Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[KGCoupe]

I can certainly see why you chose Mount Taranaki for the imagery there.

[kiwighia68]

I've been confined to bed by my doctor so I can't work on my car and I'm nice and miserable. I'm also struggling with meeting the deadline of the textbook I've been commissioned to write. It's almost as if the book just won't yield to my hand. I wish it was like metal. Phiilip told me that metal is pliable and will yield to the panelbeater's hand, to conform to the desired shape, but this damn book just won't do that.

When I'm miserable I pick up my pen and write something.

Excerpt from the novel, Saving Emiko: (somewhat premature, I know)

De Villiers woke up on someone’s kitchen table. There were pine kitchen cupboards with glass doors above his head. He recognised a tea set – Villeroy & Boch, Petite Fleur, his wife’s favourite. He turned his head. The usual kitchen things were there, lined up against the wall: stove, oven, dishwasher and a tall refrigerator.
‘Where am I?” he asked.
There was no response. He could hear the breeze outside the window; the sounds of a bush setting. There was a washing line with a woman’s frilly things suspended next to black jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. A black beret completed the gothic ensemble.

Outside on the veranda Vaishna set a tray with a teapot and cups for two down next to Emiko. It was her first opportunity to talk in private to Emiko since they had cut the dog collar tying her to the workbench in the gang’s meth lab from her neck. The little girl was playing with a puppy on the lawn with Lake Rotorua forming the background to this unhurried domestic setting.
‘Can we talk now?’ Vaishna asked. ‘Are you ready to talk?’
Emiko cupped the tea between her hands. Steam rose from the top of the dainty porcelain and swirled in front of her face. She nodded, her eyes following her daughter’s movements across the lawn. The child appeared to be happy, unaffected by their ordeal.
‘What happened, Emiko?’ Vaishna said. ‘Why did you disappear?’
Emiko sighed and sipped from the cup. When she answered her voice sounded mechanical, like a recording, as if the speech had been rehearsed. Her English, after seven years in New Zealand, was good but accented.
‘I fell in love and wanted to stay. My mother said it was okay but my father immediately booked a flight for me to go back to Japan. So I ran away.’ Emiko waived her hand towards her daughter. ‘And that’s what happened.’
‘Where is the child’s father?’ Vaishna said. ‘Do you want us to go and look for him?’
‘He’s dead,’ Emiko whispered.
‘Oh,’ Vaishna said, caught by surprise. ‘Do you know what happened to him?’
‘We were married and he was working in a law firm. One day he said he had to see his brother. He told me he had been given a big promotion and would be doing insurance work and had to tell his brother he could no longer do their work. We went to the Coromandel and he told me to wait with Moana at his brother’s house. He went to see his brother.’
‘And?’ Vaishna prompted her.
‘The police came and said he was dead, and his brother too.’
‘Who is Moana?’
‘His sister.”
The men came back up the driveway in the doctor’s car. Vaishna stood up and put her hand on Emiko’s shoulder. ‘You’re safe now. I think you can see that. I have to go inside but I want you to think about the future. Tell us if you want to go home, and we’ll help you.’

The homicide detectives were finally ready to hand the scene over the DI Leighton-Jones and his team. There hadn’t been much to see, from a homicide point of view. There were two dead bodies, one clutching a hunting rifle and the other a saw-off shotgun. Both weapons had been fired. The shotgun blast had gone into the far wall but there was no hole anywhere corresponding with the hunting rifle’s ammunition. The bodies had small entry wounds and unusually large exit wounds, suggesting that special ammunition had been used. The lead bullets would explode on impact and tear through muscle and tendons. Ballistic tests to match the remnants of a bullet to a particular weapon would be near impossible.
‘What’s more,’ the homicide detective in charge told Leighton-Jones, ‘is that we have been unable to find any shell cases from the weapon that was used. There were two shots to the chest of each victim, and I would expect that a pistol has been used, but then there should be spent cartridge cases, and there are none.’
‘Maybe it was a revolver,’ Leighton-Jones suggested, ‘and then the cartridge cases would have been retained in the cylinder.’
‘Nah,’ one of the homicide men said. ‘This kind of shooting…’ he pointed at the bodies, ‘this degree of accuracy can only be achieved with a pistol, and then only by someone who is an accomplished marksman.’
Leighton-Jones scratched his nose. If this had been a gang killing, he would have expected an unsophisticated ambush with shotguns. ‘How good?’ he asked.
‘Better than anyone we have in the Armed Offenders Squad.’
‘Would that explain the absence of spent shells?’ Leighton-Jones asked. ‘What kind of person are we looking for?’
‘Professional, and extremely dangerous.’
There was a pause. ‘And forensically aware, hence no empty shell cases,’ the officer in charge added.

Back in Rotorua the professional and extremely dangerous shooter looked down at her boss. ‘How are you?’ she asked De Villiers. She was dressed in her sari again.
‘I didn’t look,’ he said. ‘I swear.’
Vaishna smiled. ‘You’re lying, but I forgive you.’
‘Where am I?’ De Villiers wanted to know.
‘Your colleagues have found a doctor who is willing to treat your wounds without reporting the matter to the police. They say he is one of you.’
‘Who are you, Vaishna?’ De Villiers asked. ‘Who are you, exactly?’
She ignored his question. ‘The doctor is here now and he’s ready. Just follow his orders, will you? Just for once, do as you’re told, okay?’
‘So how is our patient?’ a man’s voice said behind Vaishna.
The man leaned over De Villiers. ‘How are you, Colonel?’
‘Who are you?’ De Villiers said. Behind the doctor Barefoot Matt and Anonymous looked at each other and grinned.
‘I am Captain Joe van Rooyen, one time medic in the SADF, later a Recce operator, then a doctor at 1 Mil for a while, and currently a surgical registrar at Rotorua Hospital. Is that good enough for you, Colonel?’
The military talk confused De Villiers. ‘What are you going to do?
‘Don’t worry, Colonel. I know a thing or two about bullet wounds, and although my skills are a little rusty, I’m still better than anyone else around here.
‘Let’s start,’ van Rooyen said and nodded to Vaishna. ‘Cut his shirt and trousers off. Start at the feet.’
A minute later De Villiers was naked on the table.
‘My,’ Van Rooyen said, touching the scars one by one with his gloved hand. ‘Old wounds aplenty, and an operation scar as well.’
‘Don’t look,’ De Villiers told Vaishna. ‘Don’t look.’
‘Too late,’ she said. ‘And now we’re even.’
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Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[John Moxon]

Too late.
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John.
Judson Supercharger Information on The Samba
My 1958 Shorrock Supercharged Karmann Ghia
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[jpjohns]

[kiwighia68]

[jpjohns]

[TheFop]

[kiwighia68]

I went to Ngatea today - still crook (the local word for sick or ill) but I had to finalise a few things before I could leave for my annual trip to South Africa.

There are some tabs (those strips of metal that hold wires and cables in place) missing or damaged and I marked them all so that Phillip can replace and repair as necessary. I marked holes where I want a second wiring loom to go through on the right hand side. The floor vent openings have to be adjusted and cut so that the plastic vent covers will fit. Two small triangular pieces - my first effort at creating something out of metal plate - still have to be welded in at the corners at the bottom of the spare wheel well. And so on.

We settled on the colours, at last. Two tone she will be, and both will be VW original colours, and they will be specific to a '68 Ghia. Looking good, so far. I think the car will be in paint by the time I return.

I'm going to buy some cheap parts in South Africa: like a stainless steel exhaust.

What haven't decided is whether I should leave Detective Inspector Pierre de Villiers on the surgeon's kitchen table, wounded, naked and in pain (with some gratuitous embarrassment thrown in) until I return.
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Festina lente - hasten slowly
1968 Ghia named Emiko
Resto completed Dec 2015

[John Moxon]

[kiwighia68]

[jpjohns]

Is there a rivalry between NZ and AU? I ask because I have a friend that I game with and he is from Sydney and when I told him I wanted to go to NZ he asked why? He said NZ is garbage (his words)... I figured it was kind of like a Virginia/West Virginia thing.
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-Jared

"Scrapyards are for quitters" - Beetlenut (a Samba member)

[John Moxon]

[kiwighia68]