TheSamba.com :: View topic

Mon Sep 16, 2019 1:25 pm

After some of you from the Porche 911 forum asked here you go with the story...

I will try to summarise all the resto work we have done on a very special Dune buggy over the last 3 months

It is a Hispano Aleman buggy, originally manufactured in Madrid (Spain) in 1970. It had an obvious "inspiration" in the Manx buggy. The Hispano Aleman company made a total of 12-15 buggies (no-one knows for certain). Some more info on Hispano Aleman here (unfortunately in Spanish, but you can use your computer's translator) http://www.autopasion18.com/HISTORIA-HISPANO%20ALEMAN.htm

And this particular one, was the very own car of the owner of the Hispano Aleman factory, Ben Heiderich, who also was the official Porsche importer in Spain at that time. Hence he had very good access to Porsche parts, so build a buggy for himself with as many Porsche parts as he could :shock:

Here is the summary of Porsche parts that went into the car when it was built in 1970:
1. Porsche 356 SC engine
2. 741 dual-nose Porsche gearbox
3. Porsche 356 B brakes
4. Porsche 356 Koni absorbers
5. Porsche 911 swb gauges (5 of them)
6. Porsche 911 R Recaro seats (or so I have learned in this other post https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=709029)

Below some pics of the car as I bought it:

I will post the different steps of the resto process we have followed on the car. Hope you all like it

Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:52 pm

Wow - that should be a real rocket! Awesome build. Very costly to replicate today.

Tue Sep 17, 2019 1:09 am

Ruvwen!!!!! What a buggy! Wow. That is exactly how I'd build one if I could. Until I read your description I could've swore it was a Manx body with the Aleman badge on it.

I can't wait to see what you end up doing with it. If it were mine, I'd have it detailed and then just enjoy it. It looks perfectly preserved. Please Please don't recover those Recaro seats. The original upholstery adds so much history and provenance to the car and they still look great. One of the things that you may not have noted but the steering wheel appears to be a Momo Prototipo which would've been the choice of Porsche racers as well.

As for the gauges, I would venture to guess that if you look at the part numbers on them you'll see a 914.xxx.xxx number along the rings. The tachometer is definitely for a 914/912e. It was the only Porsche tach that redlined at 5800rpm and it was also for a 4cylinder as opposed to the 6 cylinder of a 911 tach. The date should be on the back of those gauges and if I had to venture a guess, I'm going to guess they have a 70 or 71 date on them. :) I'm not sure what the other two guages are from but if you post closer pictures I can probably id them.

Looking at the radio... is that a Blaupunkt frankfurt? It appears to be missing knobs which isn't a huge deal as there are thousands of them for sale around the $20-$30/pair range.

All in all a huge score! I'm really interested to see that Momo steering wheel. That alone could be an easy $1000+ steering wheel. I'm also excited to see that motor. The exhaust alone looks really trick and I'm sure that motor has some goodies on it.

Please keep us updated and thanks for tagging me in the other thread. I love this kind of stuff.

Tue Sep 17, 2019 2:12 pm

These are a few scans from an article writen in August 1970 on a Spanish magazine on the Hispano Aleman buggy, built in Madrid by the Hispano Aleman company

Tue Sep 17, 2019 2:25 pm

Jos.Hall wrote: Ruvwen!!!!! What a buggy! Wow. That is exactly how I'd build one if I could. Until I read your description I could've swore it was a Manx body with the Aleman badge on it.

It is indeed a perfect clone of the Manx buggy. Apparently they imported one original Manx body from the USA using the connections Ben Heiderich had at the US Army base in Torrejon de Ardoz, in order to replicate it.

I am intrigued on the front hood, as mine seems to be different than the other Hispano Aleman buggies (front badge area), and identical to a Manx hood

Jos.Hall wrote: I can't wait to see what you end up doing with it. If it were mine, I'd have it detailed and then just enjoy it. It looks perfectly preserved. Please Please don't recover those Recaro seats. The original upholstery adds so much history and provenance to the car and they still look great. One of the things that you may not have noted but the steering wheel appears to be a Momo Prototipo which would've been the choice of Porsche racers as well.

Most of the work is already done today so we are too late to go for a different route :)
Car looked ok although it was showing too many signs of 30 years of lack of use and neglect. The body had too many holes (not sure for what) and the engine, brakes etc needed a serious refresh. So we have conducted a full resto

The seats have been kept as found

Interesting comment on the steering wheel. Need to make some further pics for you

Jos.Hall wrote:
As for the gauges, I would venture to guess that if you look at the part numbers on them you'll see a 914.xxx.xxx number along the rings. The tachometer is definitely for a 914/912e. It was the only Porsche tach that redlined at 5800rpm and it was also for a 4cylinder as opposed to the 6 cylinder of a 911 tach. The date should be on the back of those gauges and if I had to venture a guess, I'm going to guess they have a 70 or 71 date on them. :) I'm not sure what the other two guages are from but if you post closer pictures I can probably id them.

I will make further pics of the gauges

Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:04 am

Nice to see a one of a kind Buggy preserved in this way!

Wed Sep 18, 2019 9:35 am

It is wonderful to see buggies from other countries. The buggy seems to have universal appeal. Naturally!

Jim

Wed Sep 18, 2019 7:10 pm

The yellow one is a Manx 2(or direct Manx 2 copy). It has the larger bump on the front of the hood, the dash with the V shaped bottom and the backseat with no wells which the Manx 2 had. I'd check very carefully whether it at one time had a serial number tag or lifting blocks

Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:44 am

BL3Manx wrote: The yellow one is a Manx 2(or direct Manx 2 copy). It has the larger bump on the front of the hood, the dash with the V shaped bottom and the backseat with no wells which the Manx 2 had. I'd check very carefully whether it at one time had a serial number tag or lifting blocks

Interesting....

We know for sure at least one of the 12-15 buggies that were built by the Hispano Aleman company had an original Meyers Manx body (which is the one they had to buy in the USA to make the Hispano body moulds), so it could very well be that (being the very own car of the Hispano Aleman company owner) this body is the original Meyers one.

What shall I look for to confirm whether this body is an original Meyers or one of the copies they made?

Thanks

Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:08 pm

So going back to the resto work we have conducted, let me start with the chassis, which was highly modified back in the day to accept the Porsche 356 powertrain

We sandblasted it, made some repairs to some bad old welds and small rusted spots, and epoxy primered it for some more 50 years of protection

This is a detail picture of the 70-80 kilos heavy metal plaque which is bolted to the front of the chassis, as apparently the car had a tendency to pull the front wheels off the ground when accelerating heavily

Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:45 pm

ruvwen wrote: What shall I look for to confirm whether this body is an original Meyers

I'll send a message

Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:55 pm

BL3Manx wrote: ruvwen wrote: What shall I look for to confirm whether this body is an original Meyers

I'll send a message

BL3Manx can you see the bump? Is that what you were referring to?

Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:39 pm

Yes!

Take pictures of the whole body, hood and dash, top, bottom, front, back and sides and make sure those bumps are clearly visible and send them to Meyers Manx and they will probably confirm its a genuine Manx 2.

http://meyersmanx.com/manx_registry?fbclid=IwAR39h...fNJeKTG1us

Sat Sep 21, 2019 4:45 am

It seems strange that it would need all that extra weight on the front. I wasn't aware that the 356 engine was that powerful. Could it be that the weight was added to try and improve the front/rear weight bias for better cornering?

Sat Sep 21, 2019 6:23 am

oprn wrote: It seems strange that it would need all that extra weight on the front. I wasn't aware that the 356 engine was that powerful. Could it be that the weight was added to try and improve the front/rear weight bias for better cornering?

Indeed it could be

Mon Sep 23, 2019 11:35 am

Continuing with the resto work, and moving to the body preparation and painting, this was a pretty straighforward exercise, as the body was very sound, so other than closing a few holes and fixing some small spots all the rest was a pretty easy job

There were 3 layers/colors underneath: yellow, red and the base gealcoat which was green. We sanded all the paint to get to the base green, and then we applied two coats of primer, before painting it yellow

At some point the rear part of the body was extended, to better cover the Porsche engine and exhaust

In this picture you can see the "bump" which according to the experts potentially identifies the body as an original Meyers Manx. Apparenly this was designed to be able to stack the bodies on top of each other to be able to transport them more easily. I still need to talk to the Meyers Manx registry experts to get 100% confirmation on this being an original Meyers Manx body

Here you can see the "bump" again

Mon Sep 23, 2019 6:25 pm

ruvwen wrote: In this picture you can see the "bump" which according to the experts potentially identifies the body as an original Meyers Manx. Apparenly this was designed to be able to stack the bodies on top of each other to be able to transport them more easily.

The blocks were added to the unfinished side of the body(check if there is also one in back) to provide a point where a lever could be used without damaging the body, to help lift the new body from the mold

Mon Sep 23, 2019 10:59 pm

BL3Manx wrote: ruvwen wrote: In this picture you can see the "bump" which according to the experts potentially identifies the body as an original Meyers Manx. Apparenly this was designed to be able to stack the bodies on top of each other to be able to transport them more easily.

The blocks were added to the unfinished side of the body(check if there is also one in back) to provide a point where a lever could be used without damaging the body, to help lift the new body from the mold

Thanks for correcting me.

And yes, there is also a block / bump in the rear. Will post pics as well

Tue Sep 24, 2019 11:26 am

ruvwen wrote: BL3Manx wrote: ruvwen wrote: In this picture you can see the "bump" which according to the experts potentially identifies the body as an original Meyers Manx. Apparenly this was designed to be able to stack the bodies on top of each other to be able to transport them more easily.

The blocks were added to the unfinished side of the body(check if there is also one in back) to provide a point where a lever could be used without damaging the body, to help lift the new body from the mold

Thanks for correcting me.

And yes, there is also a block / bump in the rear. Will post pics as well

BL3Manx some close pics of the front and rear bump / lift block. So while I check with the Manx Registry experts, do you conclude this is an authentic Meyers Manx body? To me it makes sense that this is the original Manx body which Ben Heiderich imported from the USA to use it as a pattern to replicate the body for his Hispano Aleman buggies. Being his own buggy he probably opted for keeping the original one for himself

Tue Sep 24, 2019 8:53 pm

ruvwen wrote: BL3Manx some close pics of the front and rear bump / lift block. So while I check with the Manx Registry experts, do you conclude this is an authentic Meyers Manx body? To me it makes sense that this is the original Manx body which Ben Heiderich imported from the USA to use it as a pattern to replicate the body for his Hispano Aleman buggies. Being his own buggy he probably opted for keeping the original one for himself

From everything else and the two lifting blocks I'm pretty confident that is an original Meyers Manx 2 body(with a modified rear end for more engine coverage).

Looking at your picture of the rear lifting block, just above it I believe I can see the four holes in the fiberglass where the pop-rivets were which held the original serial number tag to the body.

Its not uncommon for the rivets on the tags to be drilled out and the tag removed by people before they repaint a body. Its often lost

Here is a picture of where the serial number tag would have originally been on a Manx 2