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Fri Jul 11, 2025 4:23 am

So I got the inner feeling and need to start a theme about my „decent“ 52 pink (magenta to be more precise) panel…I like to support those forums we all participate from, and I‘m not that Facebook & insta guy. That gives me nearly nothing.
So were to start? Maybe nearly 20years ago were I bought this pink box thru an really oddly writen ad here on the samba.com! Live was a bit different back then, and I was way more green behind the ears and had BIG plans for the 52. Then live had other plans and other projects on hand. If you are a bit older and run that family thing you will know that for sure…

The 52 had it‘s first outing at the DFL may cruise madness just the night before the Maikäfertreffen at Hannover. We camped there in the 52, that was brillant to sleep in that bus after all that time it stood around.
So it runs now good but it‘s not completly finished. I cut some corners with paint matching to get it finally on the road, so this will be optimized over time. And no I will not paint it in an other colour ;) There was a brillant VW ad with the subject: „You’ll never loose it in a parking lot“ That‘s here the game plus never loose it in a drone or helicopter pic! :-)
My good friend and club mate Georg Otto wrote an super cool article about the 52 „situation“ in the hot vw‘s 07/25. Man I nearly fell over when i realised that‘s the vintage special issue…

So that‘s it for the starting point, will update the topic from time2time and show some things I done to get it on the road with IRS and so on. In real life a bit more efforrt as writen in the article. ;)

BEST Greetings, Felix

Fri Jul 11, 2025 4:53 am

Great to see you finally driving it Felix!

Sun Jul 13, 2025 12:22 pm

Hey Scotty, thank you very much man. Yeah that was a special and even cruel moment driving that old girl after all those years of owning it. That was a grin ear to ear and still is it when I see the van with that good mod colour in the barn!

The 52 is more in a state of „repaired“ than proper restored, technic is spot on I would say, but with some of the repairs from back then and some spots I repaired. Metalvise it‘s in a brilliant state for a 52, so absolute no extensive metal thread going onhere…
Good thing about that „repair“ state is I won‘t mind too much about a scratch or dent when a kid is playing next to it with a ball or so on. More relaxed ownership when it‘s not that perfect…My other car is a fully restored shiny 67, so I know the other side of it ;)

So let‘s get back in time when it all started and go on from there.
It‘s an Oct. 52 panel which was delivered in primer thru factory. The holes for front sign were closed. It was the painted in white & bright blue (much lighter than dove blue). It has some extra holes in the dash for switches and had some things on the front roof, in the middle and to the sides. Not sure about the first state, no firevan that‘s pretty clear. There could be some signwriting or scripts on the doors, maybe some day to be explored.

The pre pre owner was Wolgang Dauer who made the conversion to pink with portholes & sidepipes cennected to a 30Ps! He really had a big thing going on with crazy colours AND sidepipes. That was like his trademark. He used this van for house repairs, an ad was found from the 90‘s. The owner after him used it as an sanitary van. Sadly I could not make contact with both of pre owners or son, tryed it some times but didn‘t work out sadly.
So here is the state nearly 20 years ago when I bought this 52. I had BIG plans for it and felt the colour was a shame and non driveable in public. Funny how we change over time. I was mid 20 back then anf studying so didn‘t have money at all… But the price was very nice, so I had to lend money & many things to make it happen. Even many parts from the van needed to be sold, like orig. crush box, brakes, 5x 52 match dated wheels, incorrect 30Ps & incorrect bumpers and so on.
Today I would have made it different for sure, but better never look back too long as you could not change that decisons made back then…

Sun Jul 13, 2025 12:41 pm

I hope I don't bore you too much… :wink:

but some words about Wolfgang Dauer from Düsseldorf. He was running his own one man van club named „VW Uralt Bus-Club Wolfgang Dauer“ which was setted before 93 as the sticker only has 4 post diggits.
Trademark: Purple & pink WITH truckpipes. When I bought the 52 there was a 52 in a colour switch to mine with purple body and pink parts and truckpipes at the D pillars… and a split beetle in purple in place.

He even owned the Auwärter Carlux which was later bought by Walter Jelinek of the well known BUG-BOX in Weiden. That was the first Auwärter been shown to the VW scene at Hannover at the DFL may cruise madness and 1.may meeting afterwards. Quiet funny cause I even debuted there my ex- Dauer van…And the Auwärter and my van even confused/ horrofied some folks…
Auwärter was shown lowered and without stickers and truckerpipes, here is the before state. My 52 even had those BIG stickers all over the place which i peeled already of when it was on the trailer.

Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:01 am

History like that is never boring, so thanks for sharing it with us.

Do you still have the side pipes? Maybe they need to return :lol:

Mon Jul 14, 2025 1:17 pm

Ha ha, I was thinking in the same direction last year :)
Those are long sold to some farm boys which hot roded their tractor with them, and they don‘t have those anymore, i checked that… ground clearance would even be a problem…
So the modded CSP super comp. has to do the job instead. That fits quiet good! I modified the endpipe routing and flated the endpipes in a vice for more barny look plus a lambda sleeve. Works!

Mon Jul 14, 2025 1:38 pm

Csp super comp. Pic‘s:
Header fits good under the rear valance

Tailpipe cut

And maybe a beer too much wrong side cut… :D

So a beer more and bit more work and fidling around to get it symetrical again but nothing a wig couldn‘t solve! Superb Wig welding was done by my DFL clubmate Tobi!

Tue Jul 15, 2025 11:08 am

Love it! So glad you shared the photos and journey with us!

Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:57 pm

I believe that ever car has it's own highest potential existence. I would say that this bus is "living it's best life". The time when it was stock was long ago, and it had that time. Now it is much more distinct. Drive it and have fun and live your best life.

Sat Jul 19, 2025 11:43 am

Felix, really happy to see your bus here! And what a cool story and definitely the way to go, using it instead of letting it in a Garage hoping to one day do something with it !
Tobi made great with the exhaust 8)

Grüße,
Antoine

Sun Aug 03, 2025 10:30 am

Hey gents,
THX for the nice feedback & yes Lind I know what you mean.
And as it‘s already fu*ed up so it could travel it’s way down further the dirty lane… :wink:

I tried to be carefully with my mods to not disturb that much original sheet metal, as we all are only custodians in some way… So no tub‘s or steering box raise mod‘s here. As I am getting older my rides tend to ride a bit higher don‘t like that scraping and porthole searching anymore. Been there done that, so maybe some day skyhigh on crosplys? I like that even a lot but till now the lowered one‘s drove better in my point of feeling if done good.

Back to the 52 story. As said it was bought way back then non needed parts went for needed money and I started here and there a bit to see what I am facing with and what‘s under the top coat. That’s the reason there are spots which are at the moment not that well spotsprayed wirh a spraycan where the color is near but not exaxtly like it, that‘s definetly a point on the to do list.

I made 3 barn movements with the 52 over time… The first was the worst as no axles were in the van and the trailer was not that suitable for the job. Second was with a welding frame with side tilt option I made myself cause the plan was still in exictence to do a full resto. That move was better but the the trailer (an other one) that time even was not 100% suitable for the job.
Third one was with axles but without steering that that was relaxed with only tire kicking.

So remember that such a long time project needs your time and manpower even when you are not working on the car/van! But a panel is a good parts storer over the time so no waste of space :D

Wed Aug 27, 2025 1:47 pm

So let's get back to better times than storage time...

As Wolfsburg is not that far away from my home town I made a small coming home trip back to were the 52 started 73 years ago.
You get an cool view from the top of the parkinghouse east with the mighty Wolfsburg in the back. And the drive spiral down is some way crazy, with the 4 well known chimneys in the background. Imagine 20 busses going down there on a video... 8)

The 52 was driving really nice and smooth with strong torque. I am still fine tuning the Dell'orto 40's with a lambda tool for perfect tune setup, but mainly spot on already. The combination with the late 1.0t front axle & middle steering plus IRS and the long 3.88 box paired with the 2.2 torker out back really is a pleasure to drive and travel.
Cheers!

Sun Aug 31, 2025 5:59 am

Lind wrote: I believe that ever car has it's own highest potential existence. I would say that this bus is "living it's best life". The time when it was stock was long ago, and it had that time. Now it is much more distinct. Drive it and have fun and live your best life.

I totally agree with Lind's comment. The feature in Hot VWs was fantastic and such a breath of fresh air. It's so cool to see this period build respected and living loud and large. Thank you very much for sharing more information.

Every body now... "we all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine!" Err... I mean "pink". :)

Very exciting bus.

Mon Sep 15, 2025 12:10 pm

THX for the kind comments Buggeee :lol:
There was an U52 Sticker at the back of the van, so the submarine theme was definetly on. U52 was a real sub in WW2... But this one a a bit more luminous!

In some way I continued that sub theme with a dive closer to the floor..

The recipts for that dive at front are:

- Front axle is a late 1ton which was moded by Moosi who now runs the well known "dog back beam performance" paired with droped spindels. This was one of the first bd axles he made and it is shorted for about 3''.
At the beginning with drums and now with CSP vented discs as those work really well with the T2c brake booster which works like a dream in a bus!
Only down point was that a piece of the panel around the steering had to be cut out for center steering linkage. I did that with on cut so it could easily be welded back on...
The late steering box fits like a glove when you remove the top oilfill screw and replace it with a flush rubber plug. The late steering column is to to small in diameter but the orig tube slides nicely over it with slim ruberdonuts for good clamping aganist for a nice tight fit. The best thing is that the original belly pan fits wirhout modification so it looks stock at the first view.
From my point of view it drives really well. There are only two points I want to do at the future. 1. Install an orig. stabiliser (must look how that fits or what has to be done with the short axle... 2. Cut some spring leaves to get the ride even more softer...I am getting old :D

The IRS back end is an episode for the next update.

Tue Oct 14, 2025 9:03 am

This bus is absolutely fantastic!
I kind of smile whenever I see pictures of a splitscreen with radiused rear wheel arches, or other sacrilegious offenses carried out years ago... But this is another level!
I really love that it exists, and that you are enjoying it as it is, with sensible upgrades.
Hope I get to see it in the metal one of these days!

Mon Oct 20, 2025 12:36 pm

Hey, thank you very much for the kind words!
And yes, I am even a big fan of those cut out rear arches with huge tires sticking out :wink: Those crazy Jersey style van's as they are called.
There are some cool one's stound like the atomic van from belgian.
There was a lot of thinking to do it and put on some crestlines, ansens or so on it. But till yet I didn't had the balls to cut those super good 52 arches... getting old :lol:

Ok, so some words & pic's about the IRS rear end and later a warning.
As I did some IRS conversion, first was my 65 ex-ambulance, this was always the plan for the 52 till the beginning. I love how a well dialed in IRS drives. As a student I salvaged some IRS typ-3's to get super cheap parts. Cutting out the clamps is reslly relaxed with a typ-3 back, and you get many good IRS parts you need for nearly pennys. Ok back then...My friend Michael Richter did the clamping work. Best part regatding the clamping method is that you could adjust the camber out back. The clamps have to sit really at the absolute inside, that you could mount the IRS arms at the inside of the springplates. I paired that with typ-3 drums so the tires sit more at the outside. Always liked that style regarding my buses. If you want to have a way more narrow back you will need to shorten the IRS arms.

That's it folks for this time, more next time.
Ah, and the warning... If you got some nice torque you really need a very good support for the front of the gearbox. Otherwise it will look shortly like this...
When that happend i used an adaptor for the donut style, which is not around anymore. This weaks the nose a lot cause of the cutting to get it on, even with the front gearbox support the 2.2l worked this out. This was a big downer just some days before the DFL MayCruiseMadness at Hannover (one night before Maikäfertreffen) Good point? That engine got torque :lol:

Before