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Carlisle, PA Spring Swap Meet 1992

Any information on tech specs, current whereabouts or other history sought...


Bring it on. K-mann[/url]

Current whereabouts: on the samba forum!!

Just kidding! This would be an interesting find to see if this "Thing" is still around today, and to find out how many of those rear wheels are powered.....

From a techno point of view, notice that I posted a somewhat "larger than normal" image. Was I compensating for "something else" or was it the folks that built the log ass Thang and or the original photographer... Dang Merle.. That thar Thang shure iz long... K-mann

Hey all, I'm bringing this old thread back to life because this vehicle has been found and is undergoing restoration. I've been aware of it's existence in a cold-storage garage in Wilder, VT for a decade, but it was only recently sold off with the rest of the storage bay's contents and is now in the possession of my friend Mitch.

It is currently disassembled, with a pile of Thing parts that I'm not sure belong to it, including an apparently unmodified pan. I'm wondering if somebody planned on restoring it to original, and gave up. Any more history or photos would be welcome!

I'll post some current pics soon.

Current picture (please forgive the blurriness):

So cool that this old beast reemerged after all these years. Thing have a way of showing up after years of various qualities of “Cold” storage, This one look to stored nicely.

For the most part, it has weathered the last 19 years in storage nicely. The builder took great pains to seal and rustproof the body to better-than-factory standard. In fact, all the fabrication is exemplary, as if it was done by Volkswagen itself. There was very little filler used.

Which leads me to today's news:

I've learned that the car was owned in the late 80's and possibly into the 90's by a Duncan C. Syme, who was one of the founders of the Vermont Castings stove company. Considering Mr. Syme's background in engineering-- he held several U.S. patents for stove designs-- I think there's a very good chance that he was the original builder. I have tracked down two phone numbers for Mr. Syme, who is in his 70's now. One number is local (which I assume is a summer home) and one is in Arizona. I will be attempting to contact him tomorrow!

I also found a tag inside the glovebox indicating that the vehicle attended the 1992 Antique Truck and Tractor Show at Owls Head Transportation Museum in Maine. I'll be contacting the museum tomorrow in search of archival information, and hopefully pictures, from the event.

Finally, I determined that the pan which accompanies the body is in fact a '71 Karmann Ghia, and has not been altered to fit the modified body. This confirms my suspicions that the original chassis is long gone. Hopefully Mr. Syme will be able to shed some light on the mystery of whether the second axle was driven!

I'm not sure who has my old 6 wheeled 181 now, but would love to chat about it plus I have all the extra parts--such as the 5 (FIVE) windshield wipers that go across the windshield.

Duncan

Hey I'm very familiar with this 6wheel Thing. In fact Duncan Syme is my step father. I have driven it many times when it was together and I can tell you Duncan built this car perfect!! I had a friend send me this post and I just passed it on to Duncan. He has a ton of extra parts for sale. And since he designed and built it he can answer any question about the car. I do know that the extra axel was not a driven axel. If anyone needs more info from me please feel free to email me directly at [email protected] it is great to see that someone has plans to put the car back together and after talking to Duncan he would love to get some pictures if possible? VW's RULE!!!!!

The extra axle is a cut down Rabbit rear torsion item. Not driven. It was supposed to get shock struts, but never quite made them so I just used to run it with only about 10 psi in those tires to keep them from bouncing. Another plan which never happened was to make tracks to go around the back two wheels to turn it into a halftrack. They would have been made from industrial belting with aluminum "fingers bolted to the inside to keep them on. I still have the "finger" pattern that I made, but never got around to casting them. What I did cast was a set of four iron wheels (they're with the ws wipers) so that it could run on RR tracks. Used to drive around with them just bolted in place which got a few stares--well got lots of stares, but never knew why. Note the two guys at Carlisle gawking. In that pic I'm driving and the passenger was Dave Sellers, and architect friend of mine. We had gone down to visit his client and do some work on their house in Carlisle, PA.

Duncan