Off to Paint. FINALLY!!!

Summer 2013:

Last June was a big month for the project.  I've been on the waiting list at Deluxe Customs of Tempe, AZ for over a year.  June was the month I planned to drop the car off for a full body and paint restoration.  I'd been collecting all the required seals, hardware, and rare little parts to take along with the car for the past two years.  Disassembly, suspension configuration, and other pre-paint details took a year of evenings and weekends, and now it was finally time for the car to be stripped to bare steal, and redone in true, top to bottom fashion.  Unfortunately where I live in south western Louisiana, there's no VW restoration talent anywhere to be found.  Research on who could do a truly show worthy job on this particular car led me to the nearest option, Deluxe Customs.  Yeah,,, I trailered the car all the way to Tempe...

Brent "Bert" Bachman and I loading up in LA.

TEXAS

Luckily my folks planned a visit just prior to the road trip and we ended up making the journey a family affair.  Kind of appropriate seeing as how the cars been around since I was a kid.  

We were a little road weary by West Texas,, started singing Marty Robbins about 2 hours outside of   El Paso and figured we ought to try and find Rosa's Cantina...  Sure enough, it exists!!  You can hit Mexican soil with a stone from the parking lot.  I wouldn't plan to go here alone, but if you've got back up its worth a stop to have a cold beer and pick up a kick ass T-Shirt.  

AZ, Almost there!

Arrival at Deluxe

Matt Howard (owner) and I spent over two hours walking around the car ironing out all the details.  By the end of it, we had a couple of pages of notes, Matt had drawn all over the car with a permanent marker, all my requests were recorded, and I was confident that the journey would end up being worth it in the end.  The car was in good hands. 

 As a testament to the talent and abilities of the guys working in this shop, look at what was being worked on when I dropped the VW off!!  That's a 1958 Mercedes SL drop top, which had major rust damage and was to be finished in gloss black.  The rest of the place was wall to wall Porsche 356's in various stages of rejuvenation. Crazy beautiful work all around!!