Friday, comming home from a long, exhausting working day, been welding a totaly rotten Merc all day. So I stpped by at ALDI, which shares a big parking lot with Burger King, where they hold an unofficiall US car meet each month. I was tired, had seen most of the cars before, so I only drove past slowly, cast a few looks and headedto the exit of the parking lot, when suddenly something appeared and I stomped the brakes, took the next parking lot and stormed out with my camera.
No, it's not the Camaro. It's that little red thing, which many people - funny enough on a US car enthusiast meet - misstook for a GT40 ;D
But - it's actually a Beetle. Well, the chassis is. The fibre glas body makes it a very rare Fibrefab FT Bonito. I've not seen one 'in the flesh' before, so this is most probably my 'spot of the year'. I have a massive love for these beautifull cars.
There's without a doubt a lot of GT40 in the design, but the rear and side lines are different. And that's all but bad
This one has had a few very neat modifications, the exhaust (roaring, lovely loud and nice sounding) is all custom made, the rear skirt was modified, the dashboard is a Porsche replica and the car got leather Recaros, some tweaks here and there and a Type4 engine with about 110HP (usually the normal Beetle engine with 34 to 53HP). Weighting just shy of 700kg, the owner told me it lives up to it's fast looks. I had a little chat with said owner, he's owned the car for a very long time now. And - like on that day - the first question from everyone is "Wow, that's nice nice
- what is it?" ;D
And - whilst I showed you this car, I feel like adding a bit of it's history. We're not talking about the american Fibrefab company, but the german branch of it.
Jörgfrieder Kuhnle was an employee at Fibrefab, and returned to Germany to found the german Fibrefab. They made some VW based kit cars, of which one was the FT Bonito. First presented in '69. It was sold only in kit form, no assembled cars were sold. They were shipped in big wooden crates. About 1000 FT Bonito kits were supplied. Of which about 100 are known to remain today. And of those 100 only a few are ready to drive and on the road. I feel very lucky to have cought one 'alive'.
Fibrefab supplied the shell, some chassis strengthening parts, interior parts (dash, headlining), doors and verious smal parts like seals, windows etc. The rest was left to the owner. The windscreen is from a Ford 12M P6, the rear screen of a Opel Record C coupé.
No, it's not the Camaro. It's that little red thing, which many people - funny enough on a US car enthusiast meet - misstook for a GT40 ;D
But - it's actually a Beetle. Well, the chassis is. The fibre glas body makes it a very rare Fibrefab FT Bonito. I've not seen one 'in the flesh' before, so this is most probably my 'spot of the year'. I have a massive love for these beautifull cars.
There's without a doubt a lot of GT40 in the design, but the rear and side lines are different. And that's all but bad
This one has had a few very neat modifications, the exhaust (roaring, lovely loud and nice sounding) is all custom made, the rear skirt was modified, the dashboard is a Porsche replica and the car got leather Recaros, some tweaks here and there and a Type4 engine with about 110HP (usually the normal Beetle engine with 34 to 53HP). Weighting just shy of 700kg, the owner told me it lives up to it's fast looks. I had a little chat with said owner, he's owned the car for a very long time now. And - like on that day - the first question from everyone is "Wow, that's nice nice
- what is it?" ;D
And - whilst I showed you this car, I feel like adding a bit of it's history. We're not talking about the american Fibrefab company, but the german branch of it.
Jörgfrieder Kuhnle was an employee at Fibrefab, and returned to Germany to found the german Fibrefab. They made some VW based kit cars, of which one was the FT Bonito. First presented in '69. It was sold only in kit form, no assembled cars were sold. They were shipped in big wooden crates. About 1000 FT Bonito kits were supplied. Of which about 100 are known to remain today. And of those 100 only a few are ready to drive and on the road. I feel very lucky to have cought one 'alive'.
Fibrefab supplied the shell, some chassis strengthening parts, interior parts (dash, headlining), doors and verious smal parts like seals, windows etc. The rest was left to the owner. The windscreen is from a Ford 12M P6, the rear screen of a Opel Record C coupé.
