1972 VW 411 Variant? An odd little wagon

I had Chris order me one and send it across in part X for some other nonsense we were dealing with. Nobody around here even knows what shirt that is! They think I'm wearing a playstation shirt, and for that reason I don't wear it much. lol

So this has occurred:
165hp with a rebuilt engine, clutch, transmission and axles. With reciepts.

Let the fabrication begin!

Only an inch difference in wheelbase. Didn't know that.

😎

Not sure if this is a render.

😉

That Audi thing is sweet! Looks like a render, yeah. or stupid ai.
I'm starting the chop process in a couple days! WOOHOOOO

Ok! So I have started chopping away at the Subaru Forester.
It's a 2002, makes about 165BHP and has a 5spd manual gearbox.
The lady I got it from, had spent a boatload of money on it in the last few years.

New/rebuilt transmission, new clutch. New cylinder heads and timing belt, new axles, brakes and prop shaft. She was driving it daily until the plastic body trim inside the rear of the car began to bow and protrude upward. Her mechanic told her, stop driving it and scrap it- the passenger side rear strut tower has rusted off!

This is where I come in....

I bought it for more than scrap value because she had receipts showing all the repairs. Once I started taking the interior out of it, I saw the extent of the rust. (we get several feet of snow, a few times each winter and the roads here are salted more than a truckload of margaritas on cinco de mayo.












I removed the rear strut and began securing the top strut mount in exactly the same place as the "good side". YES, I used my good glasses and tape measure.

Once the strut was positioned with accuracy tolerances up to -+ 3mm, I bought steel tube and started welding a support structure tied to the floor pan with plates, right above the strongest part of the floor, in six places.







Once I got the rusted away top mount anchored, I duplicated the braces on the driver's side, allowing me to cut off the remaining strut tower. This was necessary because the body of this Subaru is too wide to fit under the VW wagon. I welded everything half way for now, and cut the rest of the body off. The back end will now fit under the rear of the VW 411 shell. The front end??

Oh that needs to be narrowed as well. More on that in a couple days.











I dropped a seat back in it- fired it up and drove it outside, so I could clean up this huge mess!

Nothing moves except the suspension. Zero flex that I can see.
The side sills or "rockers" as we call them- need to come off too. I have 2x3 rectangle steel that I will build new sills, front to back, once I start securing the front suspension and wing supports. All of this stuff, including scooby dash and windscreen- are too wide, and they're coming out.

I have about 2 days in it so far, I expect another few days and I'll be ready to start cutting the VW wagon. I'll get some more pics when I do the front suspension! I'm keeping the ABS, all factory switching, hopefully the cruise control and Aircon. Hopefully.

I plan on taking it out back and doing some hoonigan nonsense as it sits now haha Hope I don't fall out!

That's a lot of rust even by UK standards 😳 You must have put a lot of hours in to get this far in a couple of days 👏 looking forward to seeing the next episode.

Oh it just got better! I hooned it around out back. It runs drives, shifts and DRIFTS perfectly! So much fun.
It'll be great when I can get this thing under that little VW shell.

I'll get back to this thing in about a week. I'm about to start the engine in the Coyote swapped 1955 Ford truck- parts have arrived.

More on the VW 411 later