Brian (tuna_641@hotmail.com) is selling this very clean looking Mini 18 VW Beetle pickup conversion. It’s a very rare kit, and I suspect there are less than a dozen of them on the road (and not many more ever made). Brian’s has the original paint (does that matter in a kit?) and he says it runs and drives great. Appropriately it has an 8-track player and a vintage CB radio. Up until recently this car was a daily driver.
It’s on a ’73 Super Beetle chassis, with many new parts (including carb, gas tank, distributer, plugs, plug wires, air cleaner, voltage regulator, belt, master cylinder, wheel cylinders, seat covers, and carpet). Truck is located in St. Ansgar, Iowa.
Wayne (bubbawayne1984@yahoo.com) in Bonner Springs (near Kansas City) has got this interesting “Mini Mack” (not to be confused with a “Mini-18″ which shared the name initially) for sale at an asking price of only $1,200. It’s a DIY project (one-off forward tilting front end and custom rear deck) on a 1977 4-cylinder manual Ford Ranger chassis, with full lighting, air horns, and stacks like a miniature big rig. It’s been through quite a lot of owners so the history of the vehicle is not known.
The last photo is a picture of a similar project that I worked on years ago — we mated the front of a Mini-18 kit to a truck, and then hung a trailer axle off the rear to give it six wheels, which I think would be a pretty neat addition for the next owner of Wayne’s truck!
I just noticed a pair of Craigslist ads (797045564 and 797033066; Jhonpaul @ 360-801-3722) in Seattle advertising a pair of classic Elite Enterprises kit cars. First up they’ve got the more common Laser 917, built on a VW pan with a Buick V6 powering it. Asking price is $5,000.
More interestingly, they also have a Mini 18 (aka Mini Max), something you almost never see for sale. He’s asking $3,800 for this ultra-rare kit car. Both cars are running but could use work, with the Mini 18 needing more work.
Check out Bob’s (if I remember right) Mini 18 #1 — literally the one that you see in the brochures. It’s a regular at the show, but these photos were taken at Carlisle 2006. Seeing it so finished in person makes me sort of which that I’d not only kept mine, but left it as is (I converted it to six wheels and put it on a truck chassis), it really looked great.
Carlisle ’98… These pictures are thanks of Scott B., starting with this sweet pair of Fiberfab Avengers. The red one is powered by a turbo V6.
Or check out a pair of unrelated cars both built on race-inspired V6 tube chassis. The car on the left, a Cimbria (I believe now marketted in a slightly improved form as a Neria, but I don’t think the company is truly active). The car on the right is now-defunct Warp 5‘s demo Manta Montage.
And I’ve got to admit, I have a real weakness for the fancy-topped Sterling:
(Note the Mini 18 in the background!)
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