Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Earlier today Nefarious and I (and my mechanic) drove out into the desert to visit the guys who are doing the transmission rebuild on my Manta Montage. As I've mentioned it's kind of an odd backwoods region — like you almost expect to stumble across the Cahulawassee River and some kid playing the banjo. Anyway, sitting there in the midst of it is my car:

They've completely disassembled it and put it back together, finding nothing wrong with the transmission… The current theory is that the problem still lies in the shifter, which we'd cobbled together from a mid-engine kit designed to be used with Type IV Volkswagen transmissions (ie. a VW bus) in custom vehicles… This however is not a 4-speed VW tranny but a 5-speed transmission out of an older Porsche 911 so the range of motion may be a little off.

Although I'd thought this kit was going to solve my problems, it looks like we're going back to my original plan of transplanting a cable-based shifter such as one out of a Fiero… They tell me they have a guy they work with that's done such a job before, so Attempt III of this project begins on Monday. Fingers crossed! At least labor is inexpensive in Mexico and I hope they all get a kick out of the car.

I've been thinking that Phil or someone down here needs to start a “VW Bugs of Mexico” blog because there are so many different sorts of sand rails, Baja bugs, Things, and oddball custom jobs driving the streets here since they still manufactured the Beetle up until I think two years ago in Mexico. For simple starters, here's a couple Baja bugs; a red one and a blue one:

Or maybe you prefer one with the roof chopped off?

Perhaps you're a fellow that prefers hot rods? Here's one that's not got a chopped off roof but simply a chopped roof. The whole job was very home made but it still looked great — the owner seemed quite tickled that someone would pull over to take photos of his creation.

Anyway, I could go on and on about these but I have work to do!