Big Yella
Well
it took me 20 months, a bit of determination,
a lot of planning and some dirt and
grease on the hands, but it's finished.
Phil Parry is my name. I live on the
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and
I'm a Technical Illustrator (with a
Design Drafting background) and this
is the story of how I came to build
my custom Trike 'Big Yella'.
It
was April 2004 when I discovered a restored
1965 Beetle sitting under an Apricot
tree in my fathers' backyard that he
was minding for an old friend and covered
in bird poo and Apricot juice. My daughter
had recently gained her drivers license
and (at the time) was keen on Veedubs.
The deed was done, we bought the Beetle
and I drove it back home to the Gold
Coast some 1780 kms (1106 miles). Sadly
on arrival at home the old 1200cc donk
was starting to complain about the long
journey, however, enroute I had already
decided to upgrade to a 1600cc engine
for that extra power. Old engine out....new
engine in and that was the beginning
of Big Yella.
Slurping
on a cup of coffee, I looked at the
old retired 1200cc engine now sitting
on my garage floor and admired the simplicity,
the efficiency, the engineering genius
of a German engine that has barely changed
in design since it was first developed
in the early 1930's and I thought to
myself I'd love to put the that engine
to some use. From out of the ether,
the thought of building a VW Trike came
to mind. No 'Big Deal' you might think
and that's fair enough.....except the
only Trike I had ever seen was on a
documentary with Scottish comedian Billy
Connolly, and that was a converted Harley-Davidson
and I hadn't given it much thought.
So having experienced divine intervention,
I strolled into the kitchen and proudly
announced to my dear wife and son of
my plan to construct a VW Trike. They
looked at each other in disbelief for
a moment and my gorgeous wife of 28
years said, "Oooookay then....you
get the Trike and I get the new kitchen"
"Yep!...that didn't go too bad
then" I thought to myself and the
wheels of imagination began to whirr
in my head.
Now,
I must say, that I have always believed
in doing a task, whatever it is, to
perfection and that anyone....and I
mean anyone, can do anything and I mean
anything, as long as they use some common
sense, a little planning and a fair
bit of determination. So the first step
was sourcing what information was available
on the web pertaining to Trike and motorcycle
design and then deciding what was bull
dust and what was fact. Having now developed
and reasonably sound idea of what was
required I began the layout and design
stage. Here in Australia the regulations
determining the construction of any
private vehicle are very stringent,
in fact I think that if a vehicle can
pass compliance regulations in OZ, it
would pass in any country.
With
the basic plans now drawn up, I fortunately
had the presence of mind to contact
the state authority (Dep't of Transport)
and inform them of my intention, not
that that caused any dramas, they simply
gave me the names of 3 local compliance
engineers. I make this point because
many home builders, for whatever lame
reason, often decide to invest months
building their pride and joy, then when
they've completed their pride and joy,
they then contact the local authority
to have it approved for road use. That's
as smart as leaping from a plane at
altitude and checking that you've strapped
your parachute on with the wind blasting
through your nostrils...dah!
With
the basic plans now drawn up, I fortunately
had the presence of mind to contact
the state authority (Dep't of Transport)
and inform them of my intention, not
that that caused any dramas, they simply
gave me the names of 3 local compliance
engineers. I make this point because
many home builders, for whatever lame
reason, often decide to invest months
building their pride and joy, then when
they've completed their pride and joy,
they then contact the local authority
to have it approved for road use. That's
as smart as leaping from a plane at
altitude and checking that you've strapped
your parachute on with the wind blasting
through your nostrils...dah!
Enough
of the sermon for today. I hope you
enjoy the photos of Big Yella and maybe
get inspired to build your own machine
one day. Oh just a couple of things.
Yes... my wife did get her brand new
kitchen, from the floor up, which I
did myself and took 5 weeks of building
time away from my Trike, and as for
the original old 1200cc engine that
started it all, well it never got used.
You see, I ended up with a 1600 engine
also and the 1200 was sold to a sheep
shearer who was restoring an old 'Splitty'
a couple of thousand miles away in a
little one horse town in the dry Australian
outback. And as for my daughters VW
that started it all. She fell out of
love with the manual gear change and
purchased a Jap automatic and sold the
little Beetle. Strangely enough, I was
the one who bought the Beetle from her.....ain't
life strange!
See
more of Big Yella at my website http://www.bigyella.com:80/
Phil
Parry
