Dun dun dun...

Dah dun dun dah dun dun.



That would be phonetics for "another one bites the dust." Jason has official cashed in the chips on Project Fox. The years of sitting and consequent years of rotting would appear to be too much for both his pocket and his welding skills.



Once the fenders came off it was pretty clear that more than a simple resto would be needed to keep the front clip from breaking off over the first big bump. It's kind of surprising it made it home on the tow dolly in one piece.



So where do we go from here? Well this uber-rare 1973 Fox is up for grabs if anyone wants it. It won't go to the crusher, but it may end up being parted out for whatever the other 5 Audi Fox owners in the states might need. If you're interested, hit us up at wolfsburgrs@gmail.com and I can pass the offers along to Jason. He says he wants to get what he paid for it, but I can probably talk him into almost anything...



So there goes, our first Audi project is no longer.

_WRS

Crazy like the Fox! A thorough inspection

A good deed never goes un-punished, and no 1973 Fox which has been sitting in a grassy area under a barn for over 15 years will be rust free. This we expect, know, and well, sort of take as a given. Jason has gotten the chance to do a very complete inspection of his super old, super rare 1973 Audi Fox and the news is both good and bad.



After a complimentary tow to the shop (thanks AAA! totally worth it if you don't have it), and the car was checked over, fueled up and fired up...and RAN we were really hoping for the best once the car was up in the air. Obviously some rust was expected, but things went a bit beyond that.



The first clue was the hood. It is virtually disintegrating in front of our eyes, and is barely hanging on by a latch...in fact the passenger driver's side has completely let go, consisting of more iron oxide than steel I suppose. The tops of the fenders weren't all that much better, and Jason was really beginning to worry about what the underside of the car was hiding.



Well...it was as bad as we thought, but all was not (and is not) a total loss. Although the inner fender literally came out in Jason's hand when he gave it a small tug, the main structure of the strut towers is quite solid and unharmed. Another year or so and it's hard to say, but as is, it's salvageable with some patch work and paying close attention to removing all the remaining surface rust.



Probably the biggest concern is the front subframe area. (no not the floors, although they need some work too)



The whole thing has sort of become one big hunk of rust, lightly sprinkled with holes...and the drive line needs to be removed to repair it. No biggie, but the removal of the subframe is going to be tricky.



This is not an area where Jason wants a broken, stripped or otherwise destroyed or non-removable bolt. The chances of that are pretty high, but with a little luck it won't happen. I'm not a betting man, but if I was, those are not odds that I would take. (What I'm saying is I would bet there will more likely be a problem than not.)



So. What else does the future hold? Well Jason is in the full swing of the Save the 8v™ movement and will be keeping the Fox carb'd and 8-valved. He's eyeballing an old GT4 spec head that once resided on a 1.6 Rabbit race car, along with a nice fat cam and a bigger carb. Naturally that will be down the road, but it's good to focus on the positive when you have so much potential negative on your plate now.



We'll let you know how things go after we tear into project Crazy like the Fox! In the meantime, I'm thinking we're the crazy ones....

_WRS

Crazy like the Fox! - Teaser pic

So Jason finally got his not so shiny and not all that new 1973 Audi Fox to the headquarters for some work and much closer inspection, and overall it's both better and worse than anticipated. Better, because all it needed was a fresh battery, fresh oil and some gas and it started right up. Worse because the rust is a bit more prevalent than was expected. I'll go a bit more into depth on that all later but the important thing is that the ball is rolling and work is progressing. Jason's managed to keep a pretty level head about it which is important about this sort of thing. Rust is most certainly a downer on any new car, but figuring that 1973 Audi Foxes are super rare, it'll be worth the hard work.

_WRS

Crazy like the Fox! Minor update

It's been a slow couple of days here at the WRS, so we're going to just update with a few daytime shots of the Fox project. Jason went back and did some more inspections on the car, and was pleased to report that overall things appear to be in better-than-expected condition.

Popping the top off the airbox / carb revealed a clean air filter, and the main areas of rust aren't quite as life threatening as expected. The tops of the strut towers do show some corrosion, but it appears to be mainly on the surface, meaning that the few dollars which are going to be thrown at this project can go towards the more important stuff, like suspension and getting the engine running, rather than reconstructing the whole unibody.

Here's Jason sitting in the car. He's making "vroom" noises in this pic, you just can't hear it.

As I mentioned in the first Fox post, the interior is pretty clean. It's full of junk, as the car has managed to become a bit of a storage unit over the last 15 years, but aside from a crack or two in the dash it's not bad. Not full of mold or dirt or anything wet, which is always a good sign when it comes to the electrics. Moisture on the interior would not bode well for grounds and similar connections, as I can tell you from first hand experience with my own projects that had been sitting before I put them on the road.

So that's it for the moment. Jason and I have been discussing some options on the cheapest way to lower the car without resorting to cut springs and a beyond terrible ride. I think eBay may hold the solution we require, but we'll see if any Mk1 or Mk2 parts will swap right on before doing anything too drastic.

_WRS

Jason's dreams in a picture

So Jason emailed me this picture as an idea of where he wants to go with his new Fox project. I like it. In fact I think this is the only kind of car I could honestly agree with running air ride on. It's old, it's never going to be all that fast, and it's probably not going to be driven very often, so big deal if the alignment is out of spec or it only looks good sitting still.

Yeah, that car is pretty damn dope. I could get behind an air ride Fox. Not air ride anything else, but the Fox makes it happen. Jason: Stop reading this and get to work!

_WRS

Introducing....Crazy like the Fox!

We're full of bad ideas here at Der Wolfsburg Rennsport. I would like to think that our bad ideas pale in comparison with those of some of the people we (I) associate with. Mainly, my good friend Mr. Jason Mingle. Jason is actually full of awesomely bad ideas, which is to say, ideas so insane in their scope, and with so many potential obstacles to overcome, should they become finished they would be, in a word, Awesome. This Audi Fox is one of those ideas.

This nearly all original is a classic in terms of "barn finds" or whatever you want to call them. Family owns farm, uncle owns Audi. Uncle parks Audi at farm, intending to "come back and get it later" and ultimately never does. Car sits, some nut job (Mingle, and I mean that in a nice way) hears about it, goes to see, ends up buying it. "It ran when they parked it..." and so it goes.

What we have here is a quite rare, 1973 Audi Fox. 4-speed manual, 1.5 8v engine, brown paint, tan interior, all classic. 1973 was the very first year for the Audi Fox in America, and as such it's the first water-cooled FWD 8v VAG product sold here in the USA. (I think?) At any rate, it definitely looks like it's been sitting for a number of years, as judged from the undergrowth, and probably facing north, judging from the amount of moss on the exterior. (or is that algae?)

The interior, while dirty, is actually in fairly good condition, as is the engine bay and front half of the car. It's been saved by a healthy coating of the engine oil that has found its way past the bottom end seals and spread like a black, buttery preservative.

The rest of the car's underbody? Well, let's just say that Mingle is going to need a tetanus shot and some sheet metal to bring this puppy back to life. That said, with a little bit of hard work on the suspension and wheels, perhaps a little tune up on the engine (it is an 8v after all - Save the 8v™) and some general love, it should be quite the looker.

So there it is, the very newest, very oldest, and probably coolest WRS project to date. Unlike Scirocco Madness, this one will have a wrench turned on it by the end of the year, and with the Mingler's taste in cars (low, lower and lowest) you can bet this Fox will be sitting pretty (but preserved) come spring time. Hopefully we'll be getting Jason an official sign on here sooner or later, and he can add some color commentary as it occurs. After all, anyone as dedicated as this deserves to be on the team. Save the 8v™ indeed.

_WRS