News & Updates.......

17/04/2005 - Been out again today working on the Ghia, and checking on the progress of my engine. We painted the rollcage brown, fitted new door cards thanks to Spirit of the 50's which were a bargain! I also started the mammouth task of covering every inch of the inside of my roof with stickers, thankfully i have been saving them up! We also fitted the new side trim which Steve bought me for Christmas! Unfortunetly not all the bits fit on, due to have a dint in a panel!On the engine side of things, the crank is going to be balanced tomorrow, and unfortunetly as set of bearings i ordered were wrong, so i have to get the right set re-sent out tomorrow! Other than that we are on target to fit the engine next weekend.

10/04/2005 - Pictures as promised of the Ghia as it stands at the moment. We fitted the new numberplate this morning, and also tidied up the carpet some more. I must say im really happy with the way the car looks at the moment! apart from the wheels as there not fitted yet, but they will be soon

09/04/2005 - Today we had a productive day on the Ghia. The floor pans have now been painted again due to having the cage, and i have also fitted a new set of polyurathane gearbox mounts. Also had to re-cut the carpet around the cage mounts which was fun! Please click on the pictures below to see larger images, these pics are the car and cage when it came back from Jon Rathbones. I will take some newer pics of the car tomorrow, so you can see what has been done.

09/04/2005 - Thanks to States Plates for the rapid delivery of my new 'American' numberplates. I have also bought a new surround for the rear plate.

04/04/2005 - Sorry it has been a while since i have updated the site, we were busy getting the 'Crew' bus ready for the Volksworld show where it was on display in the Esher hall. Now though its time to get back to work on the Ghia ready for Big Bang which is the next race meet at the end of April, and coincides with my birthday!

27/01/2005 - Just a bit of an update. The car has now come back from John Rathbone Racing and im very happy with the result! I will post pics as soon as i have taken some decent ones. I have also purchased a set of Mahle 4 stud baby gas burners for the Ghia which will be going on as soon as i have decided wether to detail them or get them fully polished.

27/01/2005 - Hope you all had a great new year! The Ghia is now residing at John Rathbone Racing where i am having a full 6 point roll cage plus many other bits.
I am due to pick the car up in a week so i will post pictures when i have the Ghia back. It only seems like 5 minutes ago when i first started racing, and now this year will be my 4th season racing.

09/12/04 - News at last!! Its been a hectic but very good year! The Karmann Ghia has been renamed Striptease II and is proving very successful!! The crowing point of the year was my Bug Jam 2004 VW Sportsman win!!!! Racing with the 1914cc engine from Striptease I i managed to win the VW sportsman class and to top it all off i became the UK record holder for knocking out the most number of drivers in any drag racing class!!!! For the 2005 season Striptease II will be powered by a 2276cc engine and also a full 6 point roll cage installed by John Rathbone Racing. As you can see the site has been updated so keep checking for my progress!

20/05/2004 - Well its been a while, nearly a year infact! Apologies to those of you who do read this section. After Bug Jam last year when we ran out best of 14.12 i put the car away for the rest of the season, due to money and movin house. Unfortunetly in December last year i decided to sell the beetle but keep the engine and decided to take a break from racing. During the next 4 months i realised how much i missed racing, and going to race meets, so i decided to buy a new project with a view to making it into a race car again. I bought a 1969 Karmann Ghia. The Rebirth began........

09/06/2003 - Sorry its been so long since this page has been updated. We have been flat out sorting engine bits out aswell as going to shows. Latest news is that the engine is now ready to be put back together. The Straight cut cam gears have now arrived from John Maher Racing so its currently all go. Summer Nationals are now only a few weeks away and entry forms have been sent of. So if you are around at the pod then come and say hi. We now also have a new tow vehicle, a T25 transporter, picked it up yesterday and it was fantastic to drive, so all being well we wont have any more traumas on the way to reace meetings now!

06/05/2002 - Good News. Everything seems to be ok. The case has been split and all the internals are fine and still in very good condition. The main bearings are shot, so they need to be replaced, and the crank will need to be re-ground. Although we broke its now big smiles all round as thankfully the bearings are not expensive to replace. Photos from the weekend have been uploaded to the gallery area. Thanks to all that contributed.

05/05/2002 - Well Big Bang has been and gone, There is some good and bad news. The car was all ready, and there were last minute preperations on the friday night before the engine was fitted. All was good with the engine, it fitted in right, set up right, and ran exceptionally well when started up. The first run gave us a 18.1 which we were very pleased with. It was purely a test run to check everything was running ok. We then tinkered with the car some more ( the gear linkage needed adjusting and the points were swopped for a luminition ignition ) We then took the car out again and it ran a 15.5 !!!! big big difference and we were very happy. Matt drove the car on that run and said it was running extremely well. Then disaster happened as when we got back to the pits we realised matt wasnt there, he was at the end of the strip. The engine had siezed totally. After a bit of digging it seemed to be the front main bearings.It was then game over for us.
Im now home from the show and its late now, we will know more tomorrow morning when the case is split and the parts checked. Check back tomorrow for further updates. Thanks.

30/04/2002 - Todays my 21st birthday, but we have 2 celebrations today. The engine is officially running! it has bene run in today and all seems fine. We should be on course for Big Bang now

25/04/2002 - After an eventful day Striptease has now been dropped off at Jon Rathbone Racing. Having a cage fitted, ali panel over the dashboard and the window net fixed in. 7 days left to now get the car ready for Big Bang race meet.

14/04/2002 - Engine is finally coming along nicely. The Pulley has now come through (Thankfully) so the crank has been sent off to be balanced. The case has come back too from Taylor Machine Services so thats good news too. Also parts ordered from VWSpeedShop came through swiftly also. The Cage is now due to be done at John Rathbone Racing. We are taking it up next tuesday all being well.

07/04/2002 - All parts have now been delivered to Mattys for the build. We have our fingers crossed that everything will come through in time.
The Racer spacer arrived from JMR this morning. They were very helpful in getting it sent quickly to us.

31/03/2002 - Most engine parts have now come through. Thanks to Volksmania