Friday, July 15th 2011
Gotta monster of a eBay Find for you readers this week. The Monster Garage Volkswagen Beetle Swamp Buggy has been spotted! An Ebay seller from Thurman, OH has listed this one of a kind ride recently at a price of 10K or BO. Nice a bad deal, especially if your looking to wow the folks at your local car show or cruse in. If you remember it does travel on land and water (kinda, sorta). For those who may not be familiar with this ride. Let me fill you in.
On the show's third episode, Jesse and the team put together vehicle capable of driving on land and floating on water much like a bayou swamp boat. They started with a 1999 VW Beetle for the base. They were given just a week and a small budget of just $3000 (not including the cost of the car). They hacked up the rear deck hatch and squeezed in a fan boat motor on tracks. Body modifications were made to help create a shell/hull. The empty hull was filled with foam to help make the car float. A long tall pipe was added to direct the exhaust up and out of the water. The team was successful in making a functional vehicle to meet the challenge while keep it relativity stock looking.
According to the eBay auction the car has been in storage for quite sometime. After the first season aired, the car along with other vehicles from the show went on tour. It eventually wound up in the Peterson Museum for sometime before being returned to the set. After the show was canceled the car was stored in warehouse in Burbank, CA. At some point most of the Monster Garage cars were sold at Barrett Jackson Auto Auction. However this lucky bug didn't go up on the auction block. Later the car was sold to the current owner and housed in Ohio out of public view. Which brings us to where we are today.
Now it can be yours! Head over to the auction and place your offer or buy it now. Be ready to pick it up locally. If you do. Please let us know! We'd love to feature your new OnScreenCar! See ya next time folks!
Categories: eBay Finds, Monster Garage
Tags: 1999, orange, red, vw
Monday, June 20th 2011
Ah summertime chores. Time to bake in the hot sun while pushing a four wheeled cart with a motor and rotating blade. Inching yourself closer to a cold refreshing drink that awaits. What if it could be done easier? Most people would say getting a riding model would do the trick. "Why push when you can ride?" For some that's just not enough. The folks on Monster Garage took that idea one step further and said why not ride in style? Then through magic of television one of the world's fastest and if not flashest lawnmower was built. The Switchblade!
You may recall this beast from the very first episode of Monster Garage. Chopper builder and host Jessie James assembles a team of fabricators and offers them the challenge of building the world's fastest lawnmower. The goal was to build a car that appears stock and the could mow a field at nearly 100 mph. The team was issued a vehicle and a few select parts. The rest will have to come from a budget of just $3000 dollars. Not to mention they will only have a few days to complete the build.
The base car the team started with was a 1990 Ford Mustang GT convertible. The GT that year came with the infamous 302 ci, 5.0 Liter V8 with an automatic transmission. The car did look like it had seen better days. The gas tank was yanked out, relocated and upgraded with a racing fuel cell. In the factory gas tank location was outfitted with a 48 inch triangular mowing deck built by Delta. In the trunk a 10hp Briggs and Stratton lawnmower powered the giant blades. Three additional cylindrical rotating blades were placed strategically through out the car to help cut the grass while moving at high speeds.
Looks a little dangerous for the driver huh?
With everything packed away the car looked stock. However that doesn't mean it wasn't styling and profiling. A candy lime green metal flake paint job with a flame job and new convertible top really set it off. The crew put some nice looking 20 inch gold Enzo wire wheels. With it all put together they completed their challenge and won the tools. By the way, this wouldn't be the last project to use these wheels. See our article about the Mobile Donut Shop. Another successful Monster Garage episode! That wasn't end of fame for the car. Reports show the car was later featured and sold on Barret-Jackson for a sum of $7300 dollars (a steal!). We did some more research and found the car is now part of the Volo Auto Museum in Volo IL. Don't work too hard and checkout some of the great Monster Garage products below.
Looking for Monster Garage on DVD
? Would you like to learn more about fabricating hot rods parts or maybe how to weld? Check Monster Garage's great book series!
Categories: Monster Garage
Thursday, April 8th 2010
What can pull people over, drive over a 100 miles per hour and make doughnuts all at the same time? The Monster Garage Cop Car Doughnut Shop. If you were a fan a of Monster Garage as I was, you would remember this car from Season Two - Episode 2. In this episode a group of cops are assembled to design, build and construct a mobile doughnut shop out of a 1998 Ford Crown Vic. As with other projects on Monster Garage, this vehicle must appear some what stock while performing the tasks requested by host Jesse James.
Exterior/Structural Mods
As you can see from these photos, they pulled it off. The body paint scheme is done in the traditional black and white fashion. There is a regular light bar on top. The car retained the spot light on the drivers side seen on most police vehicles. However the badge on the door isn't quite so normal. It's a star badge with a doughnut in the center. Mmm.. Doughnuts. Yes, I'm thinking the doughnut reminds me of the doughnuts Homer Simpson likes. Personally I like the ones with pink icing and sprinkles too. Don't ya think the doughnut badge might be a little ironic for a cop car? Oh well. The car rides on 45/35/20 Toyo tires mounted on 20 inch gold Enzo spinning wire wheels. Between the wheels and doughnut logo one might think this isn't your typical cop car.
Interior Mods
Because it isn't, this cop car has all the workings of a mobile doughnut shop. The passenger and rear seats were removed to make room for the additional gear. Those components include a coffee maker, a fully functional doughnut machine and doughnut display case. The doughnut making mechanisms are all part of a real Belshaw Brothers doughnut machine and robot. The drivers side got a little bit of love as well. The driver seat was replaced with a custom Stitchcraft Interiors race seat. A full control panel overlay was constructed over the console part of the dash. You know for things like radio control toggle, siren/lights control toggle and yeah doughnut toggle.
Final Thoughts
This is one of our favorite projects on Monster Garage. I couldn't imagine someone getting pulled over by this vehicle would last without at least a chuckle. It's funny and humor-full for sure. Don't forget to take the time to thank your local officers for all their hard work. Monster Garage thanked these lucky officers with a boat load of free tools! Oh if you're wondering where this lucky car ended up, it was auctioned off at 2008 Scottsdale Barrett-Jackson auto auction. It has since been on exposition at doughnut conventions! What a life for this cruiser. Catch ya next time here at On Screen Cars. Where you never know what we're coming out with next!
Reference: Barrett-Jackson.com IMDB
Categories: 1998 Ford Crown Victoria, Monster Garage
Tags: 1998, doughnut, ford, garage, monster