I first found this 1969 doublecab in poor condition. The body had rust-through and the front end was beaten in. It barely ran well enough to drive it to a mechanic's shop where it got a brake job and an partial engine tuneup. A few days later I took it to a body shop to be stripped and repainted. The color I chose was BMW Cinnibar Red. The interior was painted too and got new black vinyl upholstery. The fold-down back and side gates proved to be very useful.

The body man was a shady fellow who tried every way he could to cut corners. He had quoted me a fixed price. At first he painted the truck with a mixture of red paints he had left over in his shop. This would have saved him having to buy the BMW red I had specified. The color looked much too orange to fool me, so I had him do it over. His next tactic was to put my project on the back burner so he could get other, smaller jobs done. As a result the project took three months. When I finally picked up my truck, it looked very good, but our shady body man had not done the mechanical work he had promised to do. The moral of the story is, get a contract that spells everything out in detail. And don't ever go to the Body Shop From Hell!

When I got the truck home, I put in a remanufactured engine with twin carbs. It ran beautifully. I fixed up the heater ducts so the heat was decent in the front and back seats. This doublecab became the family "minivan" for many years. We took it on many vacations. The truck bed was perfect for a foam matress we had, so we threw that in with our other gear when we went camping. A plastic tarp thrown over the bed made a perfect shelter for sleeping.

The truck as you see it here is ten years after its restoration. The engine in the photo is a spare that didn't have dual carbs. Some parts of the body stayed shiny while others grew dull with age. It seems the Body Shop From Hell had skimped on the hardener in the paint, so it oxidized quickly. The vehicle was not as reliable as modern ones, so it required repair on something every few months. But I would do it all again. It was a truck that really turned heads, and gave us a lot of pleasure.