Allen,

Not sure if you remember me or not but I am the fellow you met at the Circle
yer wagons show a couple of years ago that originally built your Allison
Dunebuggy.  Name is Fred Powell from Gainesville, Ga.  I finally found an
Allison to restore.  It was one of the group of 3 bodies that were shipped
at the same time to the Gainesville VW dealer in 1969.  My original one was
solid royal blue  #1 (never could re-locate), the other one shipped was
purple with black striping #2 and then the original black with gold #3
(originally on your chassis).  I found the purple with black stripe buggy
for sale here in Gainesville two and a half years ago. I have completely
stripped the body from the chassis and am using nothing from the original
running gear.  I am going to paint the body back some sort of blue with the
black stripe.  I have built another chassis using a late model irs pan.  I
am using disc brakes on the front and lowered front spindles.  I have a set
of polished Porsche 911S wheels 6.5 inch on the front and 8.5 inch on the
rear.  Beefed up transmission with welded 3rd and 4th close ratio gears.  I
have also engineered an ABS braking system into the braking system taken
from a Volvo 940 turbo.  The engine is together and waiting installation.
82 X 94, Scat crank and heads, 44mm carbs and all that good stuff.  I am
using a Porsche fan type cooling system instead of the VW type fan housing.
I saw the discussion about the buggies on the forum and saw the full length
Allison one of your friends was discussing.  These were originally built for
rental on the beach at Daytona.  A fellow name Art had about 30 of these
that he rented and were mostly driven on the beach at Daytona.  I would
imagine that any of the surviving chassis would be severely rusted!  They
were mostly built on older swing axle chassis with small engines and usually
had 5 lug wheels.  Just thought you might want to know.

Ok

Hey Volvo Fixer, I to have found a Allison to restore.  The poor thing has been "rode hard" and put up wet, but the body is solid and is the shorten model. It looks like Allen's ,but the hood is a little longer and the fenders have a flair. Jason put some photos on this thread that you can see. It is in primer now ,use to be red. About 3 of these Allisons were owned by my fellow mechs. at old Southland Volkswagen here in Chatt. Where I got my start in VWs. I had a Manx
    My Allison was supposed to a 68 , but turns out to be on a 66 pan but has everthing that a 68 bug would have like a 4 lug swing axle tranny and 4 lug front drums. The rims are ,I  think are 14" old school Ansens.
    The only thing that is missing is the Allison name plate that goes over the tag  light on the rear. The rubber
 gasket for the tag light is in poor condition. Do you have a clue where I can find these things ?
     Who has the older body? Allen or me
    The Allison plate on the side of the wind screen is   47C7052472R          Thanks
 David  ( Ret-BugTech)

Hey David,

Fred Powell here (volvofixer).  Sorry about not getting back to you sooner
but I just haven't checked the forum lately.  The earlier Allison bodies had
straight sided fenders without any flair.  The later ones that were built in
the 70's had a slight roll or flair on the outside edges of the fenders that
rolled outward.  And also had a little extra length to the hood with a
little more definition where the horizontal parts of the hood broke over to
vertical.  You have one of the last group of "short" bodies as (Kenny)
Allison was building mostly long cars in the mid 70's.  Allen's body is the
same age as mine and is older than yours.  Allison Mfg. finally shut down
around 1978-1979.

As far as I know there are no more Allison name plates to be had. Mine does
have one.  I called Arlene Allison (Ken Allison's widow) about 15 years ago
and ended talking to her daughter Carol.  At that time I was trying to
recover the old molds for the short cars but she said that her brother Jerry
had taken a chainsaw to them and cut them up and put them in the dumpster!
He also threw out every thing that had to do with the fiberglass shop. They
had a fabric shop now where the dunebuggy factory was.

I would enjoy sharing pictures of the buggies.  Mine is to be painted in the
next month or so.  I am nearing completion of the chassis.  If you like I
can shoot you a few pictures.

Regards,

Fred

Who is Tenn Runner with the Allison

Strange but true - My family was the one hit by the buggy in the parade.

Hey Runner,  Your family run over by a Buggy ?    When and where did this happen. I hope everyone is OK.

http://chattanoogan.com/articles/article_111407.asp
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_111408.asp?imgID=20519

We are all alive and no broken bones. Wife and 7 year old daughter have a real bad cut each and are both banged and bruised real bad. They are recovering nicely and it will just take some time.

Wow!  I didn't know that even had happened. Happy to hear that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I hope your wife and little girl mend well.
     I didn't know the Shriners had full size buggys around here anymore. I thought they only had those little Go-cart looking toy buggys.

Thanks I am sure they will, it will just take some time.

They have 2 units Choo Choo riders all the buggies are identical and the buggy patrol any and all buggies.

I saw a clip of this on the late news last night on channel 9 and it looked to me like the red buggy was going way to fast and never made an attemp to slow down or try to steer away. The red buggy looked like he came from the middle of the street straight into the yellow little buggy. Did he have a mechanical failure or a little to much "Fruit of the Vine" ? It wouldn't suprise me . Shriners can "Rattle Antlers" as good as the Elks when it comes to "Party-Time.
    No charges were made against the driver and the whole story was kind of put on the back burner until now.  Who is picking up the tab for the medical cost for Tennessee-Runners wife and Daughter. The Shriners should. I wonder if they have to have some kind of insurance for events like this. We have to have insurance for our B-Ps !
    I wonder who paid who off to try to keep this incident out of the "lime-light"? :roll: Hmmmm :-k