I think the page hangs together well Mark. You're very lucky to have as many pictures as you have. I've been trying to get pictures of the Judson workshops for nearly 15 years without success which makes a "History" section very dry.

As a small aside, I seen the original Ghia has a RHD modification. Pre 1960 Ghias only came out of the factory as LHD but there were a couple of companies in Aus and GB who advertised the conversion.

Thanks for that John.

I have quite a few more photos yet, but some of these are family photos and I just need to ensure that the Craney family have no objection to me using some of them. I obviously still have the section of the surviving cars to complete as well.

That is interesting about the Ghia and is something that I had never considered. You are quite correct as I have just enlarged the photos and I see that the car was LHD when it was imported, but has been converted to RHD in later photos.

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If you're interested in these early conversions Mark there are a few in this Samba topic: https://www.thesamba.com...m/viewtopic.php?t=462618 

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I have not been on the forum for a while as there have been a lot of things happening on the home and work front that has taken my focus off the Ascorts.

Some months back an Ascort was advertised on an Australian web site. It created a quite a bit of interest for a while, but there was no intent to actually sell the car. It seems that someone was fishing for what the value of the car was. It ended up selling to the Grandson of the person who owned the car in the 60s and 70s, and the son of the owner since that time.

The car is one of the most original Ascorts but it does not have its Okrasa. It is otherwise one of the most original and complete cars. I just hope that the planned restoration does not change anything.

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I received a call a few nights back from someone to advise that he has just bought an Ascort. The car is in pieces and has been that way for a while, but is pretty much all there and quite restorable.

Work had been started on the car years ago, but the project stalled and was never completed.

The Ascort is located in Melbourne and can be recognized in other photos on the net by its side mounted filler caps, 13 inch wire wheels and small vents in the bonnet.

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I received a contact from someone to say that they had bought an engine that had originally come from an Ascort. The engine has the ACA prefix number plate, so it does look like it is an Ascort unit.

Unfortunately records of numbers is not known to exist and I am unable to identify which car it came from. I think that it was most likely a Sydney car.

The engine is to be fitted to an early bug.

Records show that the engines were built up by OKRASA in Germany and were shipped to Australia complete.

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This nice old photo was recently sent to me. My blue Ascort is the only dark blue one that I had been aware of, so it is possibly my car in its early days.

If it is my car, I had been unaware that it had spent time in South Australia. My car had spent much of its early life in Melbourne, where it had been owned by a doctor, and then his daughter. I do not know anything about the car's very early years though.

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The current issue of VW Magazine Australia has a couple of Ascort articles. At this stage I am yet to get my copy, but I thought that I would share the fact anyway.

The main article is about Jeff Sabel's silver car with orange trim. https://www.vwma.net.au/?k=39-ascort 

There is also an article about the Ascort's history and background, which I supplied a couple black and white original photos for.

It is great to see the cars getting some magazine coverage. :smile: thanks VWMA

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Keep it all coming :thumbup:


Andy W

Woohoo! I just picked up my copy of VW Magazines Australia, and the Ascort has received one of the best coverages to date. :thumbup:

There is a full 8 advertisement free pages of Ascort including full page photos. :thumbup:

A bit over half of the space is about the silver/orange restored car of Jeff Sabel There is also information on the history of the cars and a little over half a page about myself. My anonymity is now gone :omg: The bit about myself includes the history of my passion, my restoration work and my model building etc. It is good to see that links have been provided to my web site ( www.ascort-tsv-1300.com  ) and also to my blog on Pre67VW. :d

For me this is fantastic, as 10 years ago I was struggling to find anything about the cars at all. Thank you VW Magazines Australia.

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One little bit of the Ascort story that I was not certain about was where the Ascort Sonic boat fitted into the picture. Was it built in parallel, or was it built after the car construction ended?

I was recently provided some more scans of negatives from the Craney family and it shows the workshop with both cars and boats under construction.

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Great picture Mark

This photo is a scan off an old negative and it required quite a bit of cleaning up. The car looks lovely in the photo, but I think that the colours are all wrong and that the car should actually be dark blue.

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The Ascort was originally to be called the "Escort" and in some 1958 press articles it was referred to as this.

In 1959 Mirek Craney was given a stand at the 1959 Melbourne Motor Show to display the car, but it was realised that Ford already had a car called the Escort. This was not the popular small sedan of the 1970s, but a small 2 door van based on the Ford 100E Prefect. A name change was needed, so it was decided to change to Ascort.

One of the photos that recently surfaced is of the prototype Ascort with a rear emblem showing "Escort"

 

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It always interested me how the Ascort came to be developed. I had heard that Mirek Craney had built a model of the car that he intended to build, but the only photo that I had seen of this was in a Photo of Mr & Mrs Craney sitting on a chair holding the model. Almost no detail could be seen of the model though.

a few weeks back I was sent the following photo of the model. The original scan was in poor shape, so I have had to do a fair amount of photoshop work, but fortunately the car did not need much touching up.

The shape is quite different to the final Ascort shape, as this looks more like a 2 seat coupe, rather than the 2+2 that went into production.

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One little bit of the Ascort story that I was not certain about was where the Ascort Sonic boat fitted into the picture. Was it built in parallel, or was it built after the car construction ended?

I was recently provided some more scans of negatives from the Craney family and it shows the workshop with both cars and boats under construction.

Well today has been just a little exciting on the Ascort front, although it is not car related.

Today I was sent a link to a fairly recent photo of an Ascort sonic. As the photo was on a photo sharing web site I was able to get a name and thanks to Mr Google I was able to locate an email address.

Contact has now been made!

It is now known that as well as 13 cars, at least one Ascort Sonic boat survives. I am yet to get the full details.

:smile:

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Hope you can put up a photo. Then you need a shot of it being towed behind one of the cars. That would make a lovely photo.




Andy W

Hope you can put up a photo. Then you need a shot of it being towed behind one of the cars. That would make a lovely photo.




Andy W

Sorry about the delay Andy. For quite some time I just could not log into Pre67VW and then I stopped trying. I am back up and working again now.

Here is a copy of a sonic being towed by an Ascort registered BXL-022 which is the car that I am now restoring. This must have been sometime around 1960-63 after the car was repaired from its crash. It would have been painted light metallic green at the time.

It is interesting to see that the car has a 4 tip muffler fitted. I guess that this gives me permission to use one in my restoration.

I will find a photo of the found Sonic and post that later.

 

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This is the sonic hull which has been found in Sydney. The hull is in very good condition, but some repairs are required to the timber transom.

Hopefully the Sonic will be restored in the future.:drool:

 

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In my post above I mentioned the fact that BXL-022 had been repaired from a crash that had occurred in 1959.

This is the accident damage that the car had sustained when it hit a tree.

 

:omg:

In my restoration efforts I find myself doing repairs to sections which are required as a result of this accident 55 years ago.

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A few weeks ago I received an email on the www.ascort-tsv-1300.com  web site. It was from a person who had been reading the page and came across references to BXL-022. He was emailing to say that he had owned the car in 1963/64.

This was very exciting for me as I knew nothing of the car's history in this time period. Part of my motivation for setting up the web page had been to hopefully make contact with past owners, but I never really believed that I would make contact with an owner of my own car from 50 years ago.

John Stone was the past owner and he said that I should use his name in case it prompts someone else's memory. John has also sent a few photos of the car taken when he owned it.

 

 

 

While John owned the car it was repainted and re-registered DJT-008.

 

 

:thumbup: :roll: :smile:

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