Quest for Seats: Exploring Toronto’s Electric Motorcycle Scene & VW Projects | 1974 VW Super Beetle
So that just mounts up goes right on the transmission to a trans yeah to a Volkswagen trans yeah so there’s an adapter plate and then um an adapter collar that makes the motor to the trans so you could still use the gears and pick your gear ratio so simple this is a
1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle I’ve recently started this project with the intent to fully rebuild this car and make it my own little toy with that being said it’s a long process because it’s a 50-year-old car so when it came to finding seats for this bad boy it’s actually been kind of troublesome I’ve
Searched everywhere and this car came with a set of uh 74 floor pans in it because it is a 74 but the seats that were mounted in a 74 that was the year they changed everything and those seats are a lot harder to find so when it came
Down to this car itself I swapped the floor pans out recently to fit a a more common seat that you would find one that’s easier to purchase for me in this part of Ontario that being said I’m still having a very hard time finding seats so I was cruising Facebook one day
And I was like boom pretty sure I found the seats and of course they’re nowhere near my house they’re 2 and 1/2 hours 3 hours away but I got talking to the guy online he seemed like a great guy so I figured hey you know what let’s take the day
Let’s jump in the car I’ll drive up there and I’ll see hopefully these are the seats I need and it it’s raining and it’s January 10 km and we’re only 20 minutes out west and everyone’s looking at me cuz I got a fullsize camera on my Dash yeah good Talk it is way too busy down here I don’t know how you guys live life but uh I made it close I got to go to the bank and I just grabbed coffee so we’re almost there almost uh doing it there’s a lot of people up here too and it’s raining
There’s cops everywhere I just seen a seagull in February it’s almost February and there’s seagull out here so uh anyways yeah bank and then I get to go to pick these up 407 we’ll just go right here it’s pretty sketchy I’m here but you guys got to check this
Out look at this thing all electric I didn’t realize I’d find toys I thought maybe you were just somebody who had seats no we that’s awesome right so what is it what is it you do so beachman is an electric motorcycle company oh okay I’m I’m cluing in slowly here as I so um
This is our bike so these are technically ebikes that’s we started off on an ebike platform because of the no license no registration really easy to get on a bike and ride and it’s kind of evolved into and in Toronto right like it’s such a handy thing yeah it’s kind
Of like a moped but not yes um and I just used like lead acid batteries in the back seat sort of thing I converted it drove it around for a summer realized I wanted a bus instead so I converted the car back to gas so this is actually
A customer’s car we’re doing it at cost to spec it out it’s full of leaf batteries so I’ve taken an entire I I actually bought a wrecked Nissan Leaf took out all the components I could but the motor is being used elsewhere but this is the entire battery array and
Then I reconfigured it to run at 96 volts so each one of these is a Nissan Leaf module normally Nissan Leaf run at about like 350 volts so it takes the same amount of batteries these I’ve configured into Banks of three so I think I used four less from the original pack
But it’s it’s not very often you see a thing either no this is from Mexico that’s uh the guy the guy lik to travel around with world and find oddd cars that are not odd in the places you find them so this one back
Here this this is kind of cool this is a a motor I imported an AC motor I imported uh from China I had this brackets already made up to hold the controller and everything and if it works we’ll sort of streamline this as
As a kit that you can put on any air Cod so that just mounts up goes right on the transmission to a trans yeah to a Volkswagen trans yeah so there’s an adapter plate and then um an adapter collar that makes the motor to the TR so
You could still use the gears and pick your gear ratio simple this plate we sort of adapted off the thing so we could put our our controller right above the motor and it just looks better it looks nice fills the space yeah it’s um such a clean setup to and then because
It’s the thing and has this back parcel half the battery pack I should say about 60% of the batteries are going to go here I’m going to flip these down and put a nice cover in and then the other 40% goes up here which actually works
Better for the handling of the car a little bit of front end weight right balanced weight things and then the charger and and some of the and some of the relays and shut offs and stuff all high through cuz this is also obviously it’s an all- weather car there is a top
For it but there’s no windows it’s impressive rain rain gets anywhere it’s something I’ve never seen before what is your website just Soca okay awesome we also have a YouTube channel yep check it out um this is going in the car oh that’s wild yeah so this is this is just
Me testing the setup so it’s the same motor that’s in the thing on the other side except this one has its own training it’s just crazy that that’s what you take out yep and that’s what you put in and that’s what goes back in Horsepower wise this is still um more
This is a 24 Kow Peak Motor the world is changing yeah so I can literally I’m having a bracket laser cut right now to house this to put in the back yep and then can do all my troubleshooting with battery it’s kind of the same setup as
The thing yep yeah directly mounted to the this will be a direct drive to the CV oh wow axles whereas the thing uses the the thing swing axle right so there’s no CV joints it’s all so it’s way easier to just plop a motor on that transmission also because it’s a manual
This being an automatic same rules didn’t apply right so I’m and I’m just I wanted to try this setup and this is basically my guinea pig that’s awesome y though first person I’ve heard of doing it there’s not a lot there’s there’s guys in other parts of the world that
Canvert um and and most people take Teslas and strip them down and do it which was something we considered doing I wanted something more new and off the shelf that I would have thought Teslas would have been like a Ferrari where if you touch it you put a Tesla in a beetle
And it’ll go like but but you know like Ferrari if you modify a Ferrari Ferrari comes after you I would have assumed Teslas would have been kind of the same thing no no you buy you basically Get Wrecked ones and you pil for parts the motors are great and there’s there’s an
Awesome company is actually I think they’re Ottawa based which came up with the best interfacing for the inverter for Teslas and it’s like a nice little iPad like it’s they they really everybody’s kind of got their stuff together when it comes to retrofitting them wow I don’t have to build an array
Right um which is awesome and then and then once it’s all done then I’ll decide whether or not I want to keep it petina or so this will be like a beachman kit for essentially it’s it’s going to be a beachman prod why yeah so it’s like dealer coupons for like
Free oil changes and no way this was all in the glove box wow I and it’s still maybe not know the moment you start touching it it all falls apart it was uh it’s like diagnosis wow maybe one no that looks like a uh so the seats
Yeah I’ve had a a very hard time finding seats I’m not I’m not a stock DW guy so I’m putting I’m putting uh I’m putting some other seats in there so mine came with some 90 seats in them and uh like I said it came from all the way up in
Cobalt and the moment I got it like the seats feel good they hug you nice but it’s a 90 seat in a 70s car so for me it’s like I don’t care if it’s a Volkswagen seat it’s just wrong generation so for me and then as I was
Putting the pans back in uh the pans for this year are cheaper than my year because of because of the way the seat mounts so I also said to myself okay what’s the more common seat I find on Facebook right and it’s normally this style or the tube the tube frame so
Older style right the tube okay that’s the but mine came with the three Mount so it’s got a an A-frame at the front and two legs at the back so it’s a very weird mounting seat is that like a mark three type Mouse yeah yeah exactly cuz
I’ve got 3 SE yeah so that’s what Min are out of a a um a GTI Jetta or something like that golf I bought Mark I bought a whole set of Mark II seats for this but they don’t go in nicely right are they are they the same these are
Something like I don’t know what these are from these are really nice these are actually electric um the the I just wanted to see if in between so there I’ve just got some standoffs that’s just sitting there right there for the height now this was a very untouched car like if you know
Volkswagen and you start to work on them you can always tell where people have been oh yeah and this car like this heater I’m the first person to take this apart and like you can see the trunk line is like mint yeah um I was the
First person to dig into any of this that’s cool yeah that’s an honor right I yeah I wish you know it’s it’s it needs new front fenders my 69 is a one-owner car is it but it sat in a field for a long time I’m cutting it apart cuz it’s
That but I want to bring it back to life cuz I’m like it’s a one-owner car this is this is really cool the CFB Trenton so it’s probably was parked on a base for like decades I’m 20 minutes from there are you that’s where I came
From but my bus has a super motor in that’s I’m I’m that guy that would do that too but since I own two of them I said to myself one of them is going to be like the old man version and this one’s not actually it’s it’s already
Slammed and it’s it’s quite the fun car but um I found this piece which is beautiful part of the roller y so it does cuz it it gives you I think it’s the back adjustment okay yeah I told my that I just told my old man last night
And he said don’t worry about it we’ll figure it out yeah so those are that goes on that side and there’s pins pins they’re just they’re just locking pins I’ll just uh he’s got the exact same seats so I’m just going to going to recreate it yeah I’ll just look at his
And see what he’s kind of done but I took a cuz I was looking into recovering it right so that’s so and I managed not to destroy it so these guys I just unbent cuz literally just wrap around that yeah everything on a Volkswagen just bends around itself yeah so okay
That one I didn’t touch at all I mean yeah overall they’re in pretty good shape they’re not bad they’re I’m going to recover them anyways so that’s why they had a they had a cover over top of them right um so that saved them a little bit two points
Y yeah thank you very much for the tour it was uh Wicked like I said long drive but worth it mhm got to do what you got to do to find them right mhm okay we got them I embarrassed the crap out of myself but we got
Him so time to get out of here walking around with a camera in Toronto with random people I am new to this but we got the seats everything’s good we got a wicked uh that was awesome actually to go through his shop and see all those electric vehicles so awesome awesome
Awesome very nice guy and uh grateful he gave me the the tour so let’s get out of here if you’re not from Canada we have a lot of pod shops in Canada now and you can just walk into the store and buy weed pod shop there on
The left good pot shop there The Green Room another one right here that’s Central Leaf another one right here Mary James right there herbal options healing house the medicine wheel edible sale $49 o 3 G $3 a gam oo good deal there another pot shop right there I go
From this stuff being severely illegal to it’s everywhere you can just go in the store and get it it’s pretty crazy and then I go to like United States and you know if you have a joint you’re going to prison so it it’s really weird cuz I live here
And there’s pod everywhere you can do whatever you want it’s very strange but we’re almost home really they were good pric they look like they were in great condition everything seemed right um I’ve had a hard time whether I’m not paying attention to it enough or whatever but I
Had a hard time uh matching up trays to seats anyways um it’s been difficult it’s been difficult to say the least that was a wicked trip um I had a blast up in Toronto I had a blast seeing all this stuff getting to meet this guy and see
All of his projects it’s a pretty Innovative thing uh not that I’m huge on the electric side of things I like Fuel and combustion but um pretty cool pretty neat to see that somebody’s bringing the old stuff into the new world so yeah it
Was a pretty cool day and I had a lot of fun all I did with those seats was I I brought them home put them in the shop and never really addressed it after that of course my father comes over to have a look at them moment he sees them he says wow
They’re too big picks one up carries it over tries to mock it up way too big for the car so I mean I laughed when he did it because it it is what it is I had a great day I don’t really care um if you
Need a set of seats that are a little bit bigger than Beetle seats but the same exact seat then hey I got a set but uh it turns out I still need seats and uh yeah even after that full trip I still need a set of seats but it was fun
I had a blast uh beachman thank you very much for being so hospitable and uh this is my bad not yours I thought they were the correct seats so long story short great trip had a lot of fun picked up the wrong seats you know should always check I
Don’t know I had too much fun up there so I didn’t really even second guess the seats I figured they were the correct ones same shape and everything but uh they’re out of a Volkswagen station wagon it turns out so they are a little bit bigger there’s more room in the
Station wagon than the Beetles so my bad um yeah I mean it was fun so trip wasn’t wasted I had fun yeah yeah so we’re still looking for seats keep an eye out if you see seats if you know of anybody with seats if you got seats let me know because I need
Them
Join me on an unexpected adventure as I embark on a mission to find factory seats for my 1974 VW Super Beetle! With the original seats deteriorated due to a fabric change, I scoured the internet and discovered a potential solution near Toronto, a three-hour drive from home. Little did I know, the seller was none other than the owner of Beachman Electric Motorcycles, a renowned electric motorcycle company. Exploring their garage, I was treated to a fascinating tour of their air-cooled to electric conversion projects, including a VW Thing, a buggy, and a station wagon undergoing transformation. Despite the disappointment of discovering the seats were incorrect upon arrival, the journey was filled with intriguing sights and insights into the electric vehicle world. Join me as I share the highlights of this memorable trip and the valuable lessons learned along the way!
#BeachmanElectricMotorcycles #VWConversionProjects
#TorontoAdventure #vwbeetle #restoration
