The Fiberfab Bonito was one of the glassfibre kit cars sold by the California company Fiberfab in the 1960s, with Volkswagen Beetle mechanicals underneath. Two surviving cars from 1966 and 1969 are shown on this page.
Fiberfab Bonito at a glance
| Maker | Fiberfab, Palo Alto and later Sunnyvale, California |
|---|---|
| Company founded | 1964, by Bud Goodwin and John Hebler |
| Type | kit car: glassfibre body |
| Donor mechanicals | Volkswagen Beetle |
| Examples shown | cars of 1966 and 1969 |
| Period | the company’s first generation of complete body kits |
| Later owner of the range | Classic Motor Carriages, from 1983 |
The English Wikipedia article on Fiberfab does not describe the Bonito, so this short page is based on one source for the company background, with the rest taken from the two photographs of surviving cars.
History of the Fiberfab Bonito
Fiberfab was established in 1964 by Warren Harding “Bud” Goodwin and John Hebler in Palo Alto, California. It began with street-rod parts and body panels for Corvettes, Mustangs and Jaguars and then moved on to complete bodies and kit cars. Within two years the firm had launched several complete body kits, among them the Apache, the Aztec and Aztec II, and the Centurion; the Bonito belongs to this first generation of Fiberfab products.
Like the other kits of the period, the Bonito was a glassfibre shell that a builder married to the mechanical parts of a production car — in this case the Volkswagen Beetle, whose backbone chassis, air-cooled engine and transaxle made it the natural basis for a small kit car. The cars shown here were registered in 1966 and 1969 and have survived in Germany, where Volkswagen mechanicals were plentiful and the kits found owners.
Fiberfab itself did not stay in the same hands. It became a subsidiary of Velocidad Inc. in 1966 and moved to Sunnyvale, was bought by A.T.R. Incorporated in 1974, and finally became part of Classic Motor Carriages in May 1983, which acquired all of the Fiberfab kits and moulds except the Valkyrie. The Bonito, like the company’s other early bodies, was long out of production by then.
Design and features
- Volkswagen-based: Beetle chassis, engine and transaxle under a glassfibre body.
- First-generation Fiberfab: one of the complete kits that took the company beyond body panels in the mid-1960s.
- Surviving cars: examples of 1966 and 1969 are still on the road and documented in photographs.
Fiberfab Bonito versions
- Bonito: the standard kit on Volkswagen Beetle mechanicals.
- Bonito FT: the designation used for at least one surviving car, shown in the video below.
The Avenger GT and the Aztec are the better-known Fiberfab kits of the same period. More cars from the maker are in the Fiberfab collection.
Video: Bonito FT Fiberfab Oldtimer
Video on YouTube.
Sources
- Fiberfab, English Wikipedia: company history and first body kits
.jpg){kind=link}