Volkybaru® is a family-owned business.
Everything began as a hobby and continued as a joint endeavor with our family members, supporting multiple tasks, such as administration, graphic design, packaging, shipping, etc. Our intent is to serve the VW community with new alternatives!
Jay Bonano
Jay is a military veteran who specializes in transportation and logistics. He loves his family time, his dog, the outdoors, and spending his free time camping (if overlanding counts as such). His first car was a 1982 Ford Bronco at age 16, but we won't blame him; it was a gift from an Uncle who passed away, and his Aunt let Jay restore it. It is not a secret that this developed his mechanical skills and brought him a passion for all-terrain vehicles. As such, Jay owns a 1987 Volkswagen Syncro (that we converted to Westfalia) and a 1989 Volkswagen Syncro Doka, which he claims has the only original Alusingen canopy in the United States. We are also restoring a 1986 Syncro Westfalia that may go to the market soon as we should not have three Syncro's for the benefit of our business.
As a hobby, Jay used to share his experience in transportation and logistics with many of his close friends by helping them source vehicles across the United States, Mexico, and even Europe.
Jay's experience with administrative tasks, background in accounting, and military experience in transportation and logistics operations are vital to keeping the business running. What moves him are distribution, support activities, customer service, and evaluating market response.
Gilberto "Wichy" Cruz
Gilberto "Wichy" Cruz is a mechanical engineer specializing in mechanical design and is presently employed in the medical device business. Wichy's main interests are spending time with family, camping, and "ruining" wonderfully preserved classic VWs in innovative ways. His first car was a 1969 VW Beetle given to him at the age of 16 by one of his brothers, and his favorite car has been a 2004 white Subaru WRX STi.
After seeing Beetles being swapped with Subaru engines, Wichy decided to build his dream car. A (long) list was created with all modifications, and long story short, a pristine 1963 VW Beetle with just 67k miles was "ruined." With merely a welder and a grinder at first, the project was carried out using skills he had acquired while working at his brothers' machine shop. Every new task called for new skills and tools. Six years later, Volkybaru was born. Please click this site (INSERT site HERE) for build specifics.
By the end of the build, many new skills were gained. During that time, Wichy posted some pictures of the build on his personal Facebook page, which went viral in the VW community. Dedicated social media build pages were opened, and people started to inquire about parts that Wichy had developed. Jay saw the opportunity and persuaded Wichy to take this from a Hobby to a Business.
As you may notice, Volkybaru® as a business is a joint endeavor.
Wichy possesses all the engineering, mechanical, and technological know-how. He is the mastermind behind all aspects of our research and development, from problem identification to solution generation and development, testing, and product introduction. For instance, although some ABS Panels for specific VWs were available, he created original designs that provided the VW community with new alternatives.
Jay is the one who finds new challenges to get a solution or at least bring additional ideas for product development. Creating the ABS panels came abroad when shipping the ones available on the market was more expensive than the actual cost of the item. Surely enough, we cracked the code, and shipping our products is no longer that expensive. Product Design, Quality, and fitment are guaranteed to be better than our competition.