Belinda had bought her dream car, a factory red 1974 Beetle that had been imported from England by its previous elderly one owner. A return trip to England was to be made by the English businessman but a return journey for the Beetle meant another lot of import duties and tariffs so the decision was made to sell the car. In the few months that Belinda had owned the car she had come very attached to the car she called “Elmo” due to its colour comparison to that of the Sesame Street character who is also bright red!
It wasn’t until the car was taken to see Boris of Vintage Vee Dub Supplies that the true extent of the rust was uncovered. What was too be a routine mechanical service at Vintage had turned into a nightmare. Unbeknown to Belinda was the fact that the car had some very serious rust lying in the lower sill area’s and lower mudguard areas of the body. What was originally seen as a very shiny bright red Beetle, that looked to be in mint condition was overlooked for the horrible truth. This Beetle although it presented well, was in fact a rusted out hulk that had obviously spent many days on England’s snow covered & salt infested roads.
Boris gave Belinda the bad news, and the decision was then to be made to restore or scrap the entire car. Belinda couldn’t bear to scrap the car, which although had only been in her possession for only a few weeks, she had grown very attached too. Belinda gave the thumbs up for a restoration so Boris immediately organised for a donor recipient body whilst the car was stripped and separated from its floorpan. The body was to be donated to scrap, but I later heard some crazy man had picked it up having ambitions of building a racecar. He certainly had a great starting point for a racecar! With all the rust and such it would be very light weight.
Whilst Belinda and her family paint stripping the entire guttered donor body of it’s Martini Olive paint colour back to bare metal. The rest of their time was spent painting several coats of black bituminous paint on the floorpan, which had escaped the harsh climate of England’s salt infested roads.
By now I was involved in the project which lay in pieces from one end of the workshop to another. After collecting the pieces and throwing them into a pile I sat back and looked at what had to be done. A half-stripped body shell and a large mass of car parts (which consisted of now two guttered cars) and duplicate parts. The first instruction I was given was “it has to be stock, no modifications” which by my account was simply a waste. After looking up stock in a dictionary and consulting Belinda I was informed no 2 litre motor, no hyped up gearbox and diff, no performance modifications and certainly no turbo. By now I thought this girl to be on drugs!
The body was sanded, stripped and filed back to bare metal along with all body panels whist the bonnet and one door were given the flick due to small panel damage and other panels hung for fitment and alignment. Whilst the motor and gearbox were out both were cleaned and tied up to be reinstalled at the end of the project.
After spending several late afternoons completely stripping the last few nuts and bolts, the left over wiring loom and a few other accessories the car was prep and ready for painting. The body shell was sprayed inside and out by Pioneer Smash repairs in lovely stock Volkswagen Bauster Red 2 Pak Paint. A quick peek inside the spray booth one Saturday morning revealed what Bauster Red looked like straight from the gun – RED! Dave Birchall and myself looked at each other from across the booth and burst into laughter! This was to be the brightest red bug we had ever seen.
After baking had taken place I loaded the car onto my rolling trolley which consisted of a square frame with 4 shopping trolley wheels for the trip back to next door for assembly in Vintage Vee Dub’s workshop. Boris was kind enough to donate enough room for assembly so I set about to completely assemble the car over the next 8 weeks. Anyone who visited Vintage during the next few months saw that progress was slow with all work being completed after work or on weekends. Customers and car club members often came to visit me in the workshop to check on my weekly progress or stand around and have laugh as I assembled an otherwise stock Volkswagen from the ground up.
After the wiring loom was cleaned and installed along with the original crack free dash. The floorpan’s braking system was overhauled with all new components and the two halves of the car were mated back together one Saturday morning. From there the car quickly progressed with the doors, guards, bonnet & decklid hung onto the body shell. The doors were reassembled before the motor & gearbox were reinstalled for a quick pass up and down past the workshop to ensure all was in order. From there the Beetle was taken to one of my mates places for a new headliner to be installed with a newly stitched carpet kit front to back.
On returning to the workshop the newly chromed bumper bars were bolted onto the car along with the original glass being reinstalled with new chrome window surround for the all-important original stock look. The only minor change I was able to convince Belinda to do was install slightly wider stock chrome wheels on the car. The front wheels are now shod in Michelin and the rear with Falcon rubber for a safer handling and better stopping car.
An interesting fact about this car is it’s English factory options. Even though the body is a 1303 (L Bug) body, it comes with factory 4 wheel drum brakes although its Australian Superbug cousins came with factory front disk brakes. The front struts are an unusual 2 bolt pattern and it’s interior consists of factory low back seats covered in factory black velour.
I was lucky enough to complete the car with 1 day to go before a blue slip was required with just a few minor tasks carried out later to complete the car to a standard I was happy with. So far Belinda has completed many miles of trouble free motoring, (except for a faulty starter motor which I have replaced, but only after being push started by members of Club VeeDub on several occasions). It’s always the things you don’t replace that come back to bit you on the bumb at a later date!
That’s why the motor is next on my rebuild list, a complete rebuild which freshly painted black tinware and a new exhaust should finish the car of just nicely. I’ve tried to convince Belinda of how trick a fully worked two litre would look under the decklid complete with 45 mm quad throttle bodies and injection. Just imagine this stock looking Beetle cutting a Japanese turbo off the lights in the first few gears. Well I guess well both have to keep dreaming, because she isn’t having anything to do with it. Either way the car always attracts admires from all angles. I’ve got to admit a nice neat stock looking cruiser is always fun to drive on a Sunday afternoon in summer.
And what next Well I managed to convince another member of Belinda’s family to get a Volkswagen, a Kombi to be precise. And like most Kombi’s it was a bit of a dog. So I’m in the midst of its completion.
And guess what! It too is stock, well almost- did I mention how nice a turbo would look in that engine bay!
Leigh
