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Air cooled Volkswagen appreciation thread

leesonic

leesonic

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I thought it was time we had a thread for air cooled Volkswagens on here. Whether you own(ed) one or not, if you've always had an admiration for the Beetle/Bug, Type 2, Ghia, Type 3, or any other air cooled VW, post here.

Here's one that I've just been looking at again. I bought a book back in the later 1980s called "Air Cooled Volkswagens" by Colin Burnham. Inside was one of the most beautiful looking VWs I had ever seen, a Bug called "Peaches and Scream". Just this week, I was talking to a friend about an old clock he had from an aircraft, and I remembered this Bug that had cockpit style gauges. Just a simple Google search found some pictures, and brought back memories of looking at that book. I think this car was a $20000 car back then.

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The more recent pictures of it seem to show a lower stance. Personally, I'm not a fan of "if it's low, then even lower must be better" trend that seems to be prevalent today. I like it as it was, just a little lower at the front.

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Lee.
 
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Just saw an episode of "For the Love of Cars" that was waxing nostalgic over the air cooled VWs. They restored a 58 bug on the show.

I owned a 1970 bug for a short time. Cool car but unfortunately the PO had gotten all the good out of it.

You need a Cortina my friend. C-O-R-T-I-N-A.

BTW agree with your comments about lowering. A little bit is desirable, but the whole slamming thing is a bit too much. That beetle you showed looked great lowered, but the slammed pictures ..... it just looked silly. And I wouldn't want to try driving something that low in the real world.
 
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Disc brakes really do wonders for these. I converted the Super Beetle I had to front disc, it actually stopped reliably at that point. The original drums had an aduster per-shoe and they were constantly seizing up. I was putting enough miles on the car at the time that every month it was due for an oil change and a brake adjustment to keep it stopping straight. The adjusters seized about every other month, and it was never both on the same wheel, so I usually had all four drums off every month to un-stick the bastards. Never had any luck with antiseize, grease, oil, or good old fashioned swearing to keep them working. After I put discs on, I just ignored the rear wheel adjustments until the parking brake pulled up far enough that the release button would shoot out. That was about every 3-4 months. I was actually able to re-assemble that brake release withtout looking while driving at one point. Once it came apart I'd pull the rear drums at home and get the adjusters apart. The star wheels constantly seized in the bore, so it usually involved a hammer and a punch to drive them out, then time with sandpaper and a wire brush to get the rust and dirt off so it would work long enough to set the adjustments after putting the drums back on. I still have that 36mm socket around.
 
When I was a kid we had one of these 66-67 station wagons.Nice car but would occasionally vapor lock.3 kids and parents traveled all over with that beast and towing a coleman camper and cartopper boat and all camping gear.
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A friend of mine is redoing a bug with a hot bug motor etc .Its his retirement project.IN 77 or 78 I almost bought a brand new super beetle and if memory serves me correct it was around 5500 dollars at that time.
 
My first car was a 66 bug.
It was a good car for young man.
$400 in 1977.
I was too lazy to pull the top off the float bowl and root out the idle jet, which would have allowed it to idle.
I was also too lazy to fix the generator, which would have allowed the battery to hold a charge.
The net result was that I pushed started the thing at nearly every stop sign and red light, which was a perfectly valid option for that car.

It was not very crash-worthy.

My Dad drove a squareback for years. It was 'powerful' compared to my bug.

He bought a 1969 Campmobile brand new, a near unthinkable act of excess for a child of the Great Depression, who had jars and drawers full of still-twisty used twist ties, odd screws that were still screwy, usefully long bits of string, petrified short ends of masking tape, and of course stray, lightly-used Volkswagen gaskets and parts awaiting Resurrection from above.
He hauled us around the country in that van for a string of summers.

I was a great vehicle for a teen as well. "Great" in the sense that it offered many options for the sort of questionable behavior that I found so compelling back then.
 
Pam and I purchased a new 1977 VW Station Wagon (the proper name of the bus then). We eventually got a second set of wheels for it, on which we put mud-and-snow tires, and using them it could drive through just about anything. We got a cartop carrier for it, so that we could haul our aluminum canoe, and when driving in sidewinds it was actually more stable with the canoe on top, giving it a keel. We also put a hitch on it when we decided to get a small Boler camping trailer. With the canoe on top and the Boler behind, the top speed on flat ground was about 55mph, but it still got about 20mpg, extremely good for that time.

In temperatures below Zero F., however, the heating system could barely keep two ovals clear on the windshield. Eventually we got a gas heater installed, piping its output into the regular duct system, rather than just having it heat the interior directly. That made the vehicle much more winter-worthy for the cold winters that the northern half of Illinois had in those days.

We had a lot of trouble with the parking brake cable. Nearly every time we had the car maintained they had to take that sumbitch out and relube it. Eventually, we had to have the throwout bearing replaced, but I don't think we had to have any other clutch work done...unless I've forgotten. When the exhaust system went out we put in a crappy aftermarket job, since the doing it the right way would have cost too much. We loved that car, but wished it had been built to last, especially with better rust resistant parts. With the over-size mirrors we added, it probably had the best visibility for a driver of any vehicle we ever had...except for directly below the back window, which explains how it got a dent from a shopping cart someone placed there when we hadn't had it very long.
 
When I was a kid we had one of those, a Spatz in metallic red. It had a bungee cord to sub for the bad 4th gear synchro. Without the bungee it would jump out of gear. It was stored pushed all the way down on the shifter, once it hit fourth the cord got slid up to under the shift knob.
 
Price out a bus lately? :confused:

Had a lot of VW's over the years. My favorite was one I put together out of three wrecks, coming up with one solid car. Last step was mounting push bars and studded snows all around. Had all sorts of fun pulling up next to folk who couldn't make it up the local hills in a snow storm, rolling down the window, and yelling "NEED A PUSH?"

PS - the bus lives on here ... sort of. Got this for a lot less than what I've seen a decent bus go. Not what you'd call roomy, but it does the job as a solo camper.

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illinoisteve said:
In temperatures below Zero F., however, the heating system could barely keep two ovals clear on the windshield. Eventually we got a gas heater installed, piping its output into the regular duct system, rather than just having it heat the interior directly.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of another fun heater story involving the same aforementioned cobbled together '68 bug. Heater boxes were rotted out, so went looking for a gas heater instead. Only one I could find was for a bus, and the exhaust was all wrong on that. Ended up mounting it in the trunk and running the exhaust out the side of the fender. Put a switch on the glove box door so it started the heater when the lid was opened and belched heat at the passenger. I remember sitting at a corner waiting for a light, and dang near giving an old lady waiting to cross the street a heart attack when that sucker fired up and belched smoke her way. Ended up fitting the exhaust with an elbow to point it up and adding a flapper at the top to keep the rain out ...
 
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I have a 1968 Type-1 Beetle. The last year for the "Swingaxle". I did a "Pan-ON" restoration in 1992. Went from sky blue to Porsche-Guards Red. I installed 1965 "Lowback" seats in it as I couldn't stand the '68 seats. Interior is black velour with black tweed inserts with a black tweed headliner. It ended up winning second place in a little local car show when it was finished (got BEST PAINT). I then started driving it all the time. Got caught in a little hailstorm about 5 years ago. Began a small about of surface rust. I have the motor out now to rebuild/modify (1600DP going to just make it a 1641cc and put dual carbs on it) and the body will need some massaging and a re-paint to get it back to where I had it. A lot of fun to drive and I can't drive it anywhere without getting sidetracked by someone wanting to know "What year is that?" and to hear their story about the one they (their mom, grandma, etc) had back in the day.
 
As posted in the ghia thread, my dad bought this 1969 autostick brand new:

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My mom could not drive stick and didn't want to learn. They had a child (my older sister) on the way, and needed a cheap second car. The autosticks had just come out the year before, so they went shopping and bought this from Tait Coppess Motors in Little Rock Arkansas. We still even have the original window sticker:

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The car was passed on to me officially about 10 years ago. I've learned a LOT about working on it over the last decade including removing, rebuilding and reinstalling the engine, familarizing myself with the autostick system. learning the complete wiring system. etc. Being in the family since new. I have a sentimental attachment to it- sure it drives me nuts sometimes with curve ball issues, but I'll never sell it.
 
Had a ‘63 Bug slammed with a Porsche 356B engine.....bigger jugs and pistons with aftermarket heads and Webber induction. What a screamer, had new sports cars chasing me on highway-17 between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Sold quite a few of those in the mid-seventies....
 
The 914 engine if I remember right is more or less the Type 4 / late bus engine. I know you can fit a type 4 motor into a Beetle but its not quite drop-in. Been a whole lot of years since I really dwelled in the air cooled VW realm but there was something about a specific / custom fan shroud arrangement involved and intakes that would pull the carbs in tight enough to clear the body.

To date myself a bit here, I used to get my VW info from the newsgroup servers "back in the day" before forums in the modern sense existed. rec.alt.motors.vw.aircooled if I remember right, RAMVA. Thats been like 20 years ago. DejaNews was still a thing before Google swallowed them up.
 
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