Hi guys. I've had this 1974 standard Beetle for about 2 years now and it's finally coming together. This was languishing in the storage building of our local VW shop for a while (they mostly work on the modern stuff and this was an abandoned project of some sort from the owner's son) and it was in their way to the point that they REALLY wanted to get rid of it. $500 later we hooked up the tow bar and dragged it across town - friendly reminder, always check to see that the wheels are held on by more than 1 lug bolt before exceeding the speed limit.
This is the car as it sat, waiting for me to rescue it.
The pan had been re-done in the past and the car had clearly begun a journey towards a Baja conversion (giant torsion bars, Baja trailing arms, lots of aftermarket parts in boxes) but I am reversing that and turning it into a street machine again. The pan had been cleaned and painted gold and was in great shape except for a couple of minor holes which needed repair. The body is also in great shape with a few minor rust issues in the heater channels, but that's a moot point since I won't be running heat in this thing anyway. I acquired a "good" used 1600 dual-port motor for cheap and rebuilt it to stock specs. Eventually this car may see a 1776 stroker, but for now I love the putt putt of the stock Beetle engines.
My original plan with this car was to strip it and paint it either tan or olive flat, but this car has so much cool original patina on it that after staring at it for a while I decided to leave it as-is and keep the gold. This is a Sunbug, a 1974-only special edition that originally came with special brown interior components, and some other dealer-installed options. Sadly this one never had the Sunbug badging on it. It also came stock with the sport wheels, which normally came on the Supers.
I cleaned up and painted the pan, ditched the Baja arms for some stock (914 technically) arms, rebuild the brake system, reassembled everything and bolted the body on last spring.
I added some T-bars after modifying them to fit the '74 and rusting them up so they fit the look of the car better. I ordered up a 2" narrowed beam and installed some drop-spindles I had picked up at a swap meet. I also found some cool oddball 5.5" wide VW-pattern wheels that I'm going to mount some rubber to and put under the car later this winter, along with lowering the back end. I'm going to be using some 165 45r15s in the front and probably some 175 65r15s in the rear if I don't like the look with the stock tire.
There's still a lot of work to do. The interior is a shell right now. I need a real radio. I need to finish the window trim on the driver's door. Eventually I either need to clean up the old glue or install a new headliner as well, which I'm NOT looking forward to.
I'm hoping to have it on a long road trip in July. We'll see if we get there!
