Rob's Beetle page #1

I bought the Bug in the fall of 1997 for $800. The best parts of it were the solid pan (only a few small rust spots) and the great-running engine (refurbished by previous owner). The worst parts were the interior (seats were shot, no carpet, no dash pad, and tar-based undercoating sprayed all over the interior where the carpet would normally be) and the body (all fenders dinged, front end was bent back from bumper/large object collision, miscellaneous dents and dings all over body - including the roof!). My son, wife and I are slowly resto-customizing "Bugly" into something fun and reliable. When I bought "Bugly" (it's a Bug, and it was ugly) it came with a 1971 Super Beetle "parts car." The SB had already been stripped at least once for parts, but I managed to get some workable stuff off of it, too. Bugly is now a combination of 1971 and 1973 parts, along with seats from a 1974+ Bug (to be added later). My son drives the car to college and vo-tech six days a week.

December 1997 (finally bought a digital camera!). This is the Bug, almost as purchased. It has new tires in this pic - the "originals" were four different kinds of tires!

One last shot of the exterior. You can see the 1971 Super Beetle parts car in the background.

Here's a shot of the inside. Speaker hole in the door matched the radio hole in the dash - both were cut to fit the parts... By now we have transplanted the dash from the Super Beetle parts car into Bugly so at least the dash butchery is hidden! Cheap, fuzzy seat cover added to driver's seat just to hid some of the springs and stuff. The steering wheel has no cover, but that's OK since there is no horn under the fender either. The black on the floor and sidewalls is tar.

Here's the engine. The coil is mounted to the firewall because the fan shroud is broken where it normally mounts. No firewall insulation. By this time we had been slowly working to get the car ready for winter (and to pass an annual inspection). The hoses are new and some rewiring has been done to the electrical system here and behind the dash.

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