thinking of buying a vw beetle
 

yup, thats right, I want to buy a vw beetle sometime between now and next summer. I plan to sell my black miata late next spring when its proper to sell a convertable, provided my red one is reliable for daily driving at that point. I have already begun to scope the beetle scene a little bit to figure out what i can expect as far as pricing, condition, and what options are available. Also I have looked a bit into the changes year by year as well.

I really liked this picture and would be most inclined to go for a black beetle.

Attachment 217132

Beetle with a Porsche engine swap....

I always liked the looks and the customization you could do to them BUT they aren't fun to drive (for me).

Rear engine rear wheel drive... Slap a turbo porsche motor in and have some serious fun! :bowdown: :bigtu:

i have done vws for years. restored a few. made a few fast. i'm somewhat of a vw expert, but its hard to find any good ones left to restore here in the rust belt. i had to go south for the last one and even it had rome rust. my brother may be willing to part with his 76 std bug for the right price(the condition is tits) the best thing about bugs is its cheap to make a beetle to run 12s quarters.

porsche engine swap? naw, build up the VW motor... they're stronger.

my dad had a 150hp (dual dellortos, etc) 64 flat-window 'vert when I was in high school. he did a 10 ft restoration job. car looked great (from 10 ft). man that thing was a hoot. cornered like it was on ... well... what's the opposite of rails??

something like this:
http://216.194.90.151/pics/38/vw833864c.jpg

Screw the porsche engine! Throw in a Honda B16!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/MAKOY/honda1.jpg

I dont think finding one in good condition will be a problem here in california. Theres a ton of people who work on, fix up, and restore the bug around here. Not looking for anything fast or anything with great handling because I would just be fooling myself ... thats what the turbo miata will be for. I just want a cool cruiser with some character and decent gas mileage.


getsideways ... wow that looks like a wheelie machine!

I am just gonna keep my eye on the classifieds on thesamba.com over the next 6 months and wait for the right one to come along. In fact, there is a yellow one owned by a friend of mine (original owner) who may be looking to part with theirs with only like 150k on the clock and in pretty nice condition.

i have a 71 with 103k on it and im about to paint it primer black it is red with no rust. im looking at selling it since i cant afford my 3 cars. gunna stick with my 2 mazda powered rides right now. im looking for 1500 it is currently registered and is smog exempt. let me know if your interested..... the only thing it needs is a battery and an oil change and i would do that and the valves adjusted also before i sell it, let me know if your at all interested..... been needing to sell this but have been sitting on it since im a true bug lover and my wife keeps telling me i need to sell it......

I always wondered why you couldn't buy a mexican beetle and buy a rust bucket with a VIN and title and swappie swappie the two.

There used to be a company that did exactly that. Can't rememebr the name, but if they're still in business they probably still advertize in the back of VW Trends.

This was when the Beetle was still in current production in Mexico. Basically, they imported all the parts from a brand-new MexiBeetle except the tunnel itself, then took a US-titled pan, and swapped everything onto it. Body, suspension, steering, engine, tranny, interior, electricals, everything was 100% brand new except the pan itself, which they did a good job cleaning up and restoring.

I suppose you could probably do this yourself if you were really willing to put in the time. To get the car across into the US you'd probably have to go down there and at the very least remove the engine so that the car could be shipped across as parts, rather than as a complete vehicle. Definately want to consult an attorney familiar with US customs and import regulations first.

You could just as easily do that and use a repro pan, then register it as a kit or homebuilt :dunno:

Hey, i already found one that would suit me perfectly. Not in the market quite yet, but it seems theres more beetles floating around than miatas.

What I like about this one is the fact that it has a reliable engine and transmission with a bit of power upgrades. sounds like it needs a bit of interior work and paint. Depending on the condition of the interior it sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I could buy it now but i would have nowhere to park it ... unless my parents were willing to let me park a vehicle at their place lol.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifie....php?id=393777

I had a 2165cc 65 when I was in high school. Slammed too.

akaryrye- that looks like a good vehicle to start with. The '71 and later models are in my opinion the most civilized, since they have both a 4 CV independant rear suspension, and a ball-joint front suspension.

The Beetle really is fun to drive, just not in the fast around the road course kind a way. My dad has a couple of vanagons with yearly rebuilt motors, but the 1800cc strokers are sweet. Keep it stock looking but give it some balls and a rockin retro stereo. Maybe I need to get one...

sounds like a pretty sweet car. I love how clean older cars seem to be in Cali and Texas.

Ok, i was not aware of that. I only knew that super beetles had independant front suspension and that they have a nicer ride as a result. So you are saying that all beetles (standard and super) 71' and up have IRS and that the super beetles have full Indepant suspension? I was sort of interested in the super beetle for that reason and the fact that theres a lot more trunk space as well. Then I found out that they are about 150 - 200 lbs heavier which i do not want. Looks like i still have a ways to go before i can make an informed purchase.

Exactly! I want a sick car to cruise in that turns heads but not in a "hey that must be a fast car" sort of way that the miata seems to elicit, especially from the ricers, little kids, and most mexicans ( ? )

There was a fellow at the last autocross that had a Subaru 2.5 in his 914, I would go that route if I was considering a swap.

the 914-six motors are a hoot if you can find them. but like jefe suggests, a subie flat something would be easy to wedge in.

heheh... i'm going with a water cooled subaru turbo motor. more power and much better reliability. my last beetle was a pain in the neck... had to wrench on it at least 2-3 hours a week.

Ok im still interested in the beetle, but I had a discussion about buying the VW beetle with my dad today. He owned one and said it did good on the snow/ ice in oklahoma ... would have never guessed. Then I asked him about the BMW 2002 and he said it was considered a bit of a sleeper in his day because it was ugly by popular opinion, but had good performance charactaristics.

So, now always having been a BMW fan as well, am looking at not only old VW's ... but also BMW's as well.

You really can't go wrong with either, but you will pay a pretty penny for the 2002 if it is nice. At least around here. The Sub swap is a great idea and some company makes a kit which would make it easy, but pretty expensive. Stay away from the 914/6, I know a guy who spent years and huge money trying to get his to run right, and he is very knowledgeable.

heh, it's like a history of my family's old cars (my dad got my sister a 2002 back in the day). what next? a 924? a 356b?

Around 1969, the Type 1 (which covers all Beetles and Ghias) began transitioning to what they called the "IRS" (independent rear suspension) setup. It wasn't a hard model-year change, and the auto-stick cars got it first.

The IRS is a fairly traditional suspension as we think of it. The rear hubs are positioned by a single triangular control arm, and the half-axles are very much like our own- two CVs each, one inside one outside.

The earlier cars used a "swing axle" suspension. It was still fully independent (left and right sides not coupled) but the difference is that the axle was hinged only on the inside, and solid at the hub end. So as the suspension travels up and down, the camber angle changes radically, leading to somewhat erratic handling in extreme conditions. For comparison, James Dean's 550 spyder had an identical swingaxle rear suspension, and as we all know, that ended badly.

On the front end, the Type 1's have always had an independent suspension. The "standard" beetles and Ghias use a double transverse torsion bar setup, basically two leaf springs one above the other, fixed in the middle, and free to rotate at the ends. At each side is a pair or trailing arms, which pivot on the end of each spring, and then couple to the hub. The major difference here is that the early cars used a king and link pin setup to couple to the hub which, while quite durable, was again a bit vague. Around '66 they changed to a double ball joint setup, retaining the same basic geometry but smoothing things out a bit.

The Super Beetle ('71+) used a MacPhearson strut front suspension. The decision, as I understand it, was based principally on the desire for increased trunk space. I don't think it necessarily works that much better than the torsion bar system, it's just more compact. One downside is that Super Beetles notoriously suffer from a shimmy (not unlike our cars) at around 50-60MPH. They even call it the Super Shimmy.

All Beetle convertibles from '71 on are Supers.

In '75, the Supers got rack and pinion steering. This was a definite improvement over the old worm gear box. Unfortunately, this is also the year that Bosch L-jetronic fuel injection was introduced to the cars. It's not an inherently bad system, but it's difficult to service (all analog) and does not lend itself to modification. It's not hard to rip it all off and convert to carb(s), but as unmolested FI cars are now becoming rare, I have a hard time condoning that sort of thing.

The weight difference between the standard and super is fairly small. ‘73+ Supers (with their bulbous nose) might be a tad heavier, but it’s not much. Frankly, all Type 1’s handle so very poorly compared to a Miata that you won’t notice. ;)

thank you very much for that, it clarified a lot of questions I had

If you're seriously considering an ACVW, buy this book: http://tinyurl.com/yhwrnw

It's technically a repair manual, but it is probably the best-written, best illustrated, clearest, most understandable, and most entertaining repair manual in the whole history of industrialized civilization. It was one of the first books I picked up on the subject and I still have my copy, albeit it encrusted in grease & grime and with the covers held on with duct tape. The author (John Muir) was a sort of hippie / naturalist / auto mechanic which makes for an amusing read at times.

At any rate, it covers the whole spectrum of air-cooled VW production and thus one can learn a great deal about the various model year changes by browsing over the various procedures.

Thanks p3zz, that one looks nice, too bad im in cali ... good thing theres quite a few over here too so im not worried. Still not completely sure im gonna sell the black miata to get a beetle, only time will tell.

my uncle owned a vw,bmw,porshce repair shop in the 60s70s.has a van and beetle there not pretty looking.but theyve been running for ever i think he has a fleet of motors and tranny.hes a bus tech now.oh and a 944 that had a really bas electrical fire.hes a real genius when it comes to anything,american imoprt euro.he looks like the count guy.

guy I know had an old school beetle w/ I THINK a motor out of a 911? I just know it was a flat six...ran high 10s in the 1/4 :)

How is the rear suspension to blame for someone dying in a head on collision?

I will agree that swing axle = poop. Jacking forces are the devil.