SuperBeetles.Com

Matthew's 1972 Super Beetle

I have always been a Volkswagen nut. When I was 12 my dad bought a car for my older brother, sister and I to share. It was a 1979 Diesel Rabbit. We drove that car for 5 years. Being a diesel, none of us ever got a speeding ticket! This was just the beginning. Fast forward 27 years and I have owned almost as many Volkswagens. Often I have two or three at a time and now that I am married with two children, my wife has put a five car limit on my habit. Although it seems like the good old days of VW's are behind us, at least as far as availability, pricing and quality of vehicles, it is doubtful that I'll be buying $200 Bugs and driving them home. About 3 1/2 years ago I was driving home from the store when I saw a somewhat dilapidated 1972 Super Beetle sitting a block from my house with a "For Sale" sign in the window. Turns out it had broken down and the previous owner just put a sign in the window. She told me that it was her first car she bought when she was 16. She drove it for years and then parked it in her garage for almost 15 years. She wanted to give it to her daughter to drive, who is now 16, but her daughter wasn't interested. She decided to see if it ran because she wanted to then see if she could at least sell it. It ran well enough to get her a few blocks from home and stranded her. I agreed to buy it if I could get it home. I could. $1,000 closed the deal.The problem was that this made car number 6 so I told my wife that it would be my nephew's car for when he turned 16. She pointed out that he was 12 - as if that was significant.

That weekend my nephew Judah came up with his mother and brother and sister. I walked him out to the driveway and asked him if he would like that to be his first car. Although his siblings were not impressed, suddenly thinking that THIS might be YOUR car gave him rose colored goggles to look at it with. He said that he would like it to be his first car and comments from his brother and sister about the headliner hanging in their face were quickly rebuffed. After rebuilding the front suspension with new urethane bushings and German struts, and new tires, I began to drive it around and to work occasionally so that I could figure out what it needed. Turns out it needed just about everything. Approximately two years ago I had my nephew Judah up at the house and asked him, "You sure you want to do this? It is a big project, you live four hours away and have to come by train, and it is going to take us a long time." He agreed that he wanted to do it. We spent that first day tearing the car apart. It wasn't easy emotionally of time wise. But, during the course of the project he was forced to learn about body work, mechanical work, electrical work, interior work and keeping your work area and tools clean. (OK, we're still working on the cleanliness part as well as figuring out where lots of those tools disappeared to.) It is funny how a project can snowball. We looked at it and realized that it needed all new window rubber. Well, the headliner was sagging and torn and since you have the windows out, you might as well replace it. Right? And since you're replacing rubber, you are in a good position to paint. And if you're going to paint, new fenders, front and rear aprons and a hood seem to be in order, and you're better off getting the whole rubber kit, including doors! And why not a new dash pad, door panels, carpet and seat covers?One of the goals was to teach Judah how to pay attention to detail. So when the interior is out, all the pieces going back in were paint detailed or polished. The fenders were bolted on with all new hardware and a new windshield and window scrapers were installed. One of the ideas was also to teach him to organize a project so that pieces would not get lost. We're still working on that, too.

And then to the motor. . . The original motor was not quite up to snuff with the rest of the car. It is doubtful that it had been maintained properly for 20 years prior to us getting the car and was caked in oil. Oil was blowing out past the spark plugs and getting on the freeway always required a prayer that no trucks were coming. I had a 1600 short block sitting in the garage that had a Gene Berg 69mm counterbalanced crank and a Engle 110 cam. I also had a brand new set of 85.5 pistons and cylinders. We topped those off with a set of Outlaw heads (40x35.5), a 009 with electronic ignition, 34mm Empi carbs with stock heater boxes and a Mexican VW Sport Header. This motor purrs like a kitten, pulls hard and gets 32 mpg overall! After Judah got his driver's license in September 2009, he came up and we finished the car. A two year project. I then had him sit down at the dinner table with me and his grandpa and I signed the pink slip over to him. I haven't seen him much lately except that he came up last weekend with his grandpa for us to build a 1641 from the ground up. It is a 38 year old car and we are hopeful that it will take him that many more years to drive it and appreciate it. Now, what to do about the other two nephews?