SuperBeetles.Com

Supers are Superior

If it hadn't of been for my brother telling me, "You should buy a Baja Beetle and we can go jump it" at age 17, I would be driving a early Ford Bronco on 44'' Super Swamper's right now! That sentence put me where I am today and I thank him! If I hadn't of met local Baja guru John Brent at age 18, I would of never gotten my foot in the door as the kid out back at the local VW shop, Averre's. John Brent, I am also grateful for that! Fast forward 20 years later, the shop is now renamed Avery's Air Cooled and being operated by Linda Hooper, Kele Kuanoni and myself. When we first opened the shop at its newest location, Linda was driving this '73 Super Beetle for her daily driver. It was ugly, and bad enough that I didn't even want to put our company logo on it. Linda felt all VW's deserved to be loved and eventually her and Kele stole the heart for a transplant. Being that Supers are superior for handling, another one received the organ. We decided it was too solid of a car to put it in our wrecking yard so we tried to sell it complete. The market for ugly '73 Super Beetles with no engine isn't the greatest so it sat for a while! With the usual slow down of wintertime we had time to think and decided Avery's was long overdue for a shop project. I personally have been building and abusing Baja's all my life and wanted to attempt something a little different. Super Beetles are a little more available at this point in time and any Standard Beetle good enough to start with was too good to cut up. So we decided to do what "they" and "we" said shouldn't be done and the Super Baja was born. We used all the tricks we've learned through the years on the rear of the car. We were on our own as far as the front end. What to reinforce and how much was a constant situation! The headlights and hood added a good portion of time to the build.

Since we operate a wrecking yard, buying catalog parts was out of the question and not in line with the Averre's heritage. So we decided to build it with everything possible from our yard. To make it more challenging, we refurbished B and C grade parts, A grades were kept for customers! Many Friday nights and a year later we feel we accomplished what we set out to do. As for now, we want to see what the stock parts will withstand. We may be looking into converting to King shocks and longer travel in the future. We also have a Syncro Vanagon, Type 3, Baja idea that may take the place for the next project. We'll have to flip a quarter on which is next. Knowing this car will be abused, MC of Gambles Finishing found the perfect combination for the paint. It looks amazing and I won't cry too much -when- it gets scratched as many things can happen in a parking lot.... or those goat trails. Thanks to Jenn Gorton who did an amazing job with her camera and a big thank you to my family, who has put up with my disappearing act every Friday night playing with this car!

Jason