What's your Beetle story?

"cletus44 aka Clayton Seams" (cletus44) 07/19/2017 at 09:08 • Filed to: None

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I shot this awesome 1967 Beetle for my website last week. Myself and the owner were stopped by so many people that dropped by to tell their stories of ownership. Seems like everyone has one or had an aunt that owned one or whatever. What’s your Beetle story? Seems like everyone’s got one. I’ve never driven one so I don’t have much to contribute.

Nibby > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:11

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Never had one, never will.

cletus44 aka Clayton Seams > Nibby 07/19/2017 at 09:12

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: (

Honeybunchesofgoats > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:16

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I’ve never been in or driven a Beetle of any vintage. I don’t think I’ve ever even parked next to one, and that includes New Beetles.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:19

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My dad fit 5 people in a Beetle once...Quite the trick.

Nibby > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:23

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:)

1967ers - lover of dead auto marques > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:44

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My cousin had a cherry red ‘73 convertible in the late 80s. It was one of the coldest cars I’ve been in during the winter (the coldest ever was the old VW bus my aunt and uncle had in Edmonton). He got t-boned while driving his mom’s Buick and figured he’d have been dead and buried had he been driving the bug - sold it immediately and has had an old Regal as his toy car ever since.

punkgoose17 > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:47

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My mom had a beetle with the semi-automated manual transmission. My grandfather bought the car for her from a used car dealer. My dad used the car to go to the bar with some friends while my parents dating in college; on the way home someone vomited in the back seat. My dad cleaned it up and tried to use cologne to cover them smell.

1967ers - lover of dead auto marques > 1967ers - lover of dead auto marques 07/19/2017 at 09:47

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As for me, I loved them, saw “The Love Bug” about a dozen times in the theatre, but got more into Corvairs when I was getting a toy for myself.

fintail > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:47

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My mom’s first new car was a Beetle, around 1970. A few years later, my dad installed a Porsche 912 engine in it, which made it faster and less reliable. It was eventually replaced by a gigantic mid 70s T-Bird.

KeedyT > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 09:50

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It was 1992 - My sister had wrecked her old Civic and needed transportation. I’d been gaining confidence wrenching on my own cars for several years, knew how relatively simple Type 1s were so I found her one, it was a late convertible that needed a new top and had a lot of rust. I put a new top on it (never did cut the rear window in it) and “found” a couple of street signs to put in the back so you couldn’t see the road go by anymore. I ended up driving it more than she did and loved the thing but my self taught mechanical journey was still early in it’s development, I couldn’t keep it reliably running as a daily driver.

I ended up selling that poor baby for twice what we paid.... if I only knew then how easily I could have fixed it. I ended up spending the next decade and a half immersed in the Air Cooled VW Scene, having several Beetles, restoring a Ghia and DD’ing a ‘67 T3 Fastback. I rebuilt motors in several of them, enjoyed the hell out of the simple, quirky nature of them and the Volks Folks that surround them.

I eventually bought a very sad 911 (what I’d dreamed of since pictures of one were hanging on 10 year old me’s wall) that I spent 4+ years making fantastic. I discovered that despite what VW folks want to think it is not merely a fast Beetle! I’ve moved on to other P-cars and have always had my other leg planted in Asian cars but the VW Beetle is a big part of how I got here and one day I will have another one.

AfromanGTO > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:06

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This was my 72 Super Beetle. We painted it Viper red, it had a slightly modded 356 Porsche engine in it, and was a lot of fun. It would do wheelies and would get more girls attention than my buddies new cars. I used to take it to the beach, and drive it on nice days to keep the miles off my first GTO. Those bumpers were the biggest pain in the world to keep clean. I had to polish them almost weekly to keep the rust off.

CB > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:07

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I learned how to drive stick in my girlfriend’s New Beetle TDI. Great little car.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:08

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My grandmother had a New Beetle when they first came out. The key was the coolest thing ever to little me.

Ash78, voting early and often > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:17

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1958, my grandfather was living in DC at the time and had a lot of work associates from overseas, especially Europe. They all loved their Beetles, so he took the plunge. My dad and his brothers were all 10-17 years old, so it ended up becoming the car that they all learned to drive. Eventually my great grandmother took it over and IIRC the same model ran until the mid-70s. Meanwhile, my dad owned 4-5 more over the years, plus a Karmann Ghia, Type 3 (Squareback), and a few buses along the way before my whole family transitioned to water-cooled dubs.

Today he ’ s 69 years old and daily drives a VW R32. My mom has an Audi Q5, which is VW car #27 or #28 for them. Never let anyone tell you that branding doesn ’ t work.

When I was in college in the late 90s, I knew TWO people who DD’d Beetles. They were fun little cars, but IMO supremely impractical for lazy college students. Easy to work on, but they usually ended up in the shop for basic stuff because nobody had the time or knowledge to fix them. My dad laughed because he said the ability to remove the entire engine in less than 20 minutes was a requirement for Beetle ownership in the 60s and 70s. He and a couple buddies would smoke a J and make an afternoon out of replacing a tranny or something.

Your boy, BJR > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:28

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My grandma bought a super beetle in the mid ‘70s. Didn’t have it long though, less than a year later, her boyfriend at the time bought her a Fiat Spider with a CB radio that had a matching color scheme to his Eldorado Convertible.

Sovande > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:33

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My buddy in high school had a ‘66. It was in great condition and was absolutely awful to ride in. Small and uncomfortable. Dangerously slow. He sold it and bought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bus instead. It also sucked.

Sovande > 1967ers - lover of dead auto marques 07/19/2017 at 10:35

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Had four friends in high school with VW buses and all four had a stack of blankets in them. I never understood the allure.

1967ers - lover of dead auto marques > Sovande 07/19/2017 at 10:40

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I rode in one in the summer - that was nice. In winter in Edmonton, though, gads. If it was 40 below outside, it was 50 below in the van.

promoted by the color red > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 10:51

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A giant robot ate it.

Then the space robot spawned from a teenage boy’s head morphed into a super-being with a twin-neck guitar and absolutely crushed the other giant robot as an alien girl on a yellow Vespa watched in awe.

BritishLeyland™ > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 11:32

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In 1969 my grandparents were looking to buy a new car. They test drove a beetle with my father and my aunt acccompanying them. My father started literally crying because he didn’t want no stinking beetle!

So... uh... yeah, in the end they bought a Ford Cortina 1600 DeLuxe.

carcrazydan738 > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 11:53

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I’ve been a fan of these since I was a kid (37 now) my great aunt had 2 a yellow one-that she drove up from Florida to Upstate NY for a visit and a red one that I remember her husband trying to repair. another story or memory was watching the Disney Herbie bug movies over and over as a kid too.

gmctavish needs more space > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 12:17

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I don’t have any personally, but a red 1965 was my dad’s first car. He has lots of stories with that one, ending with the car getting left in the middle of nowhere after the engine blew catastrophically.

My friend’s dad bought a 1979 convertible in 1981, and it was his only car, in Raincouver, until 2006 or 2007. It’s currently sitting in storage, waiting to be restored one day.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 12:17

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Not mine, but my parents’ story. Drove their Beetle from Pittsburgh to Colorado to tour the Coors brewery. This was in the early 1970's and apparently you couldn’t get Coors east of the Mississippi back then. Anyway, 3,000 mile road trip, Beetle performs flawlessly until 5 miles from home when it decided to jettison it’s muffler in the middle of a busy road with no shoulder (the Boulevard of the Allies between the Liberty Bridge and Oakland). They said screw it and drove the last few miles at full volume. Apparently they interpreted this as the Beetle deciding to not strand them and therefore a reason to buy many more VW’s. I was brought home from the hospital in a MkI Rabbit a few years later.

CaptDale - is secretly British > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 12:48

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My step grandfather had one and I drove it once. It was fun

Steve > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 14:33

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Took the front bumper off my 69 to clean up some rust spots on the front in auto shop class in high school. An hour later I slid into the rear of my buddies 69 LTD huge chrome bumper on a ice covered down hill driveway.

I lost.

Die-Trying > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 16:44

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its a long term project car. it has the extra bore /water cool conversion. i had wanted to build a 63-ish chevy nova, but couldnt find one for less than $15oo, beaten into the ground(and needing EVERYTHING). and then i discovered beetles. i could buy them for $50-100 all day long, for tired worn out shells. almost everything interchanges too. it cost me $250 for a tub with a title. much more reasonable than the chevy2 i had been chasing after. and there are plenty of v8 nova, but not so much bug.

it is still very much “in progress” i should have it driving reliably sometime around the end of the year.......

Spoon II > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 16:49

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I have a 1972 Baja style bug that I’m currently fixing up. Stoked to drive it eventually. Also, a ‘74 is in my backyard, waiting to take the fixer-upper spot of the ‘72. When I was in England a month ago I picked up some trailing arms for it. Surprisingly, I wasn’t questioned about the weird stuff in my luggage.

KeedyT > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 07/19/2017 at 17:06

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5?! Pbpbpbpb, we had 8 or 9 in one in High School once on a run from band camp to McD’s!

ranwhenparked > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 20:11

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Don’t have much of a story, exactly. I had a 1971 Super Beetle as my first car in high school, between 2001-2002. I sold it after less than a year, mainly because I wanted heat in the winter and because I was getting concerned about what all the road salt was doing to it if I kept driving it as my only car all year long.

I’d like to have another one someday, it was a surprisingly fun car. Pretty much as simple and pure of a driving experience as you can get.

Admittedly, I had minimal experience in other cars at the time, but I don’t believe the driving experience was at all as bad as some people make out. The brakes were quite good. Not power assisted, but you didn’t miss it. Steering was light and easy, again despite power assist; and it had plenty of power for around town. Took in on the Interstate, too, and it did just fine.

I recall that people always tailgated it, though, no matter how fast I was going. I could be doing 55 in a 35 and someone was right on my ass. I think a lot of it was psychological on the part of other drivers (old, underpowered car in front of me, I don’t care what my speedometer says, it has to be going slow damnit!).

cletus44 aka Clayton Seams > Die-Trying 07/19/2017 at 20:28

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Wowza! Bet that’ll move out

Die-Trying > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/19/2017 at 20:49

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that has been the hope since i started in on it. it is looking to weigh in about 2300lbs. it has a 305 in it(4 inch bore, 3 inch stroke) that should be good for around 350-375 horses. its very nearly mid engined.

the front suspension is a s10. compared to most v8 s10 engine placement, i have about 13 inches of engine setback.....

high strung v8, with a 4 speed like what you guys have in the vette, and a 4 link rear end( for the tractions), it should be quite the deathtrap......

what did the vette make in power on the dyno?.....

cletus44 aka Clayton Seams > Die-Trying 07/20/2017 at 14:40

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Vette got 248 to the wheels and 278 tq.

Die-Trying > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/20/2017 at 15:04

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heh, well while it sounds depressingly short of what we would all have liked it to have been......... it pulls, and goes REAL nice for a lightweight car that has only 250 to the wheels. it starts to make it REAL tempting to begin adding parts, and adjusting everything you can reach.

have you already started looking for the next hop-up?

cletus44 aka Clayton Seams > Die-Trying 07/20/2017 at 15:32

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The Corvette will stay like it is. Firstly, I’m more of a history junky than a hot-rodder and I like feeling what it must have been like to drive that car in 1970. The other reason is that it’s already spooky fast to me. I’ve never owned a car with half this much horsepower before so I’m taking my time to get acquainted with it before adding more power. That said, I have toyed with the idea of swapping in a correct, 1970 LS5 454 into it but the weight is a real killer.

Die-Trying > cletus44 aka Clayton Seams 07/20/2017 at 15:58

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there is a whole lot that you can do, to get more power out of a 350. one of the things that i discovered a few years ago was the z28/marine style high rise dual plane intake. camshaft. or if a camshaft is too scary an idea, put some higher ratio rockers on the heads. maybe dial in the distributor spark curve. maybe a more adjustable carb, like a holley......... 

.........nothing by itself is a magic bullet that will turn your car into an overpowered monster. but if you start adjusting what IS there, and dial in any modifications to work in a specific rpm that you actually use, you can get a lot of seat of the pants feel improvements........