VW BEETLE

  A WORD FROM THE CURRENT OWNER  

 

Arriving in the UK in 2010 from renowned VW dealer Bob Van Heyst of BBT Belgium, this car is believed to be a one lady owner car originally from Sweden.
 
I’ve been around VWs all my life, I had a 1973 Beetle and 1961 original paint Westfalia when I was 16. I’ve been in the Motor trade since 1991 and have owned over 200 different types of VW, but in all my years, I have never seen a more original example than this.
 
First of all, it is all about the ride and the quality that VW built their reputation on. The previous owner described driving the car as 'like a magic carpet ride', it truly is stunning and a great reminder of how far in front of the competition VW were.
 
The body is as it left the factory, and so is the paint. Every VW restorer should study this car, measure the gaps and measure the paint thickness etc. The paint isn’t perfect – it’s been polished through on the high edges and has the odd stone chip that you would expect from a 53 year old car.

Lifting the rear seat and also looking under the front boot liner reveals the factory chalk marks made during  production. The underneath of the car is coated in a very think black, tar-based under sealer/wax protector. This service was offered by many dealers as a rust protection system, and why not, it worked!! The UK owner painstakingly removed this from under the wheel arches using paraffin and a whole lot of elbow grease to ascertain if it was trapping moisture and subsequently cause future problems. What in fact he revealed was just shiny original paint.

 

Some of the heads of the wing bolts had slight corrosion to the their bare zinc plating, so each one was removed and re-plated in turn, making sure that they went back in the hole they came from…yes people are this thorough about their cars!
 
Mileage shown is 61,000 Kilometres (38,000 miles) which has to be original; there's no evidence of the car ever being used in poor weather either. During its time here in the UK it's covered 4,000 Kilometres.

It's had some extremely rare and desirable accessories fitted but also great care has been taken to keep the original parts. The best accessory has to be the Riechert twin carburettor kit, which  was purchased New Old Stock (N.O.S) and is absolutely correct for this year VW. Not only does it look good – and work – but it enables the car to keep up with today's modern traffic. Along with the carb kit, an N.O.S genuine VW Sports back box with genuine stainless sports tail pipes was fitted, with less deadening to give a bit more power. It also has a Bosch 010 distributor supplied by Porsche 356 distributor expert, Glen Ring. The car was also taken to a dyno after fitting and set up correctly, the result is absolutely fantastic.
 
But the car still wasn’t perfect. The running boards weren’t protected like the underneath and subsequently corroded, so after great expense and time they were replaced with N.O.S. units.

The driver’s seat had a slight pull in the material, so a seat of the same material was found and the base swapped over. This was extremely hard to find as apparently this material was only supplied to Sweden.

The bonnet seal had perished and was again replaced with an N.O.S. unit. The clutch cable and outer conduit was replaced with N.O.S. The shock absorbers were worn and replaced with special order Koni adjustable versions. The headlight lenses had to be changed to RHD and the lenses used were N.O.S. I hope you are starting to get the picture?
 
There is a whole folder of Swedish paper work including the log books in an original folder. There is also the original Swedish tax holder on the inside of the glove box lid. The car only did a few miles over here, so there are a few receipts and a UK V5c Log book, along with an original set of spare keys.
 
Please don’t miss the opportunity to own what is a quite stunning car. My only wish is that it goes to someone who can carry on appreciating it for what it is. With prices of genuine original cars constantly on the rise, you can never pay too much, you just buy the car too soon!

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