Posted on 10/07/2018 10:06:07 AM PDT by BenLurkin
According to the seller, this Beetle was purchased new in Beaverton, Oregon, in 1964 as a backup for the owner's 1957 Beetle; the car cost $1757 when new. Apparently, he never needed it, as it was promptly put into storage and never licensed, insured, or driven, and was only moved once: after two years of keeping the Beetle in a friend's storage unit, the owner constructed his own building and moved it there, where it sat from 1966 to 2016. The 23rd mile on the odometer rolled over as the Beetle was pulled out of storage, and the original battery has never even been activated.
Finished in black with a red-and-white interior, the Beetle looks as if it has just rolled off the showroom floor. The window sticker is still attached, and the windshield wipers and hubcaps have never been fitted and are still in their boxes. Having always been stored inside under a sheet, it had until now never seen sunlight, according to the seller. The car is powered by a 40-hp 1.2-liter flat-four engine mated to a 4-speed manual transmission.
After the original owner died in 2014, his collection was passed on to his nephew, who is the person now selling the Beetle. He says the car was returned to running condition after coming out of storage without anything being done to affect its originality.
(Excerpt) Read more at caranddriver.com ...
Mother bought a ‘63 beetle, It had a gasoline heater that defrost iced windows in minutes. Kept my pizza and sub deliveries toasty warm, too. My first job... $1.25/hour, got $3 a night for gas, took most of it home in the tank, and ran the week on it.
They got the plastic overlay (to prevent fogging) for at least the rear window, as well as the optional gas heater.
They traded up to the '66 basic Mustang with after-market a/c.
Aircooled, Ferdinand Porsche designed. OK. The “Volk’s” Wagon... the People’s Car. Think about that ‘perfection’.
Later version of the same political concept.. the Trabant of E. Germany. Or the Russian Lada one can see sometimes in Jamaica.
Pop called a combi VW bus he had (which,uh, caught fire in the engine— in summer, since it had no water cooling system for high compression engine).... “Hitler’s Revenge”.
Nice run about— local jumper. A socialist’s dream, oh and Euro one at that. 1 mill? no way.
Bummer about your 50 bucks.
And perfecting genetic purity-— like Hillary sincerely spoke about to Planned Parenthood. Efficiency... in all things, and .... do as WE say not as we do. Ultimate democracy= Tyranny. Our Founders knew this.
My Dad bought a Beetle convertible in the early 70’s, put about 100k on it and sold it 10 years later for more than he bought it, rusted floorboards and all.
Thanks for the info.
Yeah, that Z would have been worth the money.
I worked with a vet who bought back a Z from Japan around 1981. Man, he loved that car. I think it was a 240.
My VW helped teach me a lot of mechanic skills/knowledge. That and “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive”. I got to where I could pull the engine out of my dune buggy in less than an hour. It was the constant practice.
Ours had an auxiliary heater in it-—on the floor of the passenger side.
Don’t remember.
.
Lol, that’s okay. I sort of expected he would renege on the deal. At least it was only fifty bucks!
I sold mine to another GI before I left and bought a new VW van which the government did ship back to the CONUS. Kept it for another 3-4 years.
“How to keep your VW alive”
I still have my copy!
Full of notes on valve adjustments And
A wiring diagram for dune buggies that
I sketched up.
Always wanted a Chenoweth!
I think I have a story that’s just as good. I have A 1987 American Motors Jeep Wrangler Laredo with 6,600 miles on it. My father and I bought it at auction after it had a under-hood engine fire when it was driven off the assembly line and caught on fire as it was being driven out to the Marshalling Yard with only four tenths of a mile on it. I bought the factory Master Parts catalog and it took me ten years to order all the factory parts for it. Then, it took me ten years to restore it to factory-fresh condition and today it sits in my companie’s aircraft hangar with less than seven thousand miles on it.
Good deal.
In Nam, some guys purchased cars through PAC-X as I remember.
Owned a couple of Beetles. But the two Squarebacks I owned were some of the most useful of all vehicles I’ve owned.
I just saw tonight a classic Galaxy 500 in a storage yard here in Tokyo. Wish I could afford to buy it and restore it.
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