Welcome to the Beetle Restoration Project. My friend (Joe) acquired a VW Beetle for his girlfriend (Judy), and has been restoring it since last summer (1998). We thought it would be nice to put some of the work he's been doing on the web... The first set of pictures were taken on December 6, 1998. It was an unusally warm day, mid 70 degrees. (Joe is a Volkswagen fanatic, he drives a 1972 VW Transport.)

Some Specs...

Model and Year: 1974 Volkswagen Beetle, manufactured in Canada. Engine Rear mounted, air-cooled 4 cylinder engine. Push rod, two cylinders on each side. Features: Sun roof. Wider tires and rims. Cost: About $500 for the car, $500 for the new parts so far, and as Joe puts it, millions of man-hours...

Pictures...

Side view of the car. Joe is pretending to driving it. If you look closely, you'll see that Joe is actually standing up in the car, like the Flinstones... :) The driver side's floor was removed to be replaced due to rust problems. The passenger side's floor also has to be replaced with new parts. It turns out that you can still get new parts for this car...       Front of the car. The Beetles have rear-mounted engines. The spare tire has been taken out, and the gas tank has been removed to do some repairs. The back of dash board is accessible through the front. Joe comments how simple it was for him to work on the front and on the dash board, and commends Volkswagen's German design and engineering...       From the back. See the engine inside? Note the wide rims and tires. They weren't put in by Joe, he might actually try get stock rims in the future.       Joe's holding the original replaced part. Note how rusty it is. This part connects the firewall and the chassis. Note that the floor of the driver's side has been taken out.       The dash board. Joe comments how simple it is, and tells me many times how the whole car is so simple, and simple, and simple...       Joe's holding out the clutch, brake, and accelerator pedals. I hope he can put that back together correctly... :)       Joe with the car. Modelling? He should stick with his music career... :)       The original front axle. Joe has replaced it with a brand new one. The old one was really rusty, I wouldn't want to be in any car with that axle!       The mighty air-cooled engine. Many parts have been rebuilt/replaced, including the distributor which is fairly new.         Judy's old car being taken away to the car-heaven. Joe comments on the history of the car as it used to belong to his aunt. It's been with him (and later with his girlfriend Judy) for about 15 years. Joe might miss it, but Judy probably won't. :)

Future Plans...

Well, Joe's been working on this car whenever he had free time since last summer, and he planned to get it finished by this winter, but it looks like it may be finished by next summer. But due to the warm weather recently, he was able to work on it more. The color of the car was originally red, the previous owner(s) have painted it over as gold as seen in these picture. Joe's thinking about painting it back to red, with black dots on the top -- to make it look like a Lady Bug. More body work remains, Joe comments on how the rust condition is pretty bad, and he attributes it to the fact that the car was manufactured and driven in Canada, where road-salt might've had some undesirable effect on the chassis. The interior also needs work, I hope to help him out on that next year. After the car has been restored, hopefully by next summer, Judy will be driving it as her car... and perhaps a couple years later, Joe and I could start another one...

Updates as of June 7, 1999

Well, Joe has put in the floor on the driver's side, and at the same time has learned to use the welder. Another option for painting discussed: painting ocean waves, and perhaps a little palm-tree.

Updates as of February, 2004

Yes, it's been a long time since the last update. The car's been running well, but it has not been driven much since both Joe and Judy have other cars. And it's also been insured under antique license. Joe promises to send me updated pictures once the spring time comes...

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