The time I spend was priceless.
It all started when mu daughter was 15, she said she wanted a bug like Herbie the Luv Bug.
A co-worker said he had one he was going to restore, just never had the time so for $600 it was mine. When I arrived to his house it was in the grass, as well as the grass in it. the seats were weathered and the top was well past weathered. The floor boards were rusty and I was overwhelmed with what was going to be my easy fix her up.
My Dad was with me as well as Daughter and we thought this would turn out to be a good first car for very little investment, wow was I ready for a wake up call. We towed it to my apartment and I started the clean up process.
First I removed the floor boards and went out to get a few parts. Soon there after my girlfriend (now wife) asked me to move in with her and I could work on it there.
I bought a canopy garage at Costco and placed it in the back yard. I rolled the car in there and went to work. First I completely removed all the paint from the car, this was a work in it self, layered on this car was several different colors it wore from birth. I think I saw yellow, white, blue and someone painted it with a roller. Some of the paint pealed off some was stuck on there hard. Every night I would work on this and every day off. I think I spent 2 rears getting it to a base to work from. I sealed and etched the metal and primed the body in a 3 layer process sanding between each layer. I then painted her a sage green with white trim Inside and out thick enough to sand down to a smooth coating. This was about a 500 hour wet sanding process that turned out looking like it was dipped in paint. Other than a few scratched on this from driving it to people bumping into it in the garage still looks great. With tool's, compressor, paint gun and all I spent about $1500 for the paint. Keep in mind it was still in the vinyl garage with gravel floor.
I was now ready for parts so I headed out to Bow Wow. I walked in and asked for assistance. I told the guy I had a 1963 body/shell and wanted everything new starting with long block and everything it would take to make her run, roll. I bought new brake lines, drums, pads and all it needed to start the engine and stop the car. I asked him to stop when I hit $4000 I would latter return for all new interior trim, exterior trim... That trip was a about $2,000. Then I needed wheels and tires that was about $1500. As you can see this was adding up to a new car price tag and my daughter was afraid that when I was done she would never get to drive it. So I went out and bought her a Orange Super Beetle to drive while I finished so she would get use to the VW Bug experience. Well that turned into a Dad, I don't want to drive this as a daily driver so I found a 1968 Convertible Mustang and traded the Orange bug for that. I started the restoration on that until I discovered rust from the underside eating away the underside and realized it was more than I could handle. (A whole story of its own)
So I decided to make this a show car and went on E-bay to find every OEM accessory I could. The obsession began and so did the parts from all over. I have German mud flaps, a 1959 bug guard, Bud vase, gold key, Coco Mats, Bamboo shelf, Tissue box... I went for every part in chrome I could. This turned out to be a fine looking slight custom restoration and a blast to drive.
Amber wound up with a Geo Storm (Ask me about the fence story) as her first car in the end and I still have the Bug and take her out on nice days. I think I have put 500 miles on her since I finished in June 2001.
No comments:
Post a Comment