Meet The Beetle....!

As per my previous post,  I slowly set out to scour the local ads (Kijiji and the like) to get a feel for the market and make some contacts;  Within a week this is what I had gathered:

We have a box of varied '66 parts including a nice Speedo, headlamps in nice shape with decent lenses and various other bits.   The beast below is a 1969 engine which appears to be in pretty good order!  I found that in a heated garage where it sat for 28 years.  The elderly owner would go out and turn the motor manually every once in a while, which explains the strong compression.  I brought it home in the Pontiac Vibe, for anyone reading these little wagons are extremely versatile.  I did however neglect to secure the beast down,  leaving the back of the car covered in old oil and gas.  If you haven't had the pleasure of being immersed in that smell, I would advise that you postpone it as long as possible.  At least the motor had lubrication all that time which is positive.

My initial idea was to rescue a forlorn 1970 from a local scrapyard, with no floors and no engine.  After dealing with the proprietor, I was left with an uneasy feeling;  He initially wanted $500 for the bug on the condition that it was used as a parts car only.  He wanted an additional $500.00 for the car with the ownership which seemed incredibly odd to me.  I wasn't really prepared to buy a car, bring it home and have someone else dispute ownership after the fact so I walked away.  I hope that someone does rescue the poor fellow, he reminds me an awful lot of Victor, our old car.

As I continued my online searches, there was a rather rough but complete '62 two hours away that made it onto my radar.  When I saw a price drop of $400.00 I decided to contact the motivated seller on my break at work. Within 10 minutes I found myself having put a deposit on a car, sight unseen something I have never done before.  The buy in price and as it turned out the flatbed costs were low enough that it didn't need justification.   No choice now but to dive in and resurrect this charming little car back to old glory.   I am not sure if he will get the full Herbie, but I will do the Pearl white which appears to be the original colour.

Without further ado, I present the latest member of the family!