Re: Classic Cars available for purchase Cute little Beetle. Looks like one of the earlier model. Always difficult to tell from a photograph, but this one looks in pretty good nick.
These days good earlier VW Beetles are going up in price. As with all cars, rust is their main enemy, especially the bottom. Which is part of the car structure and integrity. But just about anything can be easily fixed on these cars.
Not sure about India, but in Europe and the USA car part availability on just about all Beetles is very good. Thanks to a very loyal following by many people. Everybody loves a Beetle, even if you are not into cars.
My very first car was a VW Beetle. I bought it whilst in my fist year of naval college (1976) for fifty guilders. To put that in perspective. At the time I was doing a paper round which would pay me about 25 guilders a week. Admittedly, it was not in very good shape. In those days we did not have a compulsory MOT in the Netherlands. So any cars stayed on the road for ever.
Most of my fellow students ran similar cars. The college allowed us to work on our cars on Friday afternoon after 1600 using the (very extensive) workshops of the college. Which was great fun and I learned a lot, working on all these old, crappy cars.
They are very cute cars, but the driving experience, compared to modern cars and even not so modern cars, is just appalling. Extremely susceptiple to cross wind. Many Beetle owners would put a 50 kg sack of sand or a pile of bricks or similar in the front to help improve the performance a bit. Heating, which is an important feature for cars in Europe was virtually non existent. With an engine in the back, getting a bit of warm air to the driver or the windscreen for de-misting was simply not going to happen.
TopGear said it many years ago, every petrol head should at some point in time have owned an Alfa Romeo. At second place should be the original VW Beetle. Because for all it’s faults it was a brilliant car that mobilised millions of people around the world. And it is one of the few cars, that can be safely considered and called “cute" by both female and male admirers.
Not a big fan on the new VW Beetle. Although we did own one for a short period of time. My wife and daughter liked it very much. At the time we were living in Kansas City and our daughter was going to visit us. So I decided to surprise her with a VW beetle. Found one on Craigslist. It was owned by a guy a few blocks from where we lived. I went to see him. The car was completely dead and the guy claimed nobody in all of Kansas City could fix it. I offered him $200 and he accepted. Hooked it up to my car battery. Wouldn’t fire although it did crank. Got my OBD analyser, went to the nearest AutoZone, bought it a new crankshaft sensor. Replaced the old one, with the car still sitting in front of this guy’s home. Started up straight away.
My daughter liked it and she drove it for a week. But then she decided she still preferred our Jeep Cherokee, so I sold it again.
Jeroen |