1968 VW Beetle – Saved from the Crusher.

The title of this post might be misleading. After all, the VW Beetle has reached the status of a classic, collectible car in Brazil, and therefore, it rarely ends up in a junkyard nowadays.

The story of this car started when my Dad received as a gift, the race Beetle that belonged to his brother, (you can check this story clicking here).

Since the #12 was a race car, my uncle never paid much attention to its documents, and after sitting in storage for nearly 30 years, whatever left of its docs were lost. Dad’s idea was to restore the #12 and make it street legal once again. The easiest way was to find a “donor” car with a clean and documented chassis, then just swap the bodies.

Even if dad wasn’t actually defrauding anybody, it might be considered a shady operation, but he decided to go ahead anyway.

It didn’t take long to find a perfect candidate for a donor car. Dad found a 1968 Beetle with good documents and in a decent driving conditions. The car was altered to look like a modern Beetle, which was a fairly common practice during the 1980s. To be fair, this played a part in deciding to buy this car, after all it would be heartbreaking to dismantle an all original Beetle.

But it turns out that the #12 body, which is a 1972 year model, wont fit the 1968 chassis. This came as a surprise since the Brazilian Beetle received minimal modifications during its time in production.

The wheelbase and suspension width are the same, but the bolts attaching the body to the chassis do not align.

Unable to continue with his original plan, Dad took the obvious path: restore the 68 Beetle. He dismantled the whole car, fixing the body, patching rust spots, and painting it in its original color. 

He also refurbished the 1300cc engine, transmission, suspension, and brakes.

This was the ideal time to restore the Beetle to its original condition, but doing so would require purchasing all four fenders, the hood, the engine compartment lid, headlights, taillights, and rims. This would involve a significant expense, and since Dad was working on a very tight budget, the best option was to leave the car as it was.

After several months of hard work, the restoration was completed in 2020. The car was not in “showroom condition” because it has experienced its fair share of use and wear. Dad mentioned that the Beetle was likely involved in an accident, and the body wasn’t completely straight. He did his best to fix it, but working at home made the process challenging.

The yellow Beetle became a nice and reliable car, Dad even used it as his daily driver for a while.

But he lives in a beach city in South Brazil, and the salty Atlantic air can be quite unfriendly to older cars. Five years after the restoration, a few little rust dots started to pop up.

A couple months ago, Dad decided to repaint the whole car. The pictures you see here are the result of the second paint job.

This video shows the Beetle in the final stage of the painting

Since the car is now finished, he has decided to sell it. Dad owns four vintage Beetles and is struggling to find enough space to store them all, so selling this one seems like a good idea.

He is asking for R$15,000.00 (US$ 2,600.00), which is pretty reasonable. He will use the money to restore the fourth Beetle in his collection.

All I can say is that I am very happy that Dad is having fun with his hobby. He is doing what he loves, and he might even be making a few bucks out of it.