Welcome the new member to the family, 68 Beetle

A good friend of mine offered to sell me his 1968 Beetle recently. He just didn’t have the time to work on it and gave it to me for a fantastic price. I had always wanted a classic vw aircooled VW. There are some really cool ones like the Ghia, Thing and Bus but those are all pretty rare and super expensive. The bug on the other hand is cheap and plentiful on parts availability. An icon for many generations.

Its been sitting for a few years so some work was needed. It was pretty much in a running state, it needed a new battery and was able to fire right up but idle wasn’t the greatest. Some fuel lines need to be replaced that deteriorated. Those are on order now. Might need to siphon out and replace the gas too as its been sitting for a while. The lack of rust is astonishing for its age, such great bones on this one.

My friend had already done some great work on it, the under carriage is beautiful with lots of recently replaced parts. The front axle beam, suspension, bushings, knuckles and front disc brake conversion were done a few years ago. We did have to wire brush the rotors as they had a lot of surface rust as the car has been sitting for a few years. The seals for windows and some trim needed to be replaced as some were leaking water.

I have not figured out yet what I plan to eventually do with it. I know I will be sticking close to the stock looks, probably a vintage roof rack. I might do a crazy color like Violet Touch Purple or just stick with the Lotus White color it already is and match the fenders. Maybe I just leave it as is looks wise. First and foremost though it needs to be daily driver reliable, then I will get a feel for where I want direction to take it.