Your Very First VW

[Sarge]

So, let's see your very first VW guys..., the one that got you pointed in the direction of The Cal-look Lounge.  Mine was this '56.  I bought it for $300 in 1964 from the choir director at church.  This car was the test bed for many of my early mechanical experiments..., painting tires with tire black, adding custom "dumped" bell tips to the stock muffler, stealing a nice brass door knob from the elementary school for the heater knob, shortening the shift lever six inches and adding a chrome gear ball (poor mans quick shift, but stiff as hell to operate), you get the idea.  It was also the car I drove to Fullerton Junior College... the one I was driving when I bumped into Pete Dayton, DKP's founder.  I didn't keep the car long..., sold it to the girl down the street.  The trans gave up about a month after the sale... the Porsche diaphram clutch musta' taken it's toll   Sorry about the crap photo...it's been around a while.

[Sam K]

My first VW is the '67 I still have today! I bought it from my uncle who bought it from the first owners in 1969 or so. We were hanging out at my uncles house one day in October 1990 and he said he was thinking of selling his beat up old blue bug. I remeber riding around in it when I was pretty young but at he time it had just been sitting in the drive way for a couple years. My cousins and I used to play in it in fact. Anyway, I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said he'd take 50 bucks. Being all of 12 years old, $50 was about all the money I had, but I bought it. My Dad and I went home and got a battery and he told me how to put it in and with a little starting fluid, the old single port fired up. We drove it home and the rest is history. Over the years it's been through a lot of changes, but I still drive it all the time. In fact I've put ver 90k miles on it. I've bought and sold 20 other bugs since then, but I'll always have the old '67.

[Rob DVKK]

Hey Sarge,

Don't have a pic of the first, but one morning my Dad came home from working the graveyard shift and said "get up if you want a car".  I had been reading VW mags for a couple of years and had just got my licence but didn't know what was going to be in the garage when we got there.

1964 Canadian Standard - white and in pretty nice shape as I remember. Being a standard and not having a gas gauge as well as only having an after school job to pay for insurance and gas I think I pushed the car more than I drove it and this is when $5.00 would get you half a tank.

After a while I wanted to start doing some modification, but only having a one car garage there was no space to do the work. That car made it's way down the road to make way for a couple of A1 sciroccos and then back to the beetle.



After a few years I started a complete re build, but alas our weather and some shotty work done by the previous owner - read braised in rusted heater channels help make the decision to build the 54 I have today.

[John Rayburn]

Here's my first car.

[streetvw]

heres a shot of me taking my first drive of my first car after a 4 year rebuild (with my younger brother shotgun) 

and another of how it looked berfore I sold it 

[j-f]

My very Firstn VW  is still my current '68. 

I buy it in  February 2004 and I'm still working on it since.

And like Sarge, it is my laboratory to learn mechanical. From the brakes to the engine, I learn all on this car.

[Bewitched666]

My first when i lived in florida

[benssp]

Taken from my resto thread

This is my bug, I've owned it since 1994 when I got my first job and thought it would be a nice cheap runabout until I grew up and got into hot rods like my dad. Boy was I wrong, I've been stuck in the air cooled world ever since to the point of obsession. My uncle took me to Bug Jam when I was 12 and have been hooked ever since. I have worked for aircooled parts companies for 13 years and have been writing about them for 3 years in UltraVW and me and my better half have been crewing for Bernie for the last two years so you could say I love my VW's, In fact, I've never owned any other make of car. Anyway, back to the car.It's a '69 that has slowly developed into a '67 over the years and is about to look even more like one. I blame Ivan for my '67 perversion and can't get enough of all the one year only parts. I have collated a hell of a lot of one year only parts over the years and i'm still finding parts that 15 years ago, I had no idea existed. It probably would have been easier to start with a '67 but this is my first car and I can't bare to part with it.

Here's a few pics of the car over the years


when I first got it


At Dub Daze in 1995


In my 17" wheel phase




Most recent 'shiny' guise

[Lee.C]

Here's my first, it started life as a Sky Blue 1972 1200 Base Model brought for me by my Dad for my 18th Birthday way back in 1994! and well you guys know the rest 

[Neil Davies]

I'll have to get some pictures scanned at some point!

Mine was a bone stock 1968 1300 in pale blue (bad re-spray!) that I got in March 1995 aged 17 - 13 days later I lost it on black ice and hit a grass bank so hard that I bent the beam. Cue one lowered beam! I'll confess that the back did come down for a year or so, but went up when I saw the light! During the year that followed my Dad and I welded up some rusty parts, dechromed it, swapped panels to make it look like a US-spec '67, then painted it Vauxhall Glacier White - it was as close to the Aronson car as I could get! Later on it got 5-bolt '66-'67 drums and a set of Empi 5 spokes and then sold to my brother. Couple of years later it got fully restored (pretty much every pannel replaced!) and painted dark red with 912 seats and American Eagle wide 5 fuchs, and I bought it back earlier this year. It needs some more work doing to it - lots of the repro repair panels have rotted out with the car having sat for more years than it has been used for since the rest 10 years ago!

[Bewitched666]

My first drag vw beetle:

[Nico86]

It's the 68 I still have today, I bought it when I was 16 and start to restore it after driving it 2 month. You know the deal, you spot a little bit of rust on the pan so you decide to fix it, and after one afternoon the car is half-dismantled in your garage !  

[speedwell]

here's mine , i've it since 94
she started is live as an 74 deluxe and after I aged it in  66 model  
 still have the car , now waiting for a new bodywork  

[Tim C]

My first VW, a 66 de-chromed, looked like Darth Vaders Helmet! Bought in '95



Empi-VDM wheel, popouts, Porsche 356 wheels with black centres and silver outer ring, red rear lenses and taper tips! It rocked a 1300cc power house!

[Rocket Ron]

here's mine Had it 22 years in feb

[Rennsurfer]

This car looks awesome!

[j-f]

This car looks awesome!

Thank you. You say it each time you see a picture of it 

[Rennsurfer]

Thank you. You say it each time you see a picture of it 

You're welcome. Well... when one gets to be my age, one tends to become semi-senile, forgetful, and the attention span seems to diminish from day to day. At least I'm consistent. Hey, was that the recess bell?

 

[beetletom]

My first VW, a 66 de-chromed, looked like Darth Vaders Helmet! Bought in '95



Empi-VDM wheel, popouts, Porsche 356 wheels with black centres and silver outer ring, red rear lenses and taper tips! It rocked a 1300cc power house!

anymore pics please?
looks cool! 

[Tim C]

Just one more on the computer (poor quality), but do have some photos somewhere at home.

It was a fun car. When I had it (it's now in Ireland) my best mate at the time had a white 67 on Sprints, should dig some pics out of the two together and scan them in. Used to rip up the streets of sunny Guildford in them! 

I bought it from one of Ivan's mates.

[Jim Ratto]

cool topic Sarge and nice to see the culprit car that got you into this hobby.... I like the exhaust tips. No, really!

My first Volkswagen is the same '67 I have now. It was my first car too. I got it for Christmas in 1986, a very cool present, but needing a lot of work. The LH door was the wrong year, and didn't latch shut (it was roped shut to the seat belt hoop on the tunnel), it had no running boards, some of the electrical didn't work, and the H-case single-port was on its last breath. Even with straight Kendall 40W the pressure light was on at warm idle. The cool little bits were it had a German 009 distributor (then a big problem for smog  ) and the stock tailpipes were gutted hollow, so it had a bit of a rumble. I learned the basics about points, valve adjust, oil change and strainer cleaning and other things from John Muir book. In about 5 months, I wanted to replace the engine, and bought an off the shelf 1641 dual port from Bruce @ Bugformance in SJ, put a 32/36 Weber on it, painted the tinware Ford engine blue and bolted up an S&S exhaust to it. It was night and day comapred to the asthmatic 1500 single port. By a year later, I sold the 32/36, went to dual ICT's, then sold those and went single 36mm DRLA, then ripped the motor apart because I was bored, and built my first engine, a 1641 with Engle VZ25, 041 heads, HD springs, solid rocker shafts, swivel feet, etc etc... it ran like a top fueler with the single 2bbl, so I sold that and bought dual 36DRLAs, and it was like a Porsche. Smooth and fast. December 1989 the car was repainted and has that same paint today.
By 1990 I was working at BH and by the fall of that year I had put the first of an endless list of stroker motors in the car. First time drag racing it was at Sacramento, leaving line in 3rd gear, running a blistering 18 sec e.t.
I think the cam companies come up with new cams just because of my OCD thing about changing motors/cams.

here's a really bad picture of the 1641 with 32/36, circa 1987

[Rennsurfer]

Cool stories.

Ratto, it's impressive that you've had that car that long... and even more, the paint. That's COOL. The exhaust is a trip on your first engine. Never seen one like that.

[Jim Ratto]

Cool stories.

Ratto, it's impressive that you've had that car that long... and even more, the paint. That's COOL. The exhaust is a trip on your first engine. Never seen one like that.

Thanks Mark. Eventually I will repaint it and fix the little chips, nicks, etc. That exhaust sounded good on that motor, but was damn near impossible to get in or out of any driveway. It was fragile too. I progressed to the 4-tip S & S Rally thing after that, then all kinds of quiet packs, Turbo tucked mufflers, then Flowmaster 2-1/2", then finally the good ol' A1's.

[Rennsurfer]

That's funny about the different exhaust systems that we go through when we're young. I changed that and wheels on my car a LOT. In chronological order:

S&S w/single muffler
Monza four tip for only a couple of months (God, I can't believe I'm admitting this)
S&S header back on but with chrome tipped dual mufflers
FourTuned header with dual chrome tipped mufflers.
Same header w/single chrome tipped muffler (still have it)
Same header back to duals
FourTuned merged collector with very cool super tucked dual chrome tipped mufflers

If I still had that car, I'd either be running the last exhaust or more likely one just like the one that A-1 recently built me with the big heater boxes. That system is GREAT! Never seen so many people crawl under my car since I owned my Porsche in the '90s. HAHA!!

[Jim Ratto]

you should hang a sign under your car saying "smile you're on candid camera"

[Rennsurfer]

you should hang a sign under your car saying "smile you're on candid camera"

Actually, that's a perfect idea! I'm gonna make something like that and install it down there. Thanks!

[peach_]

my first Vdub and still in the garage 

[John Rayburn]

We had to put Mark in an intense intervention program because of that Monza thing. At least he can talk about it now without going into vomiting convulsions.

[Sarge]

That's funny about the different exhaust systems that we go through when we're young. I changed that and wheels on my car a LOT. In chronological order:

S&S w/single muffler
Monza four tip for only a couple of months (God, I can't believe I'm admitting this)
S&S header back on but with chrome tipped dual mufflers
FourTuned header with dual chrome tipped mufflers.
Same header w/single chrome tipped muffler (still have it)
Same header back to duals
FourTuned merged collector with very cool super tucked dual chrome tipped mufflers

If I still had that car, I'd either be running the last exhaust or more likely one just like the one that A-1 recently built me with the big heater boxes. That system is GREAT! Never seen so many people crawl under my car since I owned my Porsche in the '90s. HAHA!!

Good stuff, Mark and Jim.  I spent WAY too much time and cash at Phil's Muffler in La Habra with the '56..., one bad idea after another .  My favorite was the "header system" we came up with that invoved j-tubes for #'s one and three and a cross over for #'s 3 and four.... two pipes on each side that exited under the taillights.  For mufflers, I used stock VW chrome tips.  It was fourth of July weekend and I got stopped at least a half dozen times for excessive noise before being chased into Phil's Tuesday morning by yet another cop.  Ah, youth

[j-f]

Hey, was that the recess bell?

 [/b]