Team-BHP - Classic Volkswagens in India

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aston.Martin (Post 1277337)

Hi,

Today I got an e-mail from a Beetle owner who is in Dubai and he is selling his Beetle 1302 which is now in Goa.

According to him, the car is fully renovated with brand new imported spare parts. Cylinder block, cylinder heads, piston and liners, all the engine bearings and seals, carburetor alternator, distributer all are replaced and the car has a reconditioned gearbox imported from Dubai. It has new tyres and tube, Sony CD player, power subwoofer with power amp, paradigm speakers and many more barand new spare parts. And the asking price is 500,000.

Experts, I need your valuable inputs, is it worth buying ?? What about the price ??

Picture is attached below..

Hi Aston,

As mentioned by our fellow men, get the car examined. I do not like the side mirrors, and in the first pic the tail lights appear to be at an odd angle, but this could be an illusion effect. If the car is healthy, no oil leaks, and the metal is sound, then go and negotiate. Because you can buy a cheaper car and then spend to do it up. So you must have a proper look. No comment on the price because there you have to take a call.
All the best! harit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lu€iFer (Post 1277376)

PM PavanKadam.He is your man for this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheARUN (Post 1277387)

The BUG does not look too original. Check the side steps, the rear bumper and the rear view mirrors.

PAVANKADAM is the expert on BEETLES. Get an opinion from him before you make up your mind. He is very helpful

I've missed a lot of T-BHP since 2 days.

Anyways, the above Beetle is a 1974 1302 VW which comes with a 1300 engine, not a 1548 cc twin port engine.:),might be a engine swap, some pics of the engine room would do good.1302's come with flat windscreen . The front bumper is fabricated and not original.The rear fender does'nt seem to belong to the same vehicle.The indicators on the front bumper also out of sorts. Nevertheless, the car looks good, check the engine health first and take a plunge. Rest all the cosmetics are reversible.

Its a nice beetle to keep and 1300's are better engines. Price of 5 lacs is too much, maybe you can bargain and offer 2.50 to 3 lacs as a final price.:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by PAVAN KADAM (Post 1278149)

The Beetle owner says it came with a 1548 cc engine itself and he never swapped it. When I told him 5L is very high, he asked me whats my offer..
Attaching the last pic he sent me, he does not have the pics of engine bay as he's in Dubai..

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheARUN (Post 1277387)

Let AUTOMANNJ not hear this, actually he has given a lot of misinformation regarding beetle in this forum, which has been cut to size by some other Bhpian who has given a full detailed description of the various models

Quote:

Originally Posted by classico (Post 1279474)

Sorry classico, but this is a public forum and nobody cuts nobody to size here. We are all here to share and learn. If I remember right, the bhpian you are talking about has also mentioned the source and does not claim it to be his own research. How do you know that the other Bhpian who has given full detailed description is right? Have you got that information verified by VW? Any Beetle fan would know that there were several changes over the years(both cosmetic and mechanical) and there are bound to be inconsistencies even between batches within those years. FYI, it is common for manufacturers including VW to sometimes use parts from previous model years just to finish off some spares that have been lying in their warehouse. These rarely get documented. So unless you are trying to own a concourse car, there is always a benefit of doubt that is given to the owner or restorer. While several websites have done a great job in documenting these changes, one must bear in mind that there may be inconsistencies between info on two sites and likewise between information provided by two different t-bhpians who are only trying to share their knowledge.

If you are interested in model year differences, I would suggest you have a read of [FONT=Arial]Vw Beetle : A Comprehensive Illustrated History of the World's Most Popular Car by [/FONT]Keith Seume.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wasif (Post 1279577)

The interior of this car is definitely not as it was when it left the works. The steering and the upholstry also look different than original.

Spot on:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aston.Martin (Post 1279666)

With all these, I think I will skip this Beetle, but my search will continue and will keep you all posted about the progress.

Thanks Pavan, Harit, Wasif, Dom and everybody.

End of the day a good decision, dont worry buddy, there are lot many Beetles around, i feel if you've started with such a car, you'll surely find a better one in the coming days:).

Best of luck, keep us updated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by S@~+#0$# (Post 1280030)

Sorry classico, but this is a public forum and nobody cuts nobody to size here.
Agreed sir,stupid:

We are all here to share and learn. If I remember right, the bhpian you are talking about has also mentioned the source and does not claim it to be his own research. How do you know that the other Bhpian who has given full detailed description is right? Have you got that information verified by VW?

What you remember is not ''right'' I checked the thread http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/post-1...me-true-4.html
he has clearly mentioned that he has done some detailed research on this . and as far as getting verified by VW is an amusing question!!!

Any Beetle fan would know that there were several changes over the years(both cosmetic and mechanical) and there are bound to be inconsistencies even between batches within those years. FYI, it is common for manufacturers including VW to sometimes use parts from previous model years just to finish off some spares that have been lying in their warehouse. These rarely get documented. So unless you are trying to own a concourse car, there is always a benefit of doubt that is given to the owner or restorer. While several websites have done a great job in documenting these changes, one must bear in mind that there may be inconsistencies between info on two sites and likewise between information provided by two different t-bhpians who are only trying to share their knowledge.

If you are interested in model year differences, I would suggest you have a read of [FONT=Arial]Vw Beetle : A Comprehensive Illustrated History of the World's Most Popular Car by [/FONT]Keith Seume.

thanks for suggesting the Book, but I am not a beetle owner and the point i wanted to make in this thread, is some people were claiming this particular guy as an ''expert''' on beetle and the fact of the matter is the above mentioned thread clearly shows that he is not worthy of being called so.This is my personal opinion. others may agree or disagree but first go through that thread in detail and also automannj's thread.

This is a 1302. They were only built for model years 71 and 72. 73 onwards it was the 1303 with the rounded windscreen.

In this car the tail light is incorrect -- it is the later elephant foot. It's possible/likely the fender is still the correct one but probably cut up to install the later (wrong) tail lights == and it does not look like it was done properly either -given the angle of the lights in the picture.

The interior looks modified -- the seat back almost looks broken. And the upholstery work seems questionable. The mirrors are add on.

Having said that, most of the "defects" seem correctable. May be worth having a closer look at -- though 5 would be high for this one.

Regarding engine -- If it originally came with a 1584, the car should be a 1302S. I suspect it is indeed a 1302S as it also seems to have the padded dash which was a higher end option (I can't really tell from the pic whether it is the original padded dash or something else).

Byas