A Bug's Death

If our subtitle is A Bug's Life, there's gonna have to be a resurrection, because Saturday morning I got to thinking the Bug is plumb dead. And I don't mean no four days dead like Lazarus -- it died and was dismembered about a decade ago, and has been in decay ever since. Being a '71, it's been dead at least a quarter of its life.

In high school we used to name our cars. I’d call this one Lazarus but that might be jumping the gun. Maybe one day.

I'm still trying to figure out this resurrection business, though, at a rate of four hours per weekend and making progress at a rate of what feels like little to none per hour. I found an old can of auto paint stripper about a month ago and have been brushing that onto yellow parts and letting it soak in while I sand away at the grey, off-white, blue, and Bondo-colored parts. Did I mention it's slow-going?

I’ve spent time in my garage every Saturday and Sunday morning since I started this project, save a couple weekends of being out of town. I worked on it for a couple hours this past Saturday and then overslept on Sunday.

After finally talking to a sandblasting guy, I decided I'm too much of a do-it-yourselfer (tightwad) to go that route, though I may eat those words in the coming months. Offering a glimmer of hope, my brother told me last weekend that he owns a sandblaster. So with that and the big air compressor I stole from him several years ago, I might be blasting by next weekend.

I also saw a blaster on YouTube that's hooked to a vacuum, which eliminates much or all of the inherent sandblasting mess, so I might hit up Harbor Freight this week and swap a little green for a little convenience.

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I got this car a few weeks before I turned 17. My older brother and I had the same “deal” with our parents about our first and second cars. When we turned 16, we each drove a brown 1987 Mazda B2000 (The Turd) for a year, and at 17, our parents would match however much money we’d saved up for a car.

Since the age of 13, I’d regularly scanned the Big Nickel and Auto Trader for cars, and by age 17 had narrowed the search down to old VWs, MGs, and Triumphs. One day around my 17th birthday, my dad and I test drove a blue Karmann Ghia hardtop, with a 1776cc engine and dual carbs.

It was fast and awesome.

I was about to pull the trigger on the Ghia, but then we saw an ad for a ‘71 convertible Bug for $1,800 in need of paint, a top, and rubbers. (My dad and I laughed about it needing rubbers. Come to find out, they meant window seals, etc.) It was an hour and a half away in Parsons, Kansas, but we figured we should go have a look to rule it out.

It was an oxidized metallic blue with a white top that was so deteriorated, the weight of the back window had caused the window to rip completely out. The front seats had faux sheepskin covers. The back seat and seatback were lacking upholstery but had been lovingly wrapped in an old bed sheet, which was ripped so the original horsehair padding was exposed.

The stock 1600cc engine ran fairly well but would spit and sputter for several seconds after killing the ignition. The convertible frame mechanism seemed straight and functional. The body had no rust – the owner said it had baked in the Arizona sun most of its existence.

I knew I had to make a decision on it before we left that day, because of the long drive from Neosho. My dad and I drove it around town and then stopped at Dairy Queen to kick the tires some more over ice cream. It was a warm but not hot September day, a great day for a convertible.

For some reason I was drawn to the Beetle even over the sexier and faster Ghia. I think the soft top was the deciding factor, and at this price we could afford to breathe some life back into it with a tune-up, paint job, top, upholstery… and rubbers.

I didn’t know this at the time, but I like to make things new, to give things a second chance.

So we bought the old Beetle and drove back to Neosho, taking turns driving it, taking turns passing each other, flying our hands in the wind out the window, and generally smiling the whole drive home.

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Photos -- the second one is the paint stripper at work. The video at the end is a couple seconds of the paint stripper in action before my camera batteries died.