Antique & Classic Cars Blog
Full-Resto Fun
Thursday, February 5th, 2009A full restoration is a fun project to undertake and to watch. Seeing everything so clean, like you’re the original builder, is a nice experience after years of oily wrench turning or rust dropping on your face when you scoot underneath.
This is a ‘62 Karmann Ghia owned by my friend John, in whose heated garage my ‘69 MGB GT is quietly slumbering over the winter. His mechanic, Matt, has just fitted the wiring harness.
The black car in the back corner is a parts car John bought for $300. He’s going to take everything mechanical off of it, plus the full interior, but there’s a guy who still wants what remains. John told him, “It’s really rusty,” but the guy claims, from photos, that the car he owns is far worse.
Kinda cool that many stylish old cars are worth something even as stripped-down hulks. It encourages folks to keep reviving them, which preserves history and makes the roads at summertime more interesting, when the old collector stuff comes out to play.
3 Responses to "Full-Resto Fun"
That Karmann Ghia reminds me of that silly commercial that aired about 8 months ago. The guy sits on the front of it and jumps up because it was hot. I guess the people who made the ad didn’t realize the engine was in the rear. I used to work at a junkyard that specialized in VWs. I was always amazed at the people always looking for parts for the Ghias. No matter how much they were stripped down, someone always wanted a remaining piece. I didn’t care much for them myself. I preferred the Vee Dubs with the engine in the other end.
They’ve grown on me over the years. When I was a kid and they were still being made, they seemed a little bulbous and the air-cooled engine sounded (and is) feeble.
I like the styling now–it’s aged well, or my tastes have shifted, or both. I’d still like more kick, though. The stock motor for the one above was 40 horses. There’s one over at Quality Coaches getting a Mazda WRX engine (pictured and described in a post from a few weeks ago). Now that would interest me: a car that had that much classic style that could really move out. Saying you’d surprise a few people is a real understatement when you’re packing 300 horses in a car that had 36-40, stock.
Know what you mean about the front-engine Volksies. My brother had ‘77 Scirocco in high school that was really fun and I had an ‘85 GTi. Nice nimble cars.
And let us not forget the greatest advantage the front engined Vee Dubs have over the rear engined ones - heat.
Then there are ones that have engines at both ends http://www.durocco.com
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MotorMouth Kris Palmer, freelance auto writer and editor, blogs about vintage cars, the collectible auto scene and just about anything else that goes vroom.
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