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Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:11 pm

Posted some pictures in the gallery Beetle 38-53 - started the restoration and have been taking some pics of cogwheels parts and some of the progress on the pan.
Car was delivered late October 1946 to US Armed Forces in Frankfurt. Came home to the US midwest with serviceman in the 50's. Original engine. Also have "sister" car delivered same day - body number is only 3 numbers apart from this one. Had some lead repair to front passenger quarter panel. Body and pan have been lightly blasted after color matching for the green chassis (not black, except in a few places which we have noted carefully). Has original (a bit crusty) floor mats too!
Mark

Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:49 pm

cool car it looks really solid and complet.

Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:05 pm

Good luck with the project Mark.
How long do you think the resto will take?

John

Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:58 am

Hi John,
Don't want to jinx it, but we are trying to get it done before the Solvang trip this fall. Ray has the front axle done, the rear axle ready to assemble already. Darin has the pan in primer and the paint (green) is mixed for the pan and engine sheet metal. Ray did find something interesting in the differential - one of the bearings was the same as he has seen before in a Schwimmwagen. It appears that VW couldn't find the right size bearing after the war, so they used a spacer along with a Schwimmwagen bearing. I will post a picture when I can find it. I picked up the seat material from beetlekey at the Huckeswagen meeting a month ago. The speedos need to go out to be redone, and I am now looking at the wiring harness situation. The good news is I won't need to worry about any chrome parts..:-)

We are doing one car at a time, so we can compare. The other 46 still drives and when I got it was in better overall condition. Any parts that have to be replaced will be saved and kept with each car for future owners reference.

Both cars were pretty much complete except missing one rear seat frame and we need to find one of the early aluminum cast type fuel pumps - only have one.

Mark

Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:11 pm

Added some new photos in the 38-53 VW gallery. Pan is progressing along!
Mark

Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:56 am

Looks great Mark. Per your questions "Rear seat bottom. Can anyone explain the green vinyl material laid over the springs?"

There was usually a fabric over the springs to keep the wire from chewing into the horsehair padding. They stopped that sometime with the ovals (my '57 does not have it, all original upholstery) but I WISH it did. The floor under the back seat of my '57 is constatnly covered with red/brown shreddings.

Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:37 pm

I dug out the paperwork I received with the car last night. There were a few receipts, a few registrations and some letters dated 1975 between a previous owner and Steve Wood - the President of the Split Window Club of America describing the car and some of the history. Of course Steve was trying to buy it, as was Albert Biehl... but i digress...

So for fun this morning, I searched online for the name of the Air Force guy who was said to have won it in a raffle... I got a phone number. When I called, I actually talked to the wife of the servicemen and got a lot more of the story. She was VERY nice, and glad to talk about the car and her late husband (her husband died just last year).

The original owner was a Air Force pilot who flew B26s - the VW was offered in a raffle contest at the PX base in 1946. The VW birth certificate has the car being delivered to US Armed Forces in October 30 1946, so this was a new car, not a used one!. If you won the raffle, you had the opportunity to purchase the new car for around $600. It turns out a lieutenant friend won, but didn't have the money, so the pilot and his wife (who had joined her husband in Germany in May 46) purchased the car, and let the lieutenant use it until he transferred off base.

Pilot and wife were coming home to US in January 1947 and so they drove the car to Bremerhaven to have it shipped to NY. She said they got in an accident on that trip due to the cobblestone roads and icy conditions - a truck had cut them off. When I described the damage we had uncovered to the passenger front side, she said that was it... About this time in the call, I'm getting pretty excited.... She said they did some small repair, and put the fender in the back seat and shipped it home.

They picked up the car in NY, and drove it through Philadelphia and on to Kansas. She claims that it was the first VW in Kansas. They had it for a number of years, but tired of trying to find parts (remember this is 1947-1951 or so, not so many VW dealers in Kansas), so it sat on jackstands in the back yard. Even went through the great flood of July 1951, which explains some of the silt we found in the tunnel! She said they sold it to a mechanic, who is also still alive, and I plan to speak with him too. She is going to send me some pictures and a copy of a newspaper article about the car - being such an early one in USA.

Anyway - as you can probably tell, I'm pretty pumped!! Gotta get going on some letters and calls to the other names I have in the pile....

Mark

Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:43 pm

Great reading Mark.
I doubt there are many 1940's or even 1950's VW's around that you can talk to the original owners about.

Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:56 pm

John,

I was surprised that I was able to speak with her. We're talking about 61 years ago - she is 82 now, so she was 21 years old in 1947. I didn't get her husband's age, but she said he was pretty young too, and flying the B26 widowmaker!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-26_Marauder
Mark

Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:44 am

Fantastic story Mark!

Most of us have difficulty finding out about the previous owners of our 1970s VWs, let alone being able to speak to them! Looks like you got lucky with this one. Good work!

Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:13 am

Wow, what a story. Where does she live? Imagine if you could drive the car over for her to see it? Probably not but sjut a thought. Could at least send her a picture....

Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:30 am

johnshenry wrote: Wow, what a story. Where does she live? Imagine if you could drive the car over for her to see it? Probably not but sjut a thought. Could at least send her a picture....

X2
that would blow her away.great story so far

Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:06 pm

Mark, I think that's great you have been able to get so much information about the car's history. Getting the pictures and articles from her and maybe some more history from the mechanic would be a great story.
I hope you can stay on your schedule to get it done in time.
Good Luck....
just a thought....maybe you could get the original owner to come out to solvang and get VW of A to use the 46 in one of the max commericals

take care

Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:28 am

Hi All,
The only reason I was able to find the original owner, is that an owner of the car in the 70's did some research, wrote it down, and the info passed on to me when I bought it. I just "re-researched" the names, now that the internet makes it much easier. The moral to the story is to get busy and do some research before the info is lost, and then write it down and keep the records with the car.

The other reason I was able to find her, was that she still lives in Topeka Kansas (but at a new address). Planning to send her some pics this week. She is recovering from hip replacement surgery, so I would have to go there. Sounds like a good idea for a road trip!!! Because it predates VW of A, they might not be interested, but we can always find out!
Mark

Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:37 am

Hi Mark,
the colour of the pan/ chassis is very ineresting. I have found it on my may 46, too. It is near 99% RAL 7002 olivgrau. Are all pans in this colour? And what colour is the frontaxel, steering, shocks ?
Your seats looks like old grandparepair.
Sorry can´t come to BugIn. Upholstery looks like your old one, great.
Marcus

Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:20 pm

Hi Marcus,

We matched the paint before we stripped the pan - it took a few adjustments to both color and the amount of shinyness before we got it right. I'll have to look up your paint code sometime and see if it is the same.
Ray is travelling, so I can't be sure, but I think the shocks, steering box and front axle were black. Also a few parts on the tunnel are black over the green, which we have put back on - see the latest pan photos in the gallery 38-53. He did tell me that the brake backing plates were black on one side, and same as the pan green on the other - the back of the backing plate was black and the part you cant see with the drum on is green. Picture added to gallery shows the green side.

Sorry to miss you at Bugin!
Mark

Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:59 am

qwerty wrote: The moral to the story is to get busy and do some research before the info is lost, and then write it down and keep the records with the car.
Mark

Mark, this is all too true. I bought my zwitter from the original owner in 1975 when I was 18 but I wish I had taken the time to find out more about the car's history. ....hmmmm maybe he is still alive.

Bill

Sun Jul 13, 2008 12:49 am

back from Bug-in Europe - progress resuming!

Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:31 pm

I received a cardboard tube from original owner's wife yesterday with photocopies of a front page article dated March 20 1947 in the Topeka State Journal about them bringing the VW back from the war. She also sent some scans of some pictures and the contact info of the mechanic they sold the car to. They sold (gave) the car to him sometime in the late 50s, as the whole car had been submerged in the great flood of 1951 in Topeka, and was no longer operative. I called him and talked to him today - he said when he got the car, the motor was not turning, so he got a 57 motor from a junkyard and traded in the old 46 motor. He then said a car collector noticed the car, and bought it from him for $395. The collector went back to the junkyard and although it had already been sold, he retrieved the engine somehow, as I have the original numbered and datecoded engine that matches the birth certificate from VW...A few years later, the car came out to California. I am now trying to locate this gentleman or his son in Santa Cruz CA.

I posted a few more pictures in the gallery. Transmission is in. Mixing the paint to paint the car sometime in August. Wiring harness sent to John Henry. Short block coming together. Speedo to North America Speedo for restoration....

Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:14 am

Quote: Where the cables exit the chassis at the rear - nowadays there is a rubber boot, but in 1946, rubber was scarce, so they just folded over a little seat material and sewed it, then fastened it with a wire to keep dirt out.

That is so cool. Are you going to replicate that in the resto?

Amazing how complete that '46 is/was.