TheSamba.com :: View topic - Tempting MA '62 bug find.. intact floors.. good deal?

Tue Nov 18, 2008 4:13 pm

I drove down a street about a mile away from my house and saw I bug in someone's backyard I had never seen before. Either it was covered up or stashed behind something, but now it's out in the open. I chatted briefly with the owner's mother, who was visibly eager for it to live somewhere else.

She was saying her son would be asking $1500, but I had the feeling I could get it for much lower than that. Her son the owner, was off in Chicago, or lives out there or something.. It sorta had the look of an abandoned project, though the car itself wasn't really taken apart all that much.

I was wondering if at $900-$1000 this is a good deal.. Consider that this IS Massachusetts, and we don't have many bugs here period, and the supply of backyard and barn finds has almost been exhausted, if they're rusted into the ground, or been hauled off for scrap back when everybody and their dog was offering $200 for scrap cars.

I know bugs are a dime a dozen in CA, but not here.

I'm not sure what year the car is, but it's between 62 and 64, judging from the 62-67 vintage taillights, and the smaller pre-65 windows. the headliner doesn't cover the whole ceiling in the front, so it might be a 62 or 63. Sorry I don't have any pictures yet, but I can describe its condition.

It's that medium blue color. It's oxidized but looks like it might buff out ok.. The rocker panels/doorsills were pretty rough, but the floors look mostly intact (at least from underneath). All the fenders look pretty straight and intact, not rusted out. The bumpers appeared to be missing, but maybe they're in the car.

The interior is white and the seats are sort of sitting inside the car but not mounted on the tracks. The looked like they were in pretty good shape. I'm betting that the car is 95% there if not entirely complete.

She said it's been sitting for a very long time, so I'm going to guess like 20-30 years, which on the good side, means that everything is completely stock, and it hasn't been JCWhitney-d to death, but on the bad side might mean that there's hidden rust or the engine is no good.

The engine is all there, but I have no idea of the condition.. I'm assuming it's like a 36hp or a 1200, and I might already have some parts for old ones like that, so getting parts isn't really an issue.

I wasn't really looking for another project, but the big plus about this car is it probably would cost me next to nothing to get it home- so no expensive towing fees as I could probably pump up the tires get 4 strong friends and roll it down the street! Considering that people spend hundreds of dollars just getting a car home, this could be a deal-maker...

Were I to get this car and do some nessicary body/interior work on it, how is the market right now for lightly-restored 64-ish bugs that are 100% stock and haven't been customized beyond recognition?

-Tara

Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:05 pm

1. projects are usually within a mile from your house just have to look in every garage
2. unless it has a wolfsburg crest on hood (unless it has been removed) not likely a 62. look to see if there are mounting holes for a crest.
3. 62 and earlier had the mohair headliner not vinyl. look for that if it is OG
4. without pics sounds like a $400 max car, assuming it is OG and complete
5. market sucks right now, unless you get this bug for free and do all the resto work yourself, you are not likely to flip it for too much

post pics and try to get it for as little as possible, something else will always come along
good luck! :wink:

Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:14 pm

I'd say go for it! I'm from CT and we're the same way with little to few barn finds in the area...I'd say try to get in contact with her son and make an offer.

Even if you don't need another project now, it'll always be there later for you fix and enjoy :D

Tue Nov 18, 2008 7:09 pm

yea post some pics if you can and we can give a better estimate of its worth-

my rabbit rusted out in 3 winters up there! -Salt is one thing i don't miss here :wink:

Tue Nov 18, 2008 7:37 pm

Don't be afraid to look around if you are unsure. Look what $2000.00 bought me last month:

Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:48 pm

Darby you are always finding deals and have a reputation in the Chicago land area I am sure as the VW guy.

Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:56 pm

Yes she's a sweetie. I had to drive 200 miles to get it. I was looking for a late model daily driver, I couldn't pass it up. All original metal but for '65 left fender and I've already fixed the turn signal position from where it is in the picture. It's my new daily driver except if there is snow on the road, I'm looking for a gas heater for it just for fun. Never had one before.
I'm sure in Show Low you can come up with a rust free car often. Here rust free means you get it at no extra charge. your '68 looks like a nice survivor too.

Tue Nov 18, 2008 9:05 pm

Dats Nice!

Max

Tue Nov 18, 2008 10:16 pm

Tara, your car description leaves me with one main problem: you mention floors look good from underneath yet rockers and door sills look pretty rough. We want these conditions to be the other way around. sills and rockers usually Guarantee bad heater channels and A pillar issues- look behind the front wheels- carefully

It may be that the son started to restore rusty floors, sills (seats are loose) and got discouraged. It is likely more abandoned project than true barn find. Offer money based on that- not barn find dollars. You noticed seats loose inside, but didn't notice two huge chrome bumpers...? Look at the condition of the bumper mounts as well- there may be rusty mount issues- and apron headaches. I don't want to sound too negative- cause each car has value- just dread anybody over-paying... good luck. brad

Tue Nov 18, 2008 11:01 pm

DrDarby wrote: Yes she's a sweetie. I had to drive 200 miles to get it. I was looking for a late model daily driver, I couldn't pass it up. All original metal but for '65 left fender and I've already fixed the turn signal position from where it is in the picture. It's my new daily driver except if there is snow on the road, I'm looking for a gas heater for it just for fun. Never had one before.
I'm sure in Show Low you can come up with a rust free car often. Here rust free means you get it at no extra charge. your '68 looks like a nice survivor too.

What model of gas heater does that take? I just came across a box of about 3 of them in my garage...

I'll post pics if I can get some.. I don't want to let on that I'm too interested in the car, so I don't want to bother them too much.. either way I'm sorta waiting to hear back from the guy who owns it.

I'm going to wait a few days, but maybe I'll sneak a picture of it from the road.

Generally, here in New England, even the barn finds are rusted completely. And if you go to the junkyard, you'll see cars from the late 90's that are rusted pretty badly, so my threshold for what's restorable is a bit lower than other parts of the country.

But as I remember riding in VW's as a kid, sometimes a car would rust the floors out first, and sometimes the heater channels would go first.. There really seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind it.

The other big factor is whether the owner has any paperwork for it. If he's owned it this long in Mass, he probably didn't have to have a title for it (cars that were 15+ years didn't need a title until about 1990, then suddenly everything does). So unless he has an old registration or title, it's going to be impossible to get a title unless you do some sort of Broadway title finagelry.

-Tara

Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:20 pm

lastchancevw wrote:

The rocker panels/doorsills were pretty rough,

-Tara

What everybody said, lastchancevw. The only thing I could add would be ballpark considerations, and just my opinion.

Assuming the obvious differences between light brown surface rust and dark brown, raised, and penetrant rust which will require metal replacement;

will the driver's doorframe require lower frame replacement up to, halfway up, or past the lower hinge mounting area?

Reason being that this height off the ground is the boundary for other rust issues at that height, like brake backing plates, the A pillar, pan cross members and jack points, battery tray, heater channel body tubes, and bumper brackets, to name a few.

If the door frame rust is strictly below the lower hinge, you're laughing, basically.

If it is halfway into the hinge area so you could possibly only undo one of the hinge-to-frame spotwelds when putting in the replacement piece, you've got a lot more of a job, but it is still doable economically on a very valuable car. But check the markets right now. JMO, but this level of resto gets north of $10 K pretty quickly.

If it is well past the lower hinge area, you've got a major project in a lot of different areas..

Hope this helps, or isn't too obvious.

Peter

Sat Nov 29, 2008 11:58 pm

pbenn wrote: lastchancevw wrote:

The rocker panels/doorsills were pretty rough,

-Tara

What everybody said, lastchancevw. The only thing I could add would be ballpark considerations, and just my opinion.

Assuming the obvious differences between light brown surface rust and dark brown, raised, and penetrant rust which will require metal replacement;

will the driver's doorframe require lower frame replacement up to, halfway up, or past the lower hinge mounting area?

Reason being that this height off the ground is the boundary for other rust issues at that height, like brake backing plates, the A pillar, pan cross members and jack points, battery tray, heater channel body tubes, and bumper brackets, to name a few.

If the door frame rust is strictly below the lower hinge, you're laughing, basically.

If it is halfway into the hinge area so you could possibly only undo one of the hinge-to-frame spotwelds when putting in the replacement piece, you've got a lot more of a job, but it is still doable economically on a very valuable car. But check the markets right now. JMO, but this level of resto gets north of $10 K pretty quickly.

If it is well past the lower hinge area, you've got a major project in a lot of different areas..

Hope this helps, or isn't too obvious.

Peter

Thanks Peter

I did finally get a chance to talk to the owner, and found out that it is a '62, and that (according to him) the floors are really good and it's just rusty in the parts near the running board area.

I'm going to get a chance to look at it again tomorrow and take some good pictures of it. I've got a pretty good idea of where these things rust out, and rocker panel rust doesn't scare me too much, seeing as I grew up driving bugs that had so much sill and floor rust that the door latches didn't line up. Jacking points? What are those? I don't think I've ever SEEN original jacking points on something that wasn't a show car.

The owner says it's a 6volt system still, and that it's the original engine and it hasn't run in like 12 years (which is more recent than I thought - i was going to guess 20 yrs). He also said the bumpers were kept indoors to preserve them.

I'm also going to take notice on how much of the original paint is there.. It's a big plus if I can just buff out the paint and not re-do that. If the doorsills are mostly there, I might just leave them and make it a runner as is (once Spring comes)

I did get one picture from the road, but it doesn't say all that much.. I still don't know how much $$ he expects, but when I check it out, I'll try to offer well below $1000...

-Tara

Sun Nov 30, 2008 9:35 am

Well my friend, thats a nice picture. Bugs always look good in pictures because pictures dont show the rust.
When I check out rust on a bug I look first:
behind front wheels, in front of rear wheels. If there are holes there it means ALOT of water has been shooting into the heater channels and not only are the outter rocker panels rusted, but most likely the inner heater tubes are badly rusted.
Then I look at the front door pillars at the bottom. When the windshield channel develops holes, the water leaks strait to the bottom of the front pillars. A major repair job IMO.
If Im still looking, I pull out the spare tire and and check out the bottom of the front apron and the bumper mounts. And the front axle beam rusts out on the E. coast where the 2 brackets connect the two tubes together.
Other than that: rear apron/bumper mounts, battery tray, and rear package tray. Restoration of the bodywork is always twice as much work, and twice as expensive as you will estimate. 2 cents :D

Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:56 am

Well, I got some pictures now, and of course, once you really look at it, you see it's worse than you thought.

The driver's door has some rot-through, which I hadn't noticed before.
The driver's doorsill is the worse one. the passenger side is more intact, but still a little rough

The floors are all intact, but there is a little rot-through in the battery tray area. There are a couple of small half-dollar sized holes behind the front wheels and in front of the back wheels, but not as bad as I've seen.

below the spare tire it's mostly intact, though there was stuff in front of the car so I couldnt look at it from underneath

The scariest place for rust is all near the fuse box in the trunk area.. I'm not looking forward to fixing that, though it might not be rusted all the way through

Other bad- Headliner is cloth and pretty trashed. It isn't original paint, having been repainted sometime (though the original color)

The good.. Yes. the bumpers were in the car (they were under the seats).. They are ok (some pitting). The seats are pretty intact, original upholstery. There is plenty of new-looking shiny paint in the inside, even in some places where the carpet was. The engine turns easily, and is the original stale-air 1200 with 88k miles. The car hasn't been near a single JC Whitney part or gotten into the hands of any custom butchers.

Mainly the rust near the fuse box makes me the most worried. doorsills/heater channels I expect to be NG up here.. The doors open and close with a nice noise, so the body isn't sagging.

I did talk him down a bit in price, but not enough I think. So.. what do you think? Keep in mind this is Massachusetts, where they aren't a dime a dozen.

Check my profile/galleries for more pictures.

-tara

Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:42 am

lastchancevw wrote: Well, I got some pictures now, and of course, once you really look at it, you see it's worse than you thought.

The driver's door has some rot-through, which I hadn't noticed before.
The driver's doorsill is the worse one. the passenger side is more intact, but still a little rough

The floors are all intact, but there is a little rot-through in the battery tray area. There are a couple of small half-dollar sized holes behind the front wheels and in front of the back wheels, but not as bad as I've seen.

below the spare tire it's mostly intact, though there was stuff in front of the car so I couldnt look at it from underneath

The scariest place for rust is all near the fuse box in the trunk area.. I'm not looking forward to fixing that, though it might not be rusted all the way through

Other bad- Headliner is cloth and pretty trashed. It isn't original paint, having been repainted sometime (though the original color)

The good.. Yes. the bumpers were in the car (they were under the seats).. They are ok (some pitting). The seats are pretty intact, original upholstery. There is plenty of new-looking shiny paint in the inside, even in some places where the carpet was. The engine turns easily, and is the original stale-air 1200 with 88k miles. The car hasn't been near a single JC Whitney part or gotten into the hands of any custom butchers.

Mainly the rust near the fuse box makes me the most worried. doorsills/heater channels I expect to be NG up here.. The doors open and close with a nice noise, so the body isn't sagging.

I did talk him down a bit in price, but not enough I think. So.. what do you think? Keep in mind this is Massachusetts, where they aren't a dime a dozen.

Check my profile/galleries for more pictures.

-tara

dime a dozen or not, you are still in for a ton of work on that one! Seriously, i dont care what part of the country you are in, that is a $200 max beetle IMO. You would be better off spending more on a nicer one, then dumping money in to that, which obviously needs tons of metal work, and rust that WILL come back at some point. Are you willing to dump close to $6000 in to that, assuming you do all the work? if you are capable and can get it for a price you are comfortable with, then go for it. From the pictures, you can tell why the project was abandoned originally. Keep in mind, even restored, that beetle will only fetch $7000 tops, you probably wont make you money back. good luck with that but seriously do not spend too much on it, another one will come you way :wink: my number one rule of thumb when hunting old vws is, you can't want it too much.

Mon Dec 01, 2008 1:34 pm

yeah candyman.. I agree..

For once in my life I'm feeling good to walk away (ok- so some of you would run from this) from this one.

The thing is do-able, but what's making me walk is the rust around the fuse box.. Something happened (maybe a electrical fire)

If it was like $400, I might go for it.. Up around a grand, it becomes hard for me to justify, since I already have a few project cars. If it wasn't for the rot through on the door and the trunk/fuse box rust, I'd be more tempted.

Anyway, I told the owner about this website- so he might put it up for sale here. If he does, I'll delete this thread since I really don't want to influence the sale.. He was a nice guy and for the right person, this would be a good project, since most of the backyard finds in Mass are much, much worse.

-tara

PS- Over the summer, ANY junk car was worth $200 in scrap value, but I don't think that's true anymore.

Mon Dec 01, 2008 1:48 pm

If in doubt, go without

Mon Dec 01, 2008 1:50 pm

The fuse box rust is nothing. Its that heater channel that would scare me.

Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:15 pm

South East MA hmm? close to Cape Cod?

Mon Dec 01, 2008 3:51 pm

lastchancevw wrote: yeah candyman.. I agree..

PS- Over the summer, ANY junk car was worth $200 in scrap value, but I don't think that's true anymore.

here in missoula, scrap is currently $30 bucks a ton! ouch :x