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Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:58 am

So im driving home from the big city on the windy country road we live on (our shop and home are on the same road) and i see out the corner of my eye a beetle (vert?) on a property "hey,ive never seen this before!" brakes slammed and i pull onto the property...

a young man runs out of the house as im getting out of the singlecab,before i even open my mouth he yells "do you want it? you can have it" i reply "do you guys want to sell the old bug?"

from the 20 ft status i see that it might be a vert and an early one at that (55-61 tailights early anyway).

this kid is excited and says "hey,i take the school bus and im always looking at the cars" i ask "whats the story on the vert?" he regales me in his tale of this beetle which i have since named "the tickle creek turd". our shared road is named "tickle creek road".

apparently he was riding the bus and saw a piece of a car in a remote area on our road,so he hopped on his stingray bike and pedaled the 2 or so miles back to the spot and found a part of a beetle cut up....this fascinated him and he spent 2 weeks after school foraging the site and slowly found and brought home piece by piece the tickle creek turd.

he brought the "car" home bit by bit with a radio flyer wagon being pulled by him on his stingray bike.......at this point im thinking "how cool is this kid and what decade am i in?"

he set the car up in a fashion that made it look like a beetle again,it was a pretty neat find and i think i liked the young mans story alot more than his "car",i gave him $20 and made sure he didnt want it before we loaded it up......

after loading it up i realized we have a "roof liberated" 61 beetle in pieces,torched apart,so i plan on doing a concourse restoration as soon as possible..........

actually though,the kid came by after he sold it to me and shared that he had a baja bug,i showed him around and he may have wet his pants.....i told him to come by and help me move some stuff around and i'll help him out with his baja.....

very cool 16 yr old kid,and obviously has some love for the vws,also lives on my road...

when he comes over (he will be stopping back soon im pretty sure) i'll have him help me move some stuff then i'll pull out a chassis (i happen to have a 56-61 pan) and i'll show him how we put a chassis together,then we will put the 61 ditch bug body on the pan,not sure what we will do with it then,hopefully it "speaks" to us by then

Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:04 am

Great find!! do you plan to restore it?? Should buff out :lol: :lol:

Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:21 am

by all means,yes totally restoring it.....actually i'll put it on a chassis and piece it together with the worst possible condition parts we can find...donations of unusable ruined rusted parts welcome

Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:24 am

Man I miss Oregon, What a great story I'm sure you are going to make a lasting impression on that young man. A future keeper of the flame I'm sure.

Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:28 am

thanks,i hope so,i was very happy to run into a fella his age that not only had the gumption to get off his butt and unearth this beast,but then not even want any money for his efforts

here i thought all kids his age were into video games,cell phones and building a fatass.....very refreshing,gives me hope for the future!

Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:06 am

Excellent story!! Keep us posted! I should send up some fatty tires for that kid's Radio Flyer. :lol:

Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:16 am

Cool story with that car.
It's like a jigsaw puzzle. It's great that the kid wants to help put it together.

Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:40 am

heres what it looked like when it caught my eye

Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:16 am

Kid did a decent job!

Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:21 am

I don't know what is a rarer find, the car or the kid!

You need to take good care of the kid! That sounds like a young man that has potential and a love for the hobby. He just needs a little help to get things rolling!

Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:32 am

Hehe. That sounds like something I would do..
Well I would have just taken the decklid taillights and the bumpers..
(I'm 16 also.)

Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:33 pm

That wouldn't happen to be near Colton by chance would it?

Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:39 pm

I've got a spare dome light I'll donate to the resto! \:D/

Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:03 am

You should have "the kid" help you build that car , then give it to him for a graduation present :D

Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:19 am

right on please pm me if you feel you have a part shitty enough for this car,i think i might do a rollcage attached to the chassis then the body can rest/weld? to a tube subframe...

this kid likes the bajas so im thinking of a cut and turned beam and reduction box trans,if we go that route it could be a reality fairly soon,ive got some good used brakes to throw at it. im thinking wooden bench for a seat

Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:24 am

Love this story, great job keeping the young interested in this stuff. This is going to be an awesome build thread

Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:49 am

"Love this story, great job keeping the young interested in this stuff. This is going to be an awesome build thread"

Same here, please keep us posted. I have a 15 soon to be 16 yr. old son that loves VW's of any sort. We'll all be watching this closely. Thanks

Tue Jun 09, 2009 5:58 pm

56vwrag wrote: Hehe. That sounds like something I would do..
Well I would have just taken the decklid taillights and the bumpers..
(I'm 16 also.)

That deck lid is a dime a dozen the tailights are shit and the bumpers are wasted.. i woulda took it all or nothing.. prob nothing tho
good luck with it :D

Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:49 pm

GREAT story. It reminds me when I was a kid walking through my back yard and heading over to the neighbors yard where a bug chassis sat. My friends and I used to play in it acting like we were driving. I don't know what year that old bug was, but it was pre 1968 for sure. The neighbor used to build dune buggies in the '70's and had a couple old bugs sitting around from time to time.

Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:50 pm

Nice find (talking about the Kid) it is nice to see people still bring the youngsters under there wing because you never know how much it means to a young boy.