4 lug verses 5 lug wheels

[74 Cosa]

I bought my 74 Thing last year which came with 4 lug drums and wheels all around. They look similar to my 75 VW Bug drums and wheels. The previous owner said that's the way he bought it. The other day I saw a Thing for sale on ebay and it had four lug wheels as well. I asked the seller and he said that's the way he bought it. Was this and option or did these people go through the trouble of changing them out? If so, why??

[markie61]

My wheels have chevy lug pattern because the PO converted the front brakes to Karmann Ghia discs (vw 4-hole) and the rear were 205mm vw drums. He used adapters front and rear. Perhaps the owners had a similar reason to convert over (wanted wheels, match front discs, etc.) I have never seen a factory Thing with anything other than wide 5's.

Mark
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Whut is that-there Thang!?
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Chicks dig my Thing - so what if it's little and yellow...!?

[Space Ghost]

All things had 5 bolt (5x205mm pcd) wheels like early beetles/vans up to 1967.........


...........but it is easy to swap them to later beetle type (4x130mm).....

I am restoring my thing (181 ex-german army) and will be lowering it with alloys..... I have chosen to change the wheels from 5 bolt to 4 bolt because ........

(1) I want disc brakes on the front cheaply ans easily (standard beetle disc brake setup).....

and (2) I want to use original (not repro) alloy wheels (Porsche fuchs 2.0 wheels and Porsche pedrinis - both originally used on porsche 914 in the 1970's)........ to buy original 5 bolt alloys would require me getting a 2nd mortgage etc etc ......... and I didn't want to buy NEW REPRO wheels.......... Prefer ratty looking originals.......yeah baby!

[Ian Epperson]

The Thing drums have been much more expensive (though, when I looked just now, they're not all that bad - $85). I believe they used to be much worse - like $150 per drum that could be replaced with a bolt-on, 4-lug bug drum for $35.

If the brakes are totally screwed up and all the drums need replacing and the PO didn't care about the stock look and wanted to buy new wheels anyway..? Well then, ~$140 vs. ~$600 for all 4 is a very big difference. It doesn't stop as well as original, but it probably stopped better than with the old parts.

I went to 4 lug because I did the Ghia disk conversion in the front and wanted to keep the same pattern for all wheels and I was buying all new tires and wheels anyway.