TheSamba.com :: View topic - Beetles with Multi-Colored body parts

Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:52 am

stale air wrote: I honestly feel that there is enough evidence presented that proves that this was a practice that Vw did at the factory.
Me too :wink:

But that is no reason to stop documenting good examples. I'm also on a quest to find one of these body parts to just put in the garage and hang on the wall for a conversation piece.

Again thanks for the info on the book, I've got one on order and should have it by Monday.

Mon Dec 23, 2013 1:15 am

last one for me, black under ruby

Thu Aug 14, 2014 12:32 am

I found this on Facebook. I'm always searching for more info on this subject.

Thu Aug 14, 2014 2:03 am

stale air wrote:

Hmm, maybe this could this be why. :wink: :D

We need to find this guy!

Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:44 am

Nice Dustin B :D

Noticed the R/F fender on flatNbug's car. Hard to tell but his example looks like two coats of Java Green. The big clue is having a thin coat of factory sealer between them..

Thu Aug 14, 2014 8:22 pm

bill may wrote: 61SNRF wrote: Can anyone explain why I had a '67 decklid that had been painted not twice but three times then?

I don't believe for a minute that every example out there happened in a dealer body shop. My information authority states that he has never found any evidence that the parts were body worked or repaired in anyway except for the repaint. Maybe it was done in a special facility on the assembly line, but done at the factory none the less.

BTW there are other people in the World that know as much or more about VW's than bill may :wink:
i agree,you are one that knows more than i do. now research on samba about how beetles were painted at the factory.what happened after dip coating of primer as you call it. how many coats of paint were done at factory? how was the final coat applied.??? i know that you already know the answers because you know more than i do. i did not say "was repainted at a dealership body shop. i did not say parts were body worked prior to what was applied over e-coat oops i remember you call it primer not e-coat. you are one that knows more about beetles than i do. now what are the answers to my questions? no fair looking up or searching for the answers as you should be able to answer from memory as i do.
From memory then,
I distinctly remember (and maybe even have one of them) VW magazine ads stating that the car is dipped 9 times in paint at the factory. I know when VW moved beetle production over to Mexico, a lot of processes and machines from Gemany were copied, but I am unsure as to the whole paint dipping ordeal.

Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:16 pm

61SNRF wrote: Nice Dustin B :D

Noticed the R/F fender on flatNbug's car. Hard to tell but his example looks like two coats of Java Green. The big clue is having a thin coat of factory sealer between them..

so how do we now that that is factory sealer under the top color coat, and over the "hidden" other color????? Could that grey sealer have been applied after the factory, and it simply appears to be factory grey sealer, as any grey sealer would appear?

If a fender was damaged on a green car at factory, why would the workers take a red fender, and paint it green as a replacement? Would it not make more sense to just get a new unpainted (or primered) fender and make it green. What about the red car that the donor fender came from, was the red car sold with only three fenders?

I also doubt that many cars where damaged at the factory, but I bet a lot of cars where damaged after sale, and then a trip to the wrecker would yield a replacement, possibly of a different color, that would then be painted to match the repaired car.

also consider it is not good practice to have too thick a coat of paint, for VW which prided itself on quality factory paint, I think they would not want to sell a new car with double thick paint on a fender or hood.

I am not saying this could not have happened at the factory (different color fender repainted for a different color car), however it does not make sense to me for them to do this. It does however make sense that after the car left the factory a repair like this would be made.

Fri Aug 15, 2014 5:02 am

bluebus86 wrote:
so how do we now that that is factory sealer under the top color coat, and over the "hidden" other color????? .

We don't know, the guy in the picture is likely dead by now and we can't ask him :lol:

Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:05 pm

61SNRF wrote: bluebus86 wrote:
so how do we now that that is factory sealer under the top color coat, and over the "hidden" other color????? .

We don't know, the guy in the picture is likely dead by now and we can't ask him :lol:

Paint fumes got him!!!!

Fri Aug 15, 2014 7:55 pm

...interesting thread...

I recently picked up this original paint '63. The color of the car is turquoise and the interior dash and door areas are nice original paint, yet the outside of the driver door has red showing through...no other panels have red...

Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:56 pm

Bruce, sorry it has taken me 3 years ( :? ) to take these pictures of my '65, but I finally got them taken today. Hope this answers some questions.

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Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:57 pm

I see I have an old hornets nest that I need to remove. :lol:

Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:46 pm

And more than a few cobwebs to boot!

Thanks for the great pics of underneath :D
Just as I'd imagined the patina is consistent between the fender and quarter with little or no evidence of prior removal or tampering.

This topic was started to entice a discussion of the why's and how's the factory did it, and was never intended to convince any naysayers, but hopefully this will offer some proof that it did indeed happen at the factory level long ago.

On that note, I do find the little preserved spot of red on the lower/rear side a little curious. Must have been covered with some sort of sticker, coating, overspray or something that protected it from the UV's for a long time...

Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:00 pm

having worked in many auto plants and manufacturing facilities, I can say that this practice is very common. every plant I have been in has some type of rework process for discrepant materials. meaning any part found to be out of spec (damaged, scratched, broken etc.) is tossed aside and evaluated, and a determination is made whether to scrap, rework or use as is.

so having no knowledge of vw plant operations, I can only assume they did not scrap every fender, hood or door that got scratched or dinged. vw was very cost conscious (again, making an assumption). what likely happened, if a red fender was damaged, someone simply ran back and grabbed another red fender off the line (probably from the same paint batch) and tossed the bad one aside , the fender was picked up, evaluated, repaired as needed, and then returned to stock, and placed in line with other unpainted ones to follow the same paint process. with no regard to what color they used to be.

to say this never happened means you have to assume a few things,
1) vw scrapped every part with a minor defect, (resulting in massive cost)
2) vw shipped cars with defects (pretty sure they didn't)
3) vw never scratched a car in process (not likely)

another possibility is:

4) vw resprayed the entire car for any paint defects

this may be true for the main body structure , prior to assembly. if a car was found to have a paint defect immediately after being sprayed. if a car had already entered the assembly process, respraying the entire car would require either masking or complete disassembly. again this may have been done for the main body structure, but it does not make sense for the entire car, specifically easily removable items such as fenders, doors hoods, etc.

I have to assume that VW replaced damaged components found during the assembly process, and resprayed damaged components and reintroduced them into production. again, all assumptions, but it is what is done in auto assembly plants and all industries so I cannot imagine that vw did it any different.

another item mentioned was mismatched taillight housings, and I am going to say this also probably happened and that this came from the factory as well. it seems likely to me that these were delivered painted from the supplier, and if the plant ran out of red housings, I can see running a few blue ones down to be sprayed red. just in time manufacturing was not in place in those days. as for paint match, taillight housings, and even fenders are not in direct contact with another surface, so a slight paint mismatch would not be noticeable.

again, I can only speculate what went on inside the plant, but I know a lot about manufacturing practices, and I can assume that vw's processes were in line with standard practices of the day.

Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:03 pm

frog187 wrote: The fenders won't stay once I can source a set of 66 fenders but they work for now and I used what I had at the time to get her driving.

I think, the correct terminology for this, is a harlequin. Bolt on parts are just one of the things that would make this happen, indeed, the DDB "What year is it?" ad was the first official example of this type from vw.

But real people did this, as well. It was cheap to buy a fender, but perhaps not cheap to,paint it to match. Vw recalled this unique styling in their harlequin golf models later on the 90s.

I know that vw dipped their cars for paint, and there aren't many manufacturers that do this today, perhaps the ones that still dip cars should be looked at as to what they are doing at the factory with quality control issues vis a vis body paint issues needing perhaps a touch up.

Kyle

Mon Feb 23, 2015 6:18 am

I love this topic. I read through the entire post before I started stripping the respray on my car, and what do you know, I ended up having one of these mystery parts on my turquoise '63 with, count them, NINE distinguishable layers! There are convincing arguments on both sides, so I'll just leave my findings here and what I "think" each layer is, and let everyone make up their own minds. The first pic shows the normal paint layers uncovered over my entire car that I've seen before on other turquoise beetles:

The layers are (to the best of my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong)
bare metal/e-coat/primer/sealer/turquoise

Then I uncovered the license plate housing with the mystery layers that don't appear to follow the typical layering at any level, so I'm not sure what each layer is for. Here I'll just list the colors.

bare metal/primer?/coral?/beige?/primer?/anthracite?/primer?/pearl white?/primer?/turquoise

Mon Feb 23, 2015 8:22 pm

hewica8, Glad you like it, fascinates me too :D

Best to see them in person to know for sure, but if we carefully look over some of the better known examples pictured within this topic, we see a very distinctive and consistent pattern of paint layers.

1-Bare metal pf course.
2-Dip coating of bare metal primer, or E-coat as bill may calls it.
3-Sprayed on first finish color, in theory the thickest because would have had three coats.
(Not so sure about this on post '64 cars, seems like the paint quality and or the whole process got cheaper.)
4-Gray sealer coat between the color change. This is the one critical constant to look for as it will always be the same shade of gray no matter which color is under or above.
5-In all cases the colors seen are always within the available color palette of that particular year/model.

So, your light housing for sure is a point of interest, and might be a factory painted part, but several things seem to break the typical pattern.

#1-Was Coral Red a '63 color? I don't think it was for Sedans, but for Convertible not sure. If so, that would make it plausible anyway.
#2-If Coral was a color available in '63, then normally we see that consistent gray primer sealer over it and not the "beige" yours appears to be.
#3-If we were to get past those two shades, then it seems that the gray primer sealer between Black, White and turquoise is a little too dark. A good example if how "white" it looks is on silvertonguedevil's fender above.

In any case, if cars could only talk, yours would still have quite a story to tell... :wink:

Mon Feb 23, 2015 9:08 pm

So, it appears that the multi-colored cars are rather common.
My Ruby Red '66 has significant paint loss, but in no area do I see bare metal or rust.
All I see is gray "primer" and the red finish coat. No blue. No green. No black.
Only red (or lack-of-red).
Is my car special?

Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:46 am

61SNRF wrote: So, your light housing for sure is a point of interest, and might be a factory painted part, but several things seem to break the typical pattern.

That's what I was thinking as well. I knew coral wasn't available in '63 but couldn't think what else that layer would be. I do agree as well that the layers in between my color changes do not appear to be the same shade of grey as all the other color changed parts exemplified here.

My best guess then is that at some point in its life the housing was damaged and replaced with a housing from a pearl white beetle, but that pearl white had a housing that was repainted from an anthracite beetle.....that had a housing repainted from a coral beetle??? Highly unlikely, maybe, but the layers don't lie so who knows for sure but it is fun to think about!

Tue Feb 24, 2015 6:01 am

cory464 wrote:
to say this never happened means you have to assume a few things,
1) vw scrapped every part with a minor defect, (resulting in massive cost)
2) vw shipped cars with defects (pretty sure they didn't)
3) vw never scratched a car in process (not likely)

I have to assume that VW replaced damaged components found during the assembly process, and resprayed damaged components and reintroduced them into production. again, all assumptions, but it is what is done in auto assembly plants and all industries so I cannot imagine that vw did it any different.

another item mentioned was mismatched taillight housings, and I am going to say this also probably happened and that this came from the factory as well. it seems likely to me that these were delivered painted from the supplier, and if the plant ran out of red housings, I can see running a few blue ones down to be sprayed red. just in time manufacturing was not in place in those days. as for paint match, taillight housings, and even fenders are not in direct contact with another surface, so a slight paint mismatch would not be noticeable.

again, I can only speculate what went on inside the plant, but I know a lot about manufacturing practices, and I can assume that vw's processes were in line with standard practices of the day.

Awesome background info that fills in a few gaps cory! Thanks for offering that perspective.

One theory my two body/paint friends first developed years ago is that the parts in question were not damaged per say, but not good enough for a dark colored car. That is, lets say a car is painted black, and due to the dark color the decklid "shows" waves or ripples in the metal. The "bad" decklid would be removed and placed in the paint-it-white pile, and a better one more suitable for black would be found and substituted.

As for tailight housings, who knows. One thing I've discovered is that Hassia primed theirs with a red oxide primer, and Hella used gray primer, so yes there could be another avenue of thought open for them.

Common iowegian? Hardly.
I consider them an "error", and like baseball cards or mis-stamped money, they don't come up very often.