TheSamba.com :: View topic - 68 Regatta Blue Karmann Ghia Vert 22,350 Original Miles

Sun May 05, 2024 5:03 pm

Looks spectacular Marc. You’ve really taken a nice car and moved up a couple notches.

Sun May 05, 2024 6:09 pm

obus wrote: looking all tidy over there Marc! Well done!
Thanks obus. I appreciate the encouragement.

Braukuche wrote: Looks spectacular Marc. You’ve really taken a nice car and moved up a couple notches.
Thank you. There will always be something to do to maintain this car but I think the next few projects will be easier?? Or maybe not? :lol: But I'm finally at a point with Regatta, where I can shift my attention to getting the 71 finished. Summers are too short!

Mon May 06, 2024 4:24 am

LIMPIO 😍

Mon May 06, 2024 5:10 am

Nice work, that looks amazing!

Mon May 06, 2024 8:11 am

Fantastic!
Just in time for cruising season 8)

Mon May 06, 2024 10:57 am

Era Vulgaris wrote: Nice work, that looks amazing!
Thanks Era. it's really fun to drive a car that is mostly the same as it was 56 years ago. I somehow feel like I now know what Ghia drivers were experiencing when driving their cars when I was 7 years old. :lol:

kingkarmann wrote: Fantastic!
Just in time for cruising season 8)
Thank you Mark. I totally agree, it's time to enjoy it now. I've already taken it out twice. I got it on the road 5 weeks sooner than last year so I'm way ahead. Now just need the weather to cooperate.

Fri Jun 07, 2024 3:39 pm

Hi Marc,
I'm fresh here to this thread from the link you pointed out in my '70 Autostick thread, and I read through all 27 pages!
Such an outstanding car, and the work you've done sir. Mazel tov!
I guess you could say I'm Regatta Blue with envy! both of your find (in Nashville, where I go to visit family several times per year.. they failed at their watch on me! :lol: ) and of your scenic location in Vermont!
We've been up there 3 times so far.. once in the Syncro on our trip to PEI, and 2x in the Winnebago Vista.. I recognized quite a few of the location you photographed the Ghia at!
We're in the very middle of St. Louis County so it will unfortunately be a 30-40 minute drive on the interstate for us just to get away from the urban sprawl to where we can enjoy some scenic driving :/

I noted the comments about the VT licensing and inspections.. there was a time 10-15 years ago when every single member of the local vintage scooter club all had VT plates :lol: we'd stop for gas on a ride and people would ask if we'd all ridden here from Vermont! LOL I used it myself to get a MO title for an East-German scooter I was rolling.. a 1959 IWL SR-59 "Berlin" that had a 1-wheel "Campi" trailer. I never put the plate on though.. I left the old East German tag on it and NEVER got stopped!

Anyway, I'm thankful that here in Mizzery we can just get Historic Vehicle plates - and use Year of Manufacture plates - with no inspection required, ever. I doubt any of us would have an ACVW on the road here if not for that!

Anyway, keep the updates coming! love it!

Sat Jun 08, 2024 3:27 pm

Turk.380 wrote: Hi Marc,
I'm fresh here to this thread from the link you pointed out in my '70 Autostick thread, and I read through all 27 pages!
Such an outstanding car, and the work you've done sir. Mazel tov!
I guess you could say I'm Regatta Blue with envy! both of your find (in Nashville, where I go to visit family several times per year.. they failed at their watch on me! :lol: ) and of your scenic location in Vermont!
We've been up there 3 times so far.. once in the Syncro on our trip to PEI, and 2x in the Winnebago Vista.. I recognized quite a few of the location you photographed the Ghia at!
We're in the very middle of St. Louis County so it will unfortunately be a 30-40 minute drive on the interstate for us just to get away from the urban sprawl to where we can enjoy some scenic driving :/

I noted the comments about the VT licensing and inspections.. there was a time 10-15 years ago when every single member of the local vintage scooter club all had VT plates :lol: we'd stop for gas on a ride and people would ask if we'd all ridden here from Vermont! LOL I used it myself to get a MO title for an East-German scooter I was rolling.. a 1959 IWL SR-59 "Berlin" that had a 1-wheel "Campi" trailer. I never put the plate on though.. I left the old East German tag on it and NEVER got stopped!

Anyway, I'm thankful that here in Mizzery we can just get Historic Vehicle plates - and use Year of Manufacture plates - with no inspection required, ever. I doubt any of us would have an ACVW on the road here if not for that!

Anyway, keep the updates coming! love it!

Hi Brian,
That's a lot of reading! Thank you. I feel very fortunate to be able to enjoy this amazing car. I've traveled a lot but have never been to St. Louis. Maybe someday? Vermont is good and bad, yes it's very scenic, but it's a very expensive state to live in and getting worse every year. Funny story about Vermont plates and registrations in your vintage scooter club. Vermont would not title any vehicles over 15 yrs old but now they have changed that policy and all vehicles now have to be titled when registered. We also can register as "Antique" for only $25 per year, but they still require the car pass a yearly inspection for another $70.

I'm behind on updates so I hopefully will get some new posts up soon.

Sat Jun 08, 2024 6:59 pm

Marcdeb wrote: Vermont would not title any vehicles over 15 yrs old but now they have changed that policy and all vehicles now have to be titled when registered. We also can register as "Antique" for only $25 per year, but they still require the car pass a yearly inspection for another $70.

yeesh. I think that might really suck a lot of the joy out of this hobby for me!
Say what you will about the deep throbbing red of Mizzery politics, puppy mills, meth, and VD... but at least we get *lifetime* Historic Vehicle registration for $25 and no inspections ever! :lol:

Sun Jul 14, 2024 2:10 pm

A few years ago I had picked up a vintage Crarftsman Engine Analyzer at a yard sale for $5. It came with all
it's parts including a timing light, and even a manual so I thought how cool to use a period correct tool to work on my 1968 Karmann Ghia. :D

Tune up time.
Last year I did a tune up but knowing that the car had been serviced before I bought it, I didn't replace any parts so this year, I
planned to replace everything. As I was ordering parts though, I noticed that the distributor cap specked for my (1968) 1500 engine was
shorter than what was on the engine!

The car has been running with the wrong cap for at least 1300 miles since I've had it. The rotor is different as well but the later rotor physically
won't fit on the distributor so the rotor was the correct one for this engine. The contact on the correct rotor was approx 3/8 of an inch below the
contact points in the wrong cap so there was a lot of arcing going on. :shock: Surprisingly, the contacts on the rotor and cap were not in bad shape.
I'm amazed the car ran as good as it did, or at all!

When the parts came in, I put the new correct cap and a new rotor on right away and my gas mileage went from 19 to 21 mpg. I held off
on the rest of the tune up because I was curious how it would affect mpg. I thought it would be even better but I was still happy with
a 10% gain before doing the rest of the tune up. It is an AutoStick after all, and I'm only doing around town rides. It also doesn't
help that Vermont is such a hilly state so I don't expect to see great mpg anyway?

After I finished the tune up, I gained another 1.5+ mpg. I'm now getting between 23 & 24 mpg. I'm noticing increased power on flat
roads, but not much gain on hills which is where I was hoping for some improvement.

The car was running good but I did have a few issues. I had timing set exactly to TDC as per the Bentley book but the engine was
occasionally stalling when warm and I would try to take off at a light or stop sign. Is this what people call a flat spot? I also was
noticing that it would start great when cold or warm, but if it sat for 10 to 20 minutes, it was slow firing up?

I recently met a local VW guy (John) who has been maintaining his own fleet of air-cooled VW's going back to the 70's so I took a
ride up to visit John, and he immediately said my timing needed to be advanced so he advanced it and the problems are gone.
Better power and trouble free driving. Can't ask for more. Now to put some miles on to see how my mpg is doing?
Thank you John.

Now I could spend a little time doing some cleaning. The white wall tires were in serious need of some brightening.

Back tire cleaned up compared to dirty front tire:

Clean tires really make a huge difference.

Mon Jul 15, 2024 7:08 am

^^^^
Beautiful as ever 8)
I recall a post discussing the shorter correct cap for the 67/68.
Something about the the almost imperceptible spacing between #4 and #3 terminal contacts.
I'm not sure I'm explaining it right but the spacing retards #3 allowing that cylinder to run cooler.

Mon Jul 15, 2024 5:25 pm

Looks great and better mpg? Bonus!!! Love that car....

Mon Jul 15, 2024 6:14 pm

kingkarmann wrote: ^^^^
Beautiful as ever 8)
I recall a post discussing the shorter correct cap for the 67/68.
Something about the the almost imperceptible spacing between #4 and #3 terminal contacts.
I'm not sure I'm explaining it right but the spacing retards #3 allowing that cylinder to run cooler.

Thank you.
I'll try to find that post. Sounds very interesting.
I've been taking Regatta on longer drives this year and I can't recall ever enjoying driving any car as much as this one.

Mon Jul 15, 2024 6:30 pm

obus wrote: Looks great and better mpg? Bonus!!! Love that car....
Thank you. Your 1960 Cabriolet is quite the beauty as well. =; :) Aren't we lucky!!

Thu Jul 18, 2024 9:20 am

Norwich University in Northfield Vermont.
The oldest private and senior military college in the United States. Founded in 1819.

Brookfield Floating Bridge is a popular tourist site. The only floating bridge in Vermont was first constructed in 1820. It spans a very small lake however, the water is 120 feet deep so normal bridge construction back in that time was not an option. The wooden bridge is 318 feet long and 18 feet wide with only one lane plus sidewalks on both sides. It has been rebuilt 7 times. The 8th version was completed in 2015 and is designed to last 100 years.

Of all the auto repair options in my area, Utton's Automotive, will work on any make of car AND they are the only business I know of locally that has a reputation for servicing aircooled VW's. Utton's has been around since the 1970's when I was a kid and has always been a go to place for old VW repair. About 10 years ago, this mural was painted on the building. I always like driving by to see what old VW might be parked in their yard. I have not needed their services so far so I can't give any opinion about the quality of their work.

"The Old Meeting House" also known as "The Union Meetinghouse" in East Montpelier VT, was built in 1824. Originally a Methodist Church, it is one of the oldest example of Federal period church architecture. Montpelier town meetings were held here until 1849. Today it still serves as a non-denominational church.

A view of the countryside looking towards the western mountains near the capital of Vermont.

Thu Jul 18, 2024 9:51 am

Beautiful day, beautiful Ghia. :D

Thu Jul 18, 2024 10:09 am

John Moxon wrote: Beautiful day, beautiful Ghia. :D
Thanks John,
I love riding around in Regatta. It's hard to describe how I feel while out on the road, but I'm sure you know the feeling!
I find myself always looking for an excuse to take it out. :D

Thu Jul 18, 2024 1:20 pm

Wonderful pictures and commentary, thanks!

Thu Jul 18, 2024 7:25 pm

Spectacular!!😎

Fri Jul 19, 2024 5:27 am

Marcdeb wrote:

This is a fantastic photo. I could imagine stopping into a kiosk anywhere in Europe and seeing this as a postcard.