Classic VW BuGs Shop Update August 2025 - What Are We Working On?

Hey guys, Chris again. Classic vwwbugs.com and I got a new phone. I got rid of my Google Pixel 6, which was a terrible phone by the way. And uh I am back up in New York. I'm back up at my shop trying out this new phone. So I hope it sounds okay, looks okay. And I know I look a little tired because I have been working since I've been up here because our shop is packed. I don't know if I can get all this here. I got a packed house and I figured I'd show you around. All right, let's go. Okay, so here we are. We'll start on this side of the shop. And uh yeah, guys, it's been one of the busiest years of my almost 20 year career in the Volkswagen uh business. And uh I got to say, ever since I opened the shop to repair work, um work has just been constantly coming in. Uh so when we get packed like this, I only have a 2,000 foot shop and my landlord does not like anything outside. So I really can't put any cars outside. So, if we are packed like this, of course, I put a stop on uh whatever kind of work can come in and then I once we get a free spot open, then I call that client who's waiting to come in. So, sometimes there's a bit of a wait to get in here to get any sort of work done. Uh but, uh yeah, it's one of our busier years, uh for sure. And so, I had to take kind of an emergency ride, a flight up here, uh to get helping my guys. And, uh gosh, anybody who wants to come in and help us out, you are more than welcome to. I'd love to see anybody who's out there who just got some time. You want to tinker and uh you want to get a little pay, I hey, hit me up. We could always use the help. So, uh but uh starting over here, I don't know if you guys know, but I did pick up a 1965 Carmenia convertible. This was a good friend of mine, Vince Vespie. I did a couple videos on him. He was the original owner to this car. And um I had to grab this car and the family was pretty happy that I bought it too because he was like a you know grandfather figure to me, a mentor. Uh just a a great great guy. I miss him dearly. I lost him a couple years ago and uh we went to a lot of shows together. He toured the country two honeymoons in this car cross country with his wife when he bought the car in ' 65 and um had it restored about 20 years ago. But we've gone to Concordh car shows together and uh he went all the way down to Guatemala with this car. Go figure, huh? And um just an amazing guy. I called him the doseekis man because he was the most interesting man in the world. He's been all over the world, this fell. So I was honored to to buy this car and kind of keep it somewhat in the family, that kind of thing, you know. Uh so I'm only the second owner on this car and it's just a gem of a car. So when I come up here to New York, I got something to drive, you know. And then on this angle over here in this corner, 67 Savannah Beige I just picked up recently, a few months ago actually. A fellow called me out of Virginia. He was losing storage space and he had to get rid of this car. And I do love Savannah Beige. I had, if you guys remember, bunch of years ago, I did a Savannah Beige with my own two-tone, you know, burgundy interior with beige tweed. Uh, you can look that up. I'm thinking I want to do the same thing with this was I really missed that car. I named that car Cappy, short for Cappuccino, and uh I missed that car and I sold it and uh I'd love to have that back, but found this one and it's numbers matching. Really rock solid. The only rust that's on it is in the rear wheel well uh section, the rear shock tower area back down in here, but um yeah, that's easily fixed. So, they sell those panels, but other than that, the heater channels and floors and everything are are pretty good. I mean, we'll media blast all this stuff down to bare metal. And if there's anything that does need to be fixed, we'll fix all that. But other than that, I mean, pretty damn good. So, looking to jump on this thing. And then, of course, this is the 70 cobalt blue that we have for sale. So, if anybody is interested in this car, uh we are selling it for a client. Really cool car. We did the interior on this car. We didn't do the paint. So, brand new off-white interior, off-white door panels, brand new carpet, and of course, brand new headliner, which is what I love to work on. Very, very cool car. 1600 single port engine. Love the 70 engine. This is, I think, a great year. And they boogie. Here's another 67 for a client that we're working on. 67 sunroof. And man, I busted my butt yesterday on this to try to fix his doors. He's his window regulators were were bad. So, of course, he bought a brand new window regulator. So, I don't know uh where he bought it from, but the original window regulator to me seemed okay, and we were able to straighten it out and it seemed to work, but he wanted to use the new one. So, it took me, you know, building doors can be tedious. I got this all in. Windows were up. I got all the vent windows in in shape, the seals. Got this all tidied up. Got everything working. Started winding the window up and down. Everything's functioning as it should. Up and down, up and down, testing it. And sure enough, the mechanism broke. Okay, it just broke. Uh, so I was spinning the handle and nothing was moving anything. So that is the world of aftermarket junk today. And that is exactly what happened. Now, the problem is is that I had the window fastened to the lifter here. I have one bolt still caught on the lifter. I was able to get my arm and hand up in here with a 10 mm to try to unbolt the glass because I had the window up when that mechanism broke. So, now I'm fighting to get this out. So, believe me, I am very close to just yanking that sucker out. And this is what's very frustrating today in the world of aftermarket. So, and so the problem today too is, you know, when it comes to repair work, we we like doing it. It's been great work, but we're working on cars that we didn't build. So, what happens with that is you're getting a car 50, 60 years old. It's been in with different hands. Different people have been working on it. So, the wiring harnesses are kind of patched up. A lot of things are are are patched together. There's backyard jobs on these cars. Um, which is totally cool, but you know, we're diving into somebody else's work and sometimes you run into issues. So, that's downside with repair work. And I do have to try to tell my clients that look, these are old cars. A lot of times we dive into things and we open up Pandora's box and it just keeps going. So, got to be understandable with these cars. They are old. They are not new. And we are dealing with years now of aftermarket parts that are failing. So, this car in particular, 68 Carmagia, this guy's been back a few times to our shop. He kept blowing fuses in this car and we kept having to change the flasher box uh in the car and it's because, you know, the wiring harness is kind of a rat's nest. Some it's been tampered with. You know, a lot of times these cars when they're painted, the the painters paint over the wires as well. So, a lot of times you're you're chasing a gremlin to fix things and it can take hours sometimes to get things right. Sometimes, I know it might sound daunting and overwhelming to some clients. It would probably we be better if we ripped out that old harness and got a brand new harness. I know in the beginning it sounds costly to the client, but in the long run, it's probably cheaper because the hours it's taking and the times he keeps coming back for us to fix certain things because fuses are blowing and the boxes are blowing. You know, it would just be better if we went in there and tore out all the years of tampering and, you know, taped up wires, painted wires, all that kind of stuff. So, this is kind of the things you run into when uh you're doing repair work. and also repair work for us. Like you guys know, we mostly work on early stuff like this 64 Beetle that we're working on for a client out of Eugene, Oregon. This is a full-on restoration. We are almost done with this car. They bought this family bought this car brand new in ' 64. Very cool. I love these stories. And uh the father passed away unfortunately and the son called me up and said, "I want my father's legacy to live on." All that kind of stuff. So, we want this car to go back to factory spec, you know, when it came out of the dealership. So, this is what we're working on. We are almost done there. So, body off restoration. If you guys don't know, 64 had a one-year only seat cord pattern. So, we got this material now. Um, we got this, I believe, from ISP West, and this is that cord pattern that you see here. And they work a lot also on the type fours. So, type fours, I guess, had very similar uh patterns on their seats. So, I was able to get this not cheap. Not cheap. This is $400 a yard with ISP West. And then I had this material shipped to SoFine in Colorado. So, for uh that team that I've been working with for almost 20 years, uh put the seats uh sewing together for us. And then we we assemble the seat here. So, uh, and that's going to go with this Bahama blue car that we're working on. This is the full restoration. So, looks really, really nice. Top came out great. Uh, engine compartment looks good. Numbers matching. Engine. It's the 40 horse. Of course, he did go 12vt. So, we sent out the generator to get rebuilt. So, it's still the 6volt body, but with the 12volt guts in it. Very cool. And this guy who I used also does it for the regulator as well. So, it all plays the part. 12vt looking system uh but still looks 6V and uh which is pretty cool. I really like this way of going. You know, the cranking power is good. The lights are good. You know, everything just kind of works better with 12vt, but at least it all looks like a 6volt system still. So, and yes, why is the door off? Yeah, we're making a jolly car out of this, right guys? We're going to make it a jolly. No. When you're tight in your shop and you got a lot of work going on and you got a lot of tools around, sure enough, every now and then you get a dinger. We open the door and boom, you get dinged. Uh, so the the door got dinged a little bit. Had to take the door off, send it over to my painter to get painted and fixed up. So, but coming out excellent. Um, I'm really really impressed. The interior pattern is all growing on me. Uh, so I do like this car very much. I'm hoping to get driving soon with this and start putting the 3 to 500 miles on it to break it in. So, and then we come over here. So, again, uh these are late models. Now, you guys know I rarely work on the late models, but when you open the door to repair work, you know, we're getting these late model fuel injected beetles. A lot of 75 and later Beetles coming in, and um yeah, they could be a pain in the butt to work on. those injectors get all gummed up and you know there's a lot more electrical knowhow you need to have in your disposal. You know, you got to have the good knowledge to work on these. Uh and especially when these cars sit for a while and not running for a while, the fuel injection can be a little more tedious to get going than the standard carb engine. So, but these are what you know what's in the generation coming up. This is what people have now. Uh it's very rare now to find these earlier models to come in for repair work. So a lot of it's the '7s models, these Super Beatles would, you know, with the McFersonson strut front end and uh fuel injection. So we're working on these for for clients. So you know and again they've been worked on by other people. So a lot of times things are just half-hazardly put together and um we're chasing a lot of gremlins and things and could be timeconuming. So, these later models, they're a little more involved, you know, so you just got to prepare for that. Um, and then we got another 72 Super we're working on here. This guy does want a convertible top eventually, so I got to do tops. Tops, doing tops today, guys, like something like this has gotten very costly. The materials alone for a convertible top on a Beetle these days could run you four, five grand, maybe even sometimes six grand just in material. And then the labor to put them together. Because a lot of times when you get the wood kit in for these cars, you might spend 1,200, 1,500 bucks on a wood kit, $1,000 depending on what year you have. And when you get that wood in to try to shape it to the frame of your convertible top, of course, the wood is doesn't fit right. So, we're we're sometimes days, maybe weeks shaping the wood, belt sanding, and and and uh filing the wood to get it to fit right. And I have a video on that 70 convertible that we worked on that whole uh you know documentary series that I did and you see us working on the wood and it's it's on and off and on and off. So very timeconuming convertible tops can get up into the 8 n 10 grand 12 grand 15 grand sometimes to do a convertible top depending on how bad the top frame is how bad you know the shaping of the wood has to be performed um and the materials you want to use. So, it's it's gotten very costly and um yeah, not not like what it used to be, you know, you know, just a few grand to do a top. So, this guy's going to eventually want this top, but I told him, you know, it takes a good 8 to 12 weeks to get materials in. I use SoFine, so why don't you just enjoy the car the way it is right now for the summer and then come back in the winter time and we'll do it during the winter. Uh, but we are doing his seat upholstery and we're working on his vent windows, his vent window frames were all kind of shabby. the the threads for the outside mirrors were were stripped. So, we just sometimes it's just better to get the whole brand new frame, a nicer frame. It's got good threads on it. Uh my guy in Connecticut, Bug City, Dave, he's been hoarding stuff for many, many years, so he was able to find us a good set of vent frames that we're putting together. So, but guys, building doors is a tedious operation. Uh I usually tell clients, uh give me a day to build one side, and sometimes I can get it done in half a day. But many times to build a door, whether it's convertible or sedan, um you got to give yourself at least a day. If you're not privy to it, you're not you're not, you know, uh a a good builder and it's just like your first time doing it, you got to give yourself some time and you need to take a breather, especially if it's a hot day out. Uh I was sweating yesterday. I was tripping uh building that door in that 67 and uh they could be a real pain in the butt to do. So give yourself some time to do that. So, and then uh we have another fella here, 77 Beetle. Uh he took out an engine that was not running right and then we uh got a brand new uh rebuilt engine for him. Uh so 77 he wanted to go back to carbburation and get out of the fuel injection. So this is what we have here. And uh you know nice engine you know the only thing is you know the tins if you put it a carb engine uh and you need to tin work you need part tin tin work from the fuel injection era and part of the tin work from a carb engine era. So you do have like a weird gap here. I don't like the way this seal is sitting here like this. We want to try to figure this out. But when you have the the standard carb uh rear breast plate rear chin here there's a big gap. you know, when it's sitting up against uh the fuel injection uh engine bay area. So, we gota you got to improvise here with certain things. But a lot of people like to convert their fuel injection back to carb just again simpler to work on. And uh to be honest, if you get a good running carb engine, I mean, they'll to me they they perform better than a than a fuel injection engine. So, but uh he's got a list of other things he wants done on this car as well. So yeah, guys, we're loaded up, got a ton of work, and uh I come up here and I'm like, "Oh my god, like I'm overwhelmed. You know what we got to do?" So, and I only have a limited space. So, we're squeezed in here. So, a lot of times we're moving cars in and out all the time when the day begins and when the day ends. So, I got to bring cars in when the day is over. But, yeah, this is where we're at. 2025 August. I can't believe summer is almost over and uh got some work ahead of me. I definitely will be back up in September as well. And in October, guys, my fall foliage cruise, uh, just a reminder is October 18th this year, Saturday, October 18th. Um, be great to see you. You got a dub. We do the 60-mi run up to Hudson Valley. Very, very cool. And, uh, hope you guys can join us for that. It's, uh, been 14 years we're doing that. And it's good times. Good times. So, all right guys, I hope you enjoyed that video. It's been a while since I've done something like this. I figured I'd walk around my shop and just no editing, just show you what's going on and give you an idea of what we're working on. And yeah, guys, if anybody's out there, you guys want to can any help? You guys want to help? I could use some help. Uh I got some guys that do work here, but sometimes it's uh it'd be fun to get somebody, you know, to come. Hey, we have cappuccino. We get we get espresso. I got a little espresso machine, you know. So, if you want to have some cappuccino, man, and don't tell don't tell anybody, but my dad likes to put some sambuka in his espresso. You know, it's good old Italian ways. 1955 refrigerator there. How cool is that? And this sucker still running. How about that? 55 from Brooklyn. You know, and the stuff today, this is it's the same example of what the aftermarket parts are like today. B stuff you buy today just does not last. That thing is still running since 1955. I mean, are you kidding? 70 years. Jesus. So, all right, guys. Hope you enjoyed that. I'll talk to you [Music]