'71 sb

My advice, for what it is worth.

Doing all that work yourself is one thing. Having to contract it out is another and could prove very costly, assuming you even find someone competent enough and responsible enough to finish the job.

I would take the money you will spend (double your estimates) and have a rust-free Cali car shipped to your door.

No offense (I hope...)

Speedy Jim

I second that. The DIY thing is cool at first, but then it gets real tired, and one day you find one with no rust at all for half what you spent, consider the hours you worked on it and sheeeeet! It's such a waste. Or WORSE, you quit halfway into it and have already spent as much as you would for a no-ruster from outside and the next guy repeats your experience.

The best Bugs I ever got came from Utah (two of 'em). There is something about our friends in Utah. They take care of their stuff. (Say, ain't that where aircooled.net is?)

First of all - No offense taken. I know it'll take a lot of time and money to fix the car. And I have actually looked around (google, newspaper ads, etc.) to try to find a beetle locally that I could drive. It just seems like in this area, they've all gone away. I very rarely see an old beetle on the road anymore. At the time I bought the car, there were probably a couple of dozen that I would see regularly and more that I would see tooling around town once in a while.

Back to the point - I just don't like the idea of buying a car sight unseen. The way I figure it, I know it'll cost me more to redo the car myself from the ground up, but I'll _know_ what I have when it's all said and done. And for what I want to do, the interior, paint, and basically the whole works will need to be redone anyway, no matter what shape another car would be in.

Also - it's a lot easier to spend a little here and there and get the car up to snuff eventually than to plunk down $15k or more to get a decent car here that I'd want to rip apart again anyway...

Besides, the car's been in the family for about 10 years now. I'd feel like I was abandoning it if I just got another one and sent him to the scrap heap. :)

I know of a couple of body shops around that might be able to help me out, but only one that deals with beetles consistently. I'll probably start going around this week and start talking to them.

Thanks for the >

So tell us where you live. Not all Bugs are advertised.

$15K is way over the top for a good, rust-free Bug. Now I really wonder where you live.

Richmond, Va. And 15k is a wild guess as to how much it would cost me to find a decent car and have it trucked across country. It has no bearing on how much one would cost in the area, mainly because I haven't found one to get any sort of idea. I spent 2k for mine somewhere close to 10 years ago, and had looked at 3 or 4 before deciding on this one. All of the others I saw they were asking $3 - $5k if it had decent paint, even if the rest of the car was incomplete and the pan was like a cheese grater (holes everywhere). This was the first seemingly solid car that I found for a decent price then.

Seems like most restorations that I've seen on-line are asking 10k or more. Granted, for a driver, I don't really need a resto. At the same time, I've wanted a 71-72 sb since I was about 10. *shrugs* Kind of limits what I'm looking for. :) Again, not that I'd care for a driver, but for a resto project, I'd still want a 71-2 sb.

I've looked into having the car done at a restoration shops, and the prices range anywhere from (on the extremely low side) $12K to $45K.