NOS tailpipe embellishers

There's a cache of NOS VW 1500 chrome tailpipe tips currently for sale in the Samba classifieds. They're very reasonably priced, so get them while you can.



This part was originally intended for the 1500 Ghia, as suggested by the 343 part number. I was able to confirm this by checking the early parts book. Later it was offered as an accessory for the other VW 1500s, and I think it may have even been standard equipment on the 1500S models.

1961-64 1500 Ghia upholstery fabric reproduction

I just received swatches of the red and cerulean 1500 Ghia cloth reproduction, and they look great. They were able to match the original colors perfectly. It was worth the wait.



This cloth will be available in the next few weeks in red, silver (gray), and cerulean (blue). It's the closest thing to the original Karmann cloth that you'll ever find.

NOS VW 1500 Karmann-Ghia visors

I just picked up a left side sun visor from Lars Neuffer, giving me a complete NOS set for the restoration. Expensive but worth it. No one is reproducing 1500 Ghia sun visors, and they would be difficult parts for an upholstery shop to replicate, so NOS or good used visors are the only real options. Before I found these I had neither.



While new old stock means the part was old inventory that was never installed and is essentially "new," in practical terms there can be a lot of variation in the condition of NOS parts depending on the life they have had in storage. Such is the case with the set of visors I have. The one I just got is very nice, nearly perfect. The other one had apparently been stored for years in a damp environment. The visor's packaging was very moldy and the visor was stained yellow-green from the mold, as you can see in the photo above. When I first opened the package the smell was so strong it nearly knocked me over. I've had it in dry outdoor storage to air it out. It also has a little compression damage from storage, but the price was right.

So I found myself with a matched set of new visors that didn't match. The right side one was clearly going to need some serious cleaning. I started with Simple Green, which did nothing. Then I moved to a diluted mild cleanser with bleach agitated with a soft brush. Nothing. Finally I moved on to a 1:1 solution of bleach and water, carefully applied with a soft brush and quenched with clean water after a few minutes of agitation. I didn't want to bleach to do to its job too well. It worked really well and while there's a very slight difference in color the visors look good together.



If you're restoring a car as uncommon as a 1500 Ghia and you come across an expensive part you need to complete a pair, a sequence of thoughts begins to play out in your mind:

"I would buy it if the price were a little lower. I've never seen another NOS one for sale in years of looking for parts, and it's the right color too. But it's too expensive. I wonder if I'll ever find another one for sale? I wonder how much it would cost to find a used one and have it restored? Or have a new one fabricated? Probably more than this one would cost, and it would never match the one I already have. What could I sell to cover the cost of it? How many hours would I have to work to pay for it? Would it be worth it? Will I regret not buying it if I don't? How much is the shipping going to cost? Can I afford not to buy it?"

All that within the few seconds between finding the part and buying it.

VW 1500s I have known, part 2.5

Another '65 1500S, a sea blue one that I owned for a brief time in the mid-'90s. It served as a kind of rolling parts car for the other Square and the 1500 Ghia. It was a little rough for the time but it would be considered a nice, clean and straight early Type 3 today. Easter egg: an original VW sea blue touch up pen in the map pocket. I sold it to a girl that lived across the street and who knows whatever became of it.

VW 1500s I have known, part 2

In about 1990 Cathy's '71 Beetle was getting tired, and we started looking for a replacement. Since I'd learned quite a bit about Type 3s in the preceding three years I thought a Squareback would be a practical choice, so we set about looking for one. We thought we'd found one good candidate, a clean red '66, but we were scared off by the fact that the seller was a Gypsy fortune teller on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood — I kid you not. It's just as well, because a few weeks later we found a faded but very original '65 1500S. It was being sold by the buyer of the house of the car's original owner. The car came with the house. It had been parked outdoors for many years and showed the effects of prolonged weather exposure, but it was virtually rust-free and had only 55,000 miles on the odometer. The seller had a local VW shop give it the once over and it seemed to run and drive well. All original, no modifications, original spare, original tool roll, original accessory Bambus parcel tray, original owner's manual folder, black-and-yellow 1965 California plates (which means it had been in California since new) — ours for $1,200. Sold!

The owner's manual folder included tourist delivery paperwork, and this helped explain some unusual details on the car: no side-marker lights, dual-pole front signals, lap seat belt mounts, and a strange plate on the engine that read "M-249 90-Oktan" and letter 'N" stamped in the case — what I came to find out were the markers for the low-octane version of the 1500S engine (option M249). This was a U.S.-spec tourist delivery Squareback sold before the Type 3 was officially introduced to the U.S. market by VW of America the following year.



The first thing we did was replace the rotting bias-ply tires with new Michelin XZXs and suddenly it was like driving a new 1965 car. Which is essentially what it was. It became Cathy's daily driver, and we took it on a number of road trips. It drove too nicely not to drive it, so drive it we did. Here it is parked at a friend's house east of Palm Springs in about 1992:



And here's Cathy at the wheel in about 1996 as the odometer reached 100,000 miles.




In 1999 I took the Squareback off the road for a partial restoration to fulfill a promise I made to the car when we first bought it. I stripped the car down to the bare body shell but left it on the pan (the condition being good enough that there was no reason to separate it), and took the rolling shell to Alex at ISP West for body and paint. The pearl white paint turned out beautifully. Since Alex happened to have a roll of NOS VW red mesh upholstery vinyl — an exact match to what the car had originally — I had ISP handle the seat reupholstery too. Other than the headliner I did the rest of the assembly myself. It took me about two and a half years of my spare time to finish it.













By that time my work situation had changed and I needed a newer daily driver for my long freeway commute. We found ourselves with too many cars and I was itching to get started on another Type 3 restoration project, so in 2003 I reluctantly put the Squareback on the market and eventually sold it to a Japanese collector through Alex at ISP. Here it is on the final drive to ISP:



I miss that car. I learned a lot from it. Hopefully it's resting comfortably in a warm and dry Japanese garage.

Mid-1960s Karmann brochure

There's a great large-format Karmann brochure for sale on eBay right now. It has a lot of documentary photos of the Karmann assembly line, and of course the VW 1500 Karmann-Ghia makes an appearance.







Someone should seize the opportunity to claim this rare document of Karmann's history. Thanks to Lee Hedges for the tip.

[images liberated from eBay]

Solex 32 PHN training chart

European Bug-In impresario and 1500 Club member Freddy Peeters sent a nice scan of this 32 PHN chart from the very early days of VW 1500 service training. As you can see, the drawing features the early round cutoff valve. Thanks Ffred!