Welcome at BBT News this week.

Bathing in a cool autumn sun, Belgium was quiet this week, until our “IRS” unfolded a real big fraud investigation in the Belgian soccer world. Loads of simultaneous house searches, impound tons of paperwork and some trainers, referees and brokers arrested… nothing is what it seems to be, so we’re really happy we’re not a part of the soccer world and stay cosy in our “clean” Volkswagen world…:)

This week some cool new products and a Back in stock worth mentioning after a longer than normal time of unavailability.

In our Bus metal silver weld through sheet metal program, two new items arrived this week. The rear outriggers for buses up to 1959. This is the rather weird-looking “double” outrigger right before the rear suspension. Now available from our stocks.

0890-62L Chassis outrigger rear left – Bus -12/59 TQ

0890-62R Chassis outrigger rear right – Bus -12/59 TQ

For the split window beetle lovers we have the light and wiper switch knobs from the dashpods available now in either ivory or black color. Many times broken because of age these are perfect replacements! Sold by the pair and readily available from our stocks.

0636-930 Light switch button bakelite ivory – Beetle -09/52 pair

0636-935 Light switch button bakelite black – Beetle -09/52 pair

The bumper horns for our stainless bumpers 0007-3 and 0008-3 came back in stock this week. The perfect fit to dress your car in that ubercool European look.

0009-2 Bumperguard stainless steel chromed – Beetle -07/67 European model BBT

1394 Sway bar front lowered Type1 -64  € 72.00

0524-910 Vintage Speed universal doorpulls  € 22.50/pair

The BBT news team wishes all our readers a very relaxing weekend, it’s time to vote in Belgium this weekend and we will have soon new local politicians, who will make our new local laws, ah, can’t wait on that!

Last week we received the cargo doors in our world renown silver weld-through primer for test fitting. Boy do these look good!

Randy dropped everything and started working on the doors. We had to find a suitable bus to test them in, we couldn’t find anything better other than Bob’s very original double-door samba.

We’re not going to say that the hinges just slipped in, nothing is straight forward with a old VW, but the hinges made it in position and were bolted in. Now we could test the overall shape; of course this is the off-tool sample so the edge was not clean and needed to be worked.

The main issue was hinge alignment, for the rest it was a very good sample. With our list of remarks, we shipped the doors back to the factory. They will address these issues to produce a set of doors that are only the highest quality. Because here at BBT, quality matters!

Here are some photos of the test fitting.

A Volkswagen Beetle with only 23 miles (37 km) on the counter is for sale in the United States. The asking price is a factor 569 higher than the original new price.

The Volkswagen Beetle is perhaps the most recognizable car ever produced, even now that Volkswagen finally made the decision to completely delete the model (including the retro version). After all, the car manufacturer has made 21 million copies of the iconic passenger car, of which 948,370 copies in 1964 alone. Surprisingly enough, one of those Beetles is now going on sale, only the new owner want a lot of money.

The story began when the American Rudy Zvarich was 37 years old and owned a 1957 Beetle. When Volkswagen decided to radically renew the Beetle for model year 1965, he could not imagine that he would ever buy the new design and decided to buy a spare car. Zvarich bought one of the last remaining 1964 models and then counted $ 1,756.90 (1,523 euro) down for the brand new Beetle.

Rudy bought the car (bringing along his own battery as to not activate the original dry charge system) and drove the car to his friend’s storage space in the dark night with no insurance. He never licensed the car, and after two years in his friend’s storage space, he finished his own building and moved the car there. It sat undisturbed from 1966 to 2016, having covered only 22 miles. Over the years Rudy’s interests and car collection grew. There was never a reason for him to need the Beetle, so it just slept in the back corner of his collection with all the fluids dropped out and a sheet over it to keep the dust off.

Although his ’64 Beetle never saw sunlight Rudy had a passion for using his other cars and participated in many car shows. He loved to point out details on how and why engineering choices were made, you could not help but find yourself a little smarter after a conversation with Rudy. In 2014 at the age of 87 Rudy passed away and his nephew inherited his car collection. The time capsule 1964 Beetle was removed from its resting place and carefully brought up to running condition with careful attention to not disturb the originality of the car. The windshield wipers and hubcaps have never been attached to the car and are still in their original boxes from the dealership. Its black paint is a little dusty, because it has never been washed – ever! The “Leatherette Red” interior looks like it was just installed on the assembly line. The dealer window sticker is still where it was placed in 1964.

There are some amazing original Volkswagen Beetles on display around the world in honor of their creator Ferdinand Porsche. The Porsche museum (Stuttgart), Volkswagen museum (Wolfsburg), and famous Prototype museum (Hamburg) each have impressive collections, but out of the 948,370 Beetles made in 1964 could this be the most original one left on the planet? These cars were inexpensive back in the day and they got used. We may never see another one like it. Rudy’s Beetle is truly a snapshot in time. The car is now for sale here

Source: HLN