1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle 1600: Regular Car Reviews

We drive a vintage Volkswagen Beetle and discover that if you don't think of it as "car," it's really not a bad car!

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[midnightryder]

In 1974 you didn’t see civics. You saw 1000s upon 1000s of beetles

[sippinthefnordies]

"It will make a mechanic out of you"

My first car was a 1973 Super Beetle. I didn't know jack about cars when I got it, and faced with constant minor issues and no money...I learned to fix it myself. I realized I enjoyed wrenching, and a few years later I enrolled in Auto Tech school.

[centuryhelix]

I’m an airplane mechanic. I legitimately want a Beetle because their engines have more in common with Lycomings and Continentals than anything else with 4 wheels.

[takosjb]

"almost no mechanical knowledge." Man, I love ya Mr. Regular, but don't underestimate the aircooled VW community..

[soilmanted]

The reason the engine bay got hot was the "mechanic" neglected to install the rubber seal between the engine and the body. The engine sucks cool air in from atop, and blows it out the bottom, hot. If the rubber seal is missing, the air rises back into the engine area, and gets when hot air is sucked in to cool the engine, it gets even hotter. You have a heat feedback situation, with the engine bay – and the engine – getting hotter and hotter. *You must not leave out that rubber seal.* Lack of rubber seal may also provide an opportunity for exhaust fumes to get into the passenger compartment.

[DEBOSSGARAGE]

Imagine scouring the internet searching for the perfect classic Bug that fits your budget, buying it, driving it home, getting on the internet just to see your car on RegularCars. And then you go to Harbor Freight.



Oh, hello new owner!

[super_slav]

My dad's beetle got him thru 300k of Australian desert in the 70's without stranding him once, thing was bulletproof. That hot air did not bother the beetle at all. I think his was a 75, it was mustard colour.

[daftend]

Just a couple notes. "It smells like exhaust on the inside and gas fumes" and "the engine runs differently based on the weather". So it's not a well kept beetle, with leaking vapor lines (front), rusted heater boxes (rear, leaking exhaust into the fresh air stream), and has vacuum leaks on the intake with what looks like an aftermarket carburetor that probably has steel throttle shaft bushings, which will leak vacuum.

So, it's "not a bad car if you don't think it's a car" for a 45 year old economy car that hasn't been taken care of and needs several points of TLC.

[joshaction]

I've had 3, never smelt of gas, never were 'nightmares'. Straight forward engineering and practically.

[jrburger]

I mean when you purposely go out of your way to find a beetle in the shittiest condition you could, I don't exactly know how you could expect it to run well.

[furrymessiah]

Thanks to my Dad, a copy of How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive by the late great John Muir, and several of my teenage years spent working on them, I can take a Volkswagen engine down to the nuts and reassemble it from memory.


The greatest advice anyone ever gave about Beetles was this: If you want to keep one running forever, drive it every day.

[claudiobizama]

Mexicans be like
"Se vende 2003 VW Beetle Vocho 1.6i, nunca taxi"

[thesimmist]

Thinking...
Thinking...

Yeah. I still want one.

[AaronSmith-kryf]

Love how Mr Regular finds these classics in the perfect "clapped out but still serviceable" condition. I mean this is exactly what this car would look like in 1980, condition wise, a year or two before the engine threw a rod. Where it would then go to the boneyard. Or maybe a different fate, sit under a tarp for 10 years as the project I'll get to in a few months and become rustier than the Titanic, then sent to the boneyard.


Or there are the select few that get the rust bondoed, a crappy paint job, get it running/driving "good enough" to sell onto the next poor sap, who does bodge repair after bodged repair, gets sick of the pos, pawns it off to the next guy. That is what happened to this poor car, now the whole car is a hacked up mess mechanically and more bondo than steel, but yet its still here 45 years later.

[KrustyKlown]

45 years later, I can still remember the smell riding in a Beetle, and the engine vibration & noise jerking through the gears ... and it was fun!!

[xleebyx]

Dream car- 1963 VW beetle. Has been as long as I could remember.

Daily drove a 72 Super for years. Paid $900 for it and 15 years later it’s still running.

[johnnyannan]

When I was 6 years old. My Mum rolled our family Beetle. My response was to yell 'Dukes of Hazzard. Has Been a classic family story ever since.

[FlickedUpWithMCars]

I remember seeing one at a classic car show walked around the back and saw a ｂｉｇ　ａｓｓ　ｖ８ in it

[TheYourfaceable]

Back when I used to drive my dad's 79 vanagon to school and whatnot, the first thing he told me was, "If you smell burning or if you see the engine's on fire just get out, the van's toast"



Not super confidence inspiring...

[TheCheeseBaron]

I love how you open the read hood, looking at an alternator, and say it "has a generator not an alternator." Figure your shit out.