Jade Copp from Tomingley has just recently bought this 1970 Volkswagen Beetle convertible. She’d been looking for a standard VW Beetle when she saw this customised Beetle with a convertible roof for sale.
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She and her partner Ian Kneale brought it home from Victoria and have set about cleaning it up and getting it ready to hit the road for summer.
The original factory-built convertible called the cabriolet was produced from 1949 through to 1980.
As well as being structurally reinforced to account for the loss of strength in removing the fixed roof, the cabriolets were generally better equipped inside with extra features and more lavish trim.
Jade and Ian don’t know a lot about the conversion of their Beetle, except to say that its certainly not a genuine factory-built cabriolet.
When they bought it, it had been sitting stored in a shed for 10 years or more with the roof off, so it had collected its fair share of dust, dirt and grime.
“It’s taken a lot of hard work so far, but it’s starting to clean up well,” said Jade, who’s been tackling the interior.
From what they’ve discovered the VW would have started out life as a standard Beetle.
It has a 1600cc air cooled 4 cylinder engine with a 4 speed manual transmission.
It looks like it’s had a professional conversion, probably back in the 1980s when it was quite popular to customise the Beetles like this.
The front and rear guards have been replaced with wider fibreglass guards to accommodate 8” wide mag wheels up front and 10”wheels out back.
There’s a front spoiler moulded into the bumper and a rear “whaletail” spoiler which of course featured on the Porsche 911.
And then obviously there’s the chop top. The roof has been removed from behind the windscreen/A pillar and replaced with an overhead roll bar and a fold back soft top.
The interior was already retrimmed in velour and seems to have held up to the years and cleaned up well.
The colour is unknown but it’s a deep aqua custom paint with ghost flames off the headlights. And the engine is a runner. Ian just fitted new spark plugs and it’s running sweetly now.
Plans are to complete the tidy up and get the VW back on the road again. Hopefully it’s not too far off now so keep an eye out for this car soon.
Jade and Ian are members of the Central West Car Club and often get out on the monthly club runs. If you happen to see the bug out and about keep an eye on those headlights – there could be a set of eyelashes making an appearance if Jade has her way.
