1) Welcome to the restoration! (A little history)

This blog will be devoted to my 1973 Volkswagen Beetle restoration. Let's start with some history:

- I bought the car when I was 17 for $500, not bad!
- Original color: light blue
- It was in pretty good running order, and I was able to drive it home, and register / inspect it with no problems!
- I drove it like that for 2 years!
- Finally one day I was driving over some dirt roads, and I noticed how the body would separate from the chassis over each bump! I found that I had some SERIOUS rust issues! Not only were the floors rotten all the way around, but under the back seat was almost all rotten. I was able to poke my finger through all over the place!
- I did a "Body off" restoration (my first time) and welded in a bunch of rust repair panels along with new floors. I also did my very own first paint job using acrylic enamel. It came out pretty good.
- I drove the car for another 3-4 years, complete with winter driving, which took its toll.





- More rust! So I learned some valuable lessons from my first restoration. Never buy crappy repair panels, and if you do, strip them of their crappy primer, because there is rust under there! My car practically started falling apart again from acute rusting of these new panels. I took the opportunity to do it right. So thus started the next body off restoration with as many German replacement panels I could find, plus a whole lot more! (read on)