1954 Oval Restoration Project
I purchased my first oval window from a guy in Salt Lake City, Ut. in September of 2005. I had been searching for a good oval project for about 6 months and after posting a wanted add on thesamba.com I was contacted by a man who said he had a car for me. He said that the car came originally from Germany and was hit in the rear during some kind of parade in Germany in 1959. The car was repaired and “updated” to 1959 specs in the rear end at the volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. Soon after, the car was shipped to the US by the original owner. Some years later the owner started to tear the car apart for a complete restoration. He wasn’t able to finish and passed away before he was able to completly dismantle the car. His widow sold the car and six months later I purchased it for $2000.00. Here are some pics of the car before I started the resto:
In this Blog I will continue through the restoration of this 1954 Volkswagen bug posting as many pictures as I can through every stage of the restoration. This blog will be divided into three parts: the chasis, the body, and the interior.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Yeah I kind of wish mine was a ragtop but I love my oval no matter what. Maybe someday I’ll be able to buy one
October 14th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
It really depends on the condition of the car, how much money you want to spend, how much time you have and how complete of a restoration you plan to do. With this 54 I’m planning on going through every bolt and part on the car to either restore or if unable to restore to buy a new one. I’m a teacher and don’t have tons of money so I’ll do most of the restoration myself. I’ll probably send my transaxle and engine to be rebuilt but for the most part I’ll do most of the work myself. If I had more money I could get more of the work done faster. I estimate 1-2 years for this oval. We’ll see though things don’t ever go the way you plan, right? Good luck and keep me posted on your resto. I would love to see pics!!
November 16th, 2006 at 11:15 am
A rebuild project will be determined in how deep you want to go into it and HOW much time and money you want to put in to it!! My ‘69 was supposed to be a complete rebuild… meanwhile 8.5 years later and about $6k later the project ended when Hurricane Katrina decided to destroy all the time and effort I put into it. I had to total the car because the salt water was eating it alive and had turned all my work into a pile of rust!!!
March 6th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Jack…
and readers, Lets DIGG this Blog post so we can get more blog posts FAST!! Good stuff….