OK. So I am an idiot and I wanted to own a Karmann Ghia. I have always wanted one since my older sister had one that she ran until it no longer had any floor from the salt damage of Ohio winters. Anyway, I recently helped my daughter purchase a nicely restored 1973 bug and it got my juices flowing again about that Karmann Ghia that I always had thought about.
Ghia's had always impressed me by their style. No matter how old they were or in whatever condition, they always seemed to state to me that the driver had a little something extra that other drivers did not. I did not know whether or not I would ever get that feeling, but I really wanted to try. Since I live in Southern California, the reality of finding a KG that is in good shape and running well, (and not costing me the price of a new kidney) was very high. Perusing the internet showed that almost all the good KG's that were imported to other areas came from SoCal or that they were desireable because of the lack of damaging winters.
And then the inevitable happened. My trusty 1991 Saturn SL1 chewed up it's own transmission and became inoperable. Sure, I could have fixed it, but it still would be a ten-plus year old car, with very little life left in it. It seemed that now was the time to look for a new set of wheels, and the Ghia was just what I had in mind. Browsing over the "Recycler" showed many KG's for sale, but many were show cars and out of my price range. I knew that to have a "daily driver" I would have to spend low to get the car and then put some money into it to have what I needed. After many calls and viewing many "not so good" and "undriveable" I found a 1970 convertible from a college student (and the price was right at 2K). I called and called him every 30 minutes until I got hold of him about 6 hours after I started. Unfortunately, he had sold the car about 30 minutes earlier. Back to the drawing board.
I looked at another car that would have been great if I had had about 8-10K to put into restoring it, but my budget did not allow for such niceities, and besides, I needed a car that was running to get around! I called on a car down in Burbank, and went to look at it. It was a maroon 72 coupe with a rebuilt engine (with lots of chrome) and was a resto that was not finished. However, it was in full running condition, even though it had been garaged for two years. The guy wanted too much money for it, so I went looking onward, with my tail between my legs. One week later, I went to look at another car, a 69 coupe, that was just 3 freeway exits past the 72 coupe, and it was in horrible shape, and the guy wanted more. On a lark, I went by to see if the 72 was still there. Not only was it still there, it was now out of the garage and parked on the street. I took a chance and called the owner and made him an offer that was considerably lower than his asking price. We negotiated for a while, and then I told him my top price and to my amazement, HE TOOK IT!
As soon as the shock wore off, I had to go to the bank and get the cash to take delivery. Within 2 days, there was a maroon 72 coupe sitting in my driveway.
On the ride home, I noticed a few
quirks that were kinda important.
1. There was no rear view mirror
2. It was really loud inside
3. The passenger window did not operate
4. The driver's window only went up half way
5. The radio was pulled out.
6. The speedometer didn't work
These made me a bit suspicious, but since I had the owner sign a bill of sale
that allowed me to back out of the deal (within 5 days) if I found any major
defects that he did not reveal, I felt I needed to go over the car pretty carefully
to make sure I got what I paid for.
When I got the vehicle home, the first thing I did was to go over all the areas with a fine tooth comb. I noted that the paint job was not the best in the world, and had more than a few cracks. Since the title was a "salvage" title, I knew the car had been wrecked and repaired, but I was not ready for the amount of Bondo used on this car. There was a distinct misalignment of the right headlight, because they had put so much bondo on the headlight mount that it was almost a half inch bigger than the headlight molding. There was some bubbling of the paint on the left rear over some obvious bondo and the engine compartment had an impression of almost 2 inches on the left side, that had been filled in completely. They never even tried to fix the sheet metal. There were no front turn signal indicators, nor were there any emblems, logos or trim. Further, the rear boot was missing the licence plate light housing and electrical, and there was no latch for the rear boot. Opening the boot to the engine revealed that some genius had wired a stereo system back there, and when they took it out, they just cut all the wires and left them dangling. The floor sheet metal housing was missing and there were some obvious things done in the resto that had not been completed, such as an electric fuel pump that was just hanging there, and some bolts that were missing off the installed Chevy Monza exhaust system. Opening the back seat storage, I found the rubber for the front signal housings, but no housings and only one lens.The engine sheet metal housing was there, but I discovered why they did not install it. When the exhaust system was installed, they needed to modify the pan a bit, and chose not to, so it couldn't be bolted in. The back seat had two screws with a tie band holding the back seat in place. I found a rear view mirror in the glovebox that had a suction cup on it to stick it on the windshield.
All in all, nothing so far had been of major concern, and all of the things noted could be dealt with fairly simply. AND THEN, I lifted up the back seat bottom, and much to my surprise... there was the floor of the garage looking at me through a hole about the size of a baseball. OK... nothing to get worked up about, simple enough to fix, until I looked UNDER the car. There was a hole cut in the pan about 17x18 inches that was obviously where some rust damage had been, and it had been covered with (I am not lying here) a roofing shingle and then covered by the carpeting. No wonder it was noisy in the interior! So maybe I'm going to have a visit to the welding shop.
I am fortunate enough to have a repair shop three doors down from my office, that specializes in aircooled VW's. They also work on watercooleds and BMW's but their primary work is on good old aircooled engines. As a safety precaution for myself (and in case the seller was not quite honest with me) I spent 40 bucks and had him go over all the mechanics of the car. He noted a couple of things to me that I needed to address, primarily that the drivers side ball joints and tie rod needed replaced right away. He noted some problems with the door hinges and also noted the aforementioned hole in the pan as well as the problem with the window regulators. He did note that the engine was in excellent shape and needed to be broken in, as the heads had just been done. The new carb was adjusted, and the electric fuel pump was also reset.
Now was the time to evaluate what we had found. Here was a car in good working order, that I did not have to pay a king's ransom for, and needed only about $500-1000 to make into a great daily driver. The body and paint work could wait for a later date, so it was not figured into the equation. If I could live with the finish (and believe me, looking around I saw a lot worse) and get into repairing many of the items myself, I felt this was the one for me. I let the 5 day period lapse, and now this car is mine. Now all I have to do is help my wife to understand my passion for this car!
On my second day of ownership, I did some web surfing and joined the Karmann Ghia mailing list at karmannghiaclub@lists.tdl.com and found a great bunch of KG owners that freely shared their ideas and were anxious to help. I spent many hours on the web looking at KG sites (in English, Spanish, German, Portugese (Brazil) and Flemish-Dutch (Holland)) and about 3 am I decided that I better get some sleep or I would be no good at work the next day. I found many sites that were already helpful, including some that had NOS parts, resto parts, OEM stuff and some parts from cars that were being parted out.
I couldn't wait to drive the car around. I went to the local Starbucks and saw some friends, who oogled over the car. (Hey, they don't know it's not finished!) and then drove it to work. Just as I was pulling into my parking lot, it began to sputter and then died. Great! Now my wife can say "I told you not to buy and older car" and mean it. As I stated before, the repair shop is just three doors down, so I gave it a push down the alley and into their shop. They agreed to look at it again. I got on the net and sent requests out to various vendors and on the mailing list for the front turn signal housings and for a speedometer. These I felt were essential in getting the car street legal. In less than 8 hours, I had positive responses on both. When I picked up the car, the shop said they thought it was dirt in the idle jets and they cleaned them. (After all, the car had sat in the garage for 2 years. How clean could the fuel lines and tank be?). I drove the car home and it died again one block from my house. RATS! I walked home and had dinner then walked back to the car about 2 hours later, and much to my amazement, it started right back up and I drove it home. So much for the dirty idle jets. Something else here was amiss. I came to the conclusion that the gas gage was probably off and the tank was almost empty, because when it was half full (when I picked it up) it had no problems. I came to this conclusion from a rememberance of my dad's old 62 bug, that never registered the right amount of gas. Hopefully I'm right.
Today was marked by a visit to the VW graveyard. In this area of SoCal, most all of the junkyards are grouped together, and we have one street where there are yards for every make of vehicle. The VW yard is the next to the last one. I went in and asked to see the Ghias that were there and they let me peruse the lot. They had about 15 vehicles really picked over (everything from a 59 to a 74) and about 7 more that had most everything in the areas that were not wrecked. There happened to be a recent delivery of a 73 coupe that had no left side, but I salvaged the right turn signal housing from it for 5 bucks. There was a left housing on another car, but the bolts were frozen and I couldn't get it off. (NOTE: next trip, take many tools and some bolt cutters.) I wanted the license housing off this car, but didn't have the cash he wanted for it. Hopefully it will be there next visit, as well as the doors so I can get the regulators if they are salvageable.
I called the DMV service today at the Auto Club (thank you.. no lines or government employees!) and found out that the car had been registered as non-operational for the two years it had been in storage. In California, that is great, because if it is not listed as non-op, you have to pay for the license fees for the years it was not registered. As it was, the tab came to $141 to make everything current. Filled up the car with premium gas. Runs like a clock. (Note: adjust gas gauge).
Now the car needed a name, so I went to my daughter Katie and asked her to help. She came up with "Rasberry II" since I had a Plymoth Lazer of the same color that was called Rasberry. We agreed on the name, but only if it was in German. The car was therefore christened "Der Himmbere" (pronounced hymm'-berr). I may even get the personalized license plate to match!
This car is a dream to drive except for the noise. Since it has no radio to cover the noise, I have learned to like what I here. This is the "wheem" effect I guess. I really enjoy puttering on the small details every chance I get, but fixing the small stuff is getting very tedious. I still have to get a regulator and fix the pans, as I can't drive it in the rain (or if rain is expected in the day) and that is really a downer.
After some long consideration, I decided that I really wanted a cabriolet. If I'm going to put my blood into a KG, I want to have a ragtop. I have put Der Himmbere on the market for $2900 and have many interested parties.
I have been driving around the Ghia and really like what it feels to have this machine around me. That feeling is back that I had and I believe that I now get that special feeling that I was looking for. I have continued to work on the car and fix many of the smaller things that need to be done. Der Himmbere is now registered with the DMV, and is insured. I made another trip to the VW graveyard (Russ's Recycling in Duarte, CA) and picked up the rear license plate light housing. I also acquired (through the Karman Ghia mailing list of Richard Troy - KG Club of No. America) the front turn signal indicators and I will be fixing the window regulator when I get time. The car is still on the market, but now I have decided that it is not just for sale, it has to go to a "Good Home" of someone that will appreciate it! Going to work on the front disk brakes tomorrow.
After many people looked and enquired through the Ghia Post, theSamba.com and Recycler.com, a great guy name Ken from Kentucky just fell in love with the car. After a few snags, we made the arrangements to have Der Himmbere shipped to Kentucky and off to his new home.
Ken is happy and so is Der Himmbere! He is now the most popular guy at his job site.
Another update
Ken was waiting to get onto a highway and a semi didn't see him and ran over the car. It is possible that Der Himmbere will never see the road again, except as a parts car. One more Ghia bites the dust.
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