Having a car in your shed for 27 years reveals an impressive level of confidence you’ll eventually restore it. That’s how long the owner of this 1955 VW Beetle here on craigslist spotted by Barn Finds reader Olaf E. says he’s had this project stored, and it sounds like he has owned more than one oval window Bug in his lifetime. Makes you wonder what else is in the shed, doesn’t it?
If I had the space, I would likely collect a few different varieties of one particular car I was passionate about. Right now, it’d be old BMWs; I’d simply squirrel them away and remove parts when needed. The fact that the seller sold off the trademark (and highly sought-after) “W” decklid with “the last oval I sold” tells me he’s owned enough of these rare, early Bugs that parting a few of them out wasn’t out of the question.
He wants $5,000 for this battered example, which bears the scars of front end damage and a rusty floorpan. It may be easier to swap the floor pans out and have a body shop specialist pull the nose back together. The oval window and first-year bullet blinkers (hopefully in his parts stash) are the things you can’t fake, so it’s good that the marquee features of an early model are still accounted for.
If this Bug could talk, it’d probably have a lot to say about being laid up for 27 years awaiting a restoration that never came. But of course, they can’t talk and hopefully the next owner will put this one back on the road. It’s rough, but it’s still too rare and too complete for further parting-out. Do you think this oval window will find its way back to running, driving condition?
I see the back end of a Karmann Ghia in the first photo.
I’m looking for where is this shed
I sold a running 56 Oval rag for $3k a few years back, and I made a grand on i at that. $5k for this is stupid
That car is WAYY too rough and missing too many parts for his asking price.. About $4000 too much and that’s just for starters..
I just took my 1983 rabbit GTI out of my parents garage. It’s been sitting there since 1991. I’ve been having fun restoring it the last 4 months and after a little paint it will be ready to go.
Once one has been tagged good in the front about the only real fix is to back half it or put another front clip on it. I bought and drove a ’67 Bug which I only found out after the fact, that a front clip off another Bug had been welded on. I was furious and beiing young and dumb and full of ? I was about ready to beat on the guy except that I was taught to respect senior citizens. It wasn’t that many years later that the fella died of cancer.
Long and true oval window Bug story with some humor town in. My older step brother had a ’56 oval window Bug stored outside at his mother’s house in Gatlinburg, TN. He lived and still does in the Chicago area and did not have the heart to take the already rusted and fairly rough Bug to the midwest. He asked me if I would like to have it and would not take a penny for it. I have allways lived in Chattanooga, TN and a buddy of mine named Tommy, whom I mentioned it to, challenged me to drive up there and get it. So we headed up there in Tommy’s Candy Apple Red ’62 Impala “SS” real early one brisk fall Saturday morning. We got it started, but not without a struggle as the battery was dead and the carb had dried out. The tires were terrrible and the kingpins were wore out. I took off in that VW for Chattanooga with my heart in my throat and my buddy Tommy (who had just married a neighbor girl of mine) following me in his Impala. The VW engine was running rough and the Bug was darting all over the road with numerous cars laying on their horns not in admiration, but to express their displeasure of me being over the center line as I was trying to get out of town. There was so much play in the steering wheel, that I tried to remind myself that I was truly on a wing and a prayer and thanked the Good Lord Above for every mile marker I successfully passed. Tommy stayed waaaay back in case the Bug disintegrated on the Interstate and German shrapnel went everywhere. He would at least be alive to inform my parents of my untimely death from the terrible tragedy that had unfurled. The engine was so weak that I had to try and get a running start in order to make it up a hill and when you applied the brakes going down a hill, you felt as if you were taking your life into your own hands and wondered which guardrail you would strike first. We made it back safely an it was one of the coolest spontaneous road trips I have ever taken. I was stunned when approximately 3 months later when his wife informed me that Tommy was driving his Impala in the rural area where they lived, ran off the right shoulder at a steep embankment and the car rolled all the way down it killing him. I can still see Tommy’s smiling face and hear that laugh of his and only death or dementia, whichever comes first, will take the memories of that special day away from me.