Classic VW BuGs - Show US your DUB - PODCAST Interview #1 - 1964 Sea Blue Sunroof Beetle

hey guys chris again from classic vwbugs.com and this is the first podcast of show me your dub and i'm with uh a wonderful couple uh the barbers this is doug barber i don't i'm sorry i don't remember your wife's name betsy nancy oh nancy i'm sorry digital digital audio here but uh they he sent me uh information about his beetle a few months back on facebook and he showed me some wonderful video that he shot with this car with the with drone footage and i was really enthralled by this car the story behind it it's actually it's a 64 c blue beetle and unrestored if i'm not mistaken is that right that's right and i could not believe the condition i mean just look at the bug behind him right now it is in unbelievable condition uh it looks painted it looks like fresh paint so uh here we are guys first podcast show me your dub and uh i would like to introduce the barbers and their 64 sea blue beetle how are you guys real good how are you chris uh doing well it's just days over from work and i'm here chatting with you guys and i was looking forward to this all day we were as well uh thanks for having us on and uh letting us uh be on the inaugural uh show us your dub podcast we really very much appreciate it and this is what we're looking for cars that have a historical just a an amazing history you know something that you know because a lot of bugs have history but there's special ones out there that have history and yours was the one that popped up to me first so and i i adore c blue i've done a few c blues in the past and uh i do miss those cars so but um so tell me a little about yourself and and and how you found this beetle sure well as you can tell by looking at us uh we're 60s kids i'm in my sixth i grew up in the 60s and so you know nancy and i came up at a time when every fifth car on the road when you would go out would be some kind of volkswagen right my mother drove me around in a sea blue 66 most of my child and so that is kind of burned into my brain nice my first uh car was a 67 type 3 square bag i had that for a number of years and i got a beautiful green 68 beetle a couple weeks before i left for college okay i arrived at college a tornado went through the campus and dropped the tree and crushed it to the pan i only had that green 68 for about three or four weeks anyway then got a midnight blue 70 beetle which i had years i had that in all through college and then into early adulthood i had a 74 bus which we repainted fixed up uh 75 first year rabbit the only year they were carbureted so anyway the first i don't know 10 12 years of my driving life i was you know a volkswagen person um and then you know adult life came on and for volkswagens uh until 1999. of course they released the new beetle in 98 you couldn't get one the lines were you know the lists were too long anyway i got one in 99 and drove that for a number of years and tell him about your experiences so my first experience with bdubs was my neighbor who i babysat for all the time spent a lot of time with them they had a pale yellow convertible bug it was and they had a west valley spent a lot of time in both of those cars um kind of got me into the bug thing and then my first car um after i got my driver's license was a 72 super beetle blue so also the first time i learned to drive a stick and it's so vws are are through your veins you guys it's it's it's the blood is flowing through you uh my gosh you know if it's 1970 and you go to the shopping center you're going to see just a sea of uh mostly beetles but also maybe some buses and type trees nice we grew up with it so i'm a recently retired history teacher the surgical rn wow not quite retired yet but as i approached retirement uh we found your channel a couple years ago oh cool um your channel along with uh some websites and stuff kind of rekindled both of our interests in having a vintage uh beetle excellent oh we thought boy that would be a nice retirement interest uh and it would be something that we could do as a couple you know we're in late middle age but you know we still w in our veins and so we thought that would be fun we bought the property that we have now which has a 30 by 40 barn that my first um post-retirement project was to remodel it it's divided into but the front half is a made into a vintage german car garage and then the back half into a wood shop try to get myself busy during uh during retirement it's a wonderful shop i mean just looking at that's a dream i would love that garage it looks beautiful thank you i i spend a lot of time out here and it's enjoyable um we hadn't actually planned to get a a beetle and get into the vw hobby until maybe 2021 2022 something like that we started learning about okay what's available what costs what you know what are the prices what can you get at different price points and so forth right so if about a year and a half ago on facebook marketplace this beetle popped up and it's from our house we had always assumed that we would have to buy something probably sight unseen from california arizona or something like that because um here in the midwest it's like new york these cars rusted away years ago you just i mean if if it's a midwestern car it's going to have rusted away this one didn't and i'm gonna when i get into the history of the car i'll tell you why why that is so where where did you exactly find it it was it was yeah it was about 30 minutes from our home here in westwood yeah unbelievable couldn't it had been listed for eight hours and i forget how many people he had interested in it sure but i made an appointment i called right away made an appointment we went to see it the next day uh you know i pulled the plug from number three cylinder to make it what make sure it hadn't been running hot or anything like that i the best i could with my rusty 40 year old air air cooled skills and knowledge and um anyway it checked out and we i drove it home the next day numbers matching yeah it's numbers matching what a beauty what a fine so and you found it when this this year no i found it in august of 19. so okay not quite a year and a half excellent you bound it oh my gosh it is gorgeous i mean if you don't mind like showing the audience here like what this car is all about and uh i know you sent me some pictures and some videos right here um but anyway this is bella she was manufactured on may the 21st 1964. and she was imported right to columbus ohio from of course germany and then um was sold in dayton ohio uh in june wow so you know this is 1964. so they were selling millions of these things and um so this is bella we are the third owner the first person that owned her owned her and from 64 until 69 but then the second owner owned her just a few months shy of 50 years so that is part of the explanation of why she's in such great shape look at the paint the paint is like it's luscious it's still they didn't say yeah bella is original except she did have an early 80s respray okay we bought it from the grandson of the man who'd owned her for almost 50 years and so they did an early 80s respray the only other things that are not original are the cylinders uh three and four the cylinder head was replaced and then we had to replace the voltage regulator the original one finally uh went bad a couple months after we got it but other than that other than consumables like you know tires and stuff like that it's all original um the guy who had it he was i think 87 when he passed away and so the maintenance had been let go a little bit although he took fantastic care of it for like i say almost 50 years and um let's just get her phone here um so the only thing that we have done to it in the last year and a half is we went after the safety and drivability it needed tie rods had a couple leaky wheel cylinders like i say we replaced the um the voltage regulator we were in a real quandary about it needed new tires it had a bias ply tires on it that were dry rotted i don't know how old they were but pretty old and so we had to go back and forth do we want to stay you know totally original and do bias play or do we want to go uh radials we decided for drivability to to get coker classic uh radials um when we were kids you saw thin white walls in the 60s that we remember and so that's what we went with although we like wide white walls too and that's what she originally came with yeah so sure that we put on there that was a good move to get the radials because i mean i uh every now and then i might go for a bias but the drivability on the radial uh and the safety features i mean it just the buyers tires the second they hit a crack in the road you're following that crack uh so i think you picked a good one i love those coker nostalgia tires those are excellent sure and i'll walk around i'll do the exterior and then we'll look at the interior um let me pop up the deck lid what a beauty it's you know other than having the head replaced and then as you can see the voltage regulator everything on there is pretty much like it it's the delivery condition has the original coil um original oil bath air cleaner so the the internals of the engine were never uh messed with the block was never cracked open no wow nope excellent not at all okay so we'll continue on around one of the things we really liked about the car is it had the original interior and uh this car had not been exposed to a whole lot of heat so you can see these are the original door cards a little bit of fading here but not too bad this is one year only this is i think it's called gray court it was only offered in um 64. and chris it's funny um i'm going to talk about the project we did to try to save the original seats but we got on your channel on okay how do you you know reupholster you know redo your seats son of a gun if if the video that you had was exactly this yeah it was great cord out of a 64 and that was your reupholstery video that's right awesome how awesome okay so here's the original headliner oh yeah almost 57 years old yep nice sunroof yeah first year steel sun rope um the original mats oh wow now the only other thing we replaced is we did replace the carpet okay we replaced the um the carpet around the edges like the 64s had because the other carpet was just going to powder because it was it was not in good shape okay we did make the decision to do that um oh she sits great the bumpers look phenomenal too those are the original bumpers they're the original bumpers absolutely wow yep what a view yep okay so the second owner had this car and he retired it from normal use in august of 83. and it was driven uh 2600 miles between 1983 and when we purchased it in 2019. wow he left extensive notes on the uh in fact i'll walk over here and show you the paper trail on this is just unbelievable i'll just flip through all of these but these are the notes that he left the handwritten narrative of the maintenance that he did it was stored in a garage and then a shed and then he would take it out usually in the fall of each year and just completely go over it and he would make notes about that he had a really nice narrative of the maintenance that he did and then in addition to that you can see he took notes on everything but then there's an extensive i mean this goes back to 1968. wow the service invoices the prices are interesting to see you know yeah eight dollars and ninety seven cents get your valves adjusted for five bucks that kind of thing but you know it just goes all through you know the original uh receipts wow um so anyways just it came with that also it came with two cardboard boxes of parts which i have back here including some original 60s oh man you got a such a gem there all this stuff is so valuable to see this little doll you got extra extra porsche headlights your viewers will recognize all those books when i was a young guy and of course even now you know this is the bible as everybody knows um when i was a young guy back in the 70s it was white and spiral bound yes boy did it get greasy yeah yep i got one of those oh you have a 70s version of the yep i have both of them the one you just showed and the spiral bound yep yeah yeah terrific okay so when we got the car and dealt with the you know reliability and drivability issues then what was left over was to try to save this you know this one-year gray cord interior and the issue we were having is of course the threads are 56 years old they're dry rotting and it's coming apart at the seams sure you've seen that many times and the and it came apart right down here and along here and so forth well anyway he had tried to glue this and he had yellow dried glue all over this it was it was a real mess so what we did was we disassembled the seats we very carefully took off the the leatherette and then i'll pop open the hood we're very fortunate to have the original tool kit and as you know chris and some of your viewers probably know the original tool kits came in the same material as the interior yep and so i found a lady not 10 minutes from our house that was an upholstery restore and had done vw seats before nice so she took the very smallest piece from the from the tool wrap and was able to to fix the seat here and then she did a stitch for stitch replacement of all the leatherettes the back seat has not been touched because i don't think anybody's ever sat in it right front seats especially the driver's seat of course was literally coming apart the seams so she broke everything down completely disassembled the leatherette and then um did a stitch for stitch replacement and then nancy and i um yeah we took it off and took it to her yeah yeah we did it and then um uh yeah we removed it all we watched the videos how to do it right um and doug refinished the frame and the woman restitched every seam on the front seats phenomenal job phenomenal job because it's very tough to get a a replica of that today i think there's only one source i don't know if lenny in west coast classic restoration still uh offers that but that is a rare one-year pattern yeah yeah i i tried to find a replacement and couldn't but yeah west coast classics might might have the uh the 64 grey cord um the foam replacements but in the back it's still the original horse hair so you still have that um nice b-dub smell you have a mouth of the classic beetle smell there you go you can't lose that and as you've probably seen it came with beautiful toolkit yeah original um we've been really fortunate because um you know like i say we're middle aged and we got into this as a husband and wife hobby and we're very fortunate to have an excellent vw club of long standing the central ohio vintage volkswagen club they're headquartered in columbus they've been around since 1990 and they have been just a joy to newbies like us the vintage volkswagens and um anyway i want to give them a shout out and uh they've been very helpful and you know accommodating to us well that brings up a great question so if there is a newbie coming into the vw scene uh you know maybe some i mean you guys have a pass of volkswagens but say they're getting back into the scene or they're fresh into the scene what kind of advice do you think you can give them uh to look out for before buying a bug right good question find people with experience and of course if you can find a vintage volkswagen club anywhere near you contact them you know my experience has been that they're very welcoming and um you know we'll give you a lot of good advice i mean the the wealth of knowledge that the members have and are willing to share is uh you know usually pretty good and uh that would be a good starting point in addition to how everybody else how everybody learns everything these days youtube videos there you go we're at a great time today to to learn and to to wrench ourselves just by watching a video you know back in the day it was you know looking at either the books or getting the next hot vw's magazine or vw trends uh you know so now i mean our the information is at our fingertips just a little bit of homework um you could have a great little hobby on your hands and just and have fun while doing it yeah it's an awful lot of fun um you know i did it because you know like i said i had these dormant 40 year old you know volkswagen skills that have been fun for an older guy like me to return you know i read the mirror manual and it's like oh yes i remember i was you know 17 years old but yeah do your homework you use the magic word you know these things aren't cheap you're talking you know a lot of money even for a you know survivor driver like this obviously this has been you know a uh you know restored concourse like the loanworks does but uh you know a lot of people can get in you know this is a good end point into the hobby and but you know do your homework and uh no question about it i i think you you you hit it right on the head and uh you know you could still find some budget stuff out there you could still find some stuff that's you know affordable um and you know i always tell people too they're great items to get into i mean their appreciation has been excellent over the past few years so uh but you know you can find a gem out there and practice on it and and have fun that's that's the name of the game with this whole thing is having fun so but um doug i really appreciate you coming out and showing us that beautiful car uh i'm sure this audience is gonna be enamored by that beauty you got there and um yeah guys i mean he is on facebook and i have seen some of his videos if you go to youtube just put in doug barber on youtube and put in his um 64 beetle and you'll see a beautiful drone video if i can show that really quick if you got two seconds here it is right here and there it is what a beauty wonderful it shuts uh for i gotta say the land you got to is gorgeous you got a beautiful home there my friend yeah thank you wonderful but uh yeah look at that that's that's just uh art you have art on wheels right there doug and you should be very proud that you you picked up this gem and uh i i hope i hope it stays with you oh it will we're going to have her for as long as we're around i'm sure very good and chris we want to send out a a special thank you to you for all you've done for so many years for the volkswagen community i appreciate that with your business and um you're very highly regarded and uh we very much appreciate you know all that you do i really appreciate that doug especially coming from someone like you i mean uh i'm telling you thank you thank you so much thank you you're welcome all right well listen have a great night uh wonderful seeing your car please keep in touch with us and uh you know i'll see you around the campus so they speak okay chris take care bye be well bye nice meeting you nice meeting you bye [Music]

Channel: Chris Vallone

Views: 4,890

Rating: 4.9540229 out of 5

Keywords: VW Beetle, Classic VW Beetle, Classic Volkswagen Beetle, VW Bug, Volkswagen Bug, Vintage VW Beetle, Vintage Bug, VW Beetle Ragtop, VW Beetle Convertible, VW Beetle Restoration, classicvwbugs.com, VW Beetle Sedan, Chris Vallone, Vintage Beetle, Type 1, Air-cooled, aircooled, VW Restoration tip, classic vw bugs, restoration tip VW, VW resto tip, Show Us your Dub, VW Interview, VW podcast, VW Beetle Interview, 1964 VW Beetle, 1964 VW Bug, 1964 VW Sunroof, VW Podcast

Id: HnnwY1DkZDI

Length: 23min 4sec (1384 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020