Yes, You Absolutely Need To Buy a Cheap VW Baja Bug!

hey everybody check it out this is a 1974 volkswagen baja bug and in this video we're gonna prove that this is the most fun you can have on four wheels these things are completely awesome [Music] volkswagen makes cars and the vw is built to take a little punishment [Music] it's a wild ride it's just simply the thrill of challenging mother nature and storming through the bushes that's where the kick is the next day you're sore all over but it's worth it when a volkswagen looks like it's over the hill there's a lot of light in the old program now the genesis of the baja bug was really surf culture back in california many many many decades ago volkswagens were everywhere and of course bruce meyers of the infamous meyer banks decided to take one shorten it put on this really cool custom fiberglass body and then take it zoom it around in the sand and ever since then there's been an enormous community around taking volkswagens and making them off-road worthy which i think is just kind of hilarious because these were kind of just normal economy cars in the 50s and the 60s and 70s it'd be like taking a hyundai elantra and putting it on big tires and then slicing off the fenders and going zooming up through glamis that's just like you don't do that but that just goes to prove how flexible the volkswagen platform was way back in the day now of course the volkswagen did evolve a lot all right maybe a little or maybe not at all between the 1930s and like the late 1970s here in the us um but really there are two primary versions of the volkswagen beetle that were sold in the states there was a standard beetle and the super beetle and no the super beetle was no faster it didn't have jet packs or turbos or anything the difference between a standard beetle and a super beetle is primarily the front suspension super beetles have what they call a mcpherson strut setup where um these standard beetles have a torsion beam and this is actually the first thing you want to look for if you are trying to build yourself a baja bug you want to find a standard beetle with this torsion beam front suspension it's way more durable than what super beetles had when you take them off road it's also very easy to modify very easy to beef up and that is key when it comes to building your first baja so once you have found yourself the right standard bug you got to decide which direction do you want to go in because baja's range an enormous kind of spectrum of designs and styles so you've got like the iconic minx design right where you shorten it and do that full fiberglass body remove basically the entire top half of the volkswagen you've got sand rails which is basically a bit of scaffolding with a volkswagen engine in the back and then you've got a design like this which is typically called a baja bug where you keep a lot of the overall design and the structure of a volkswagen but then you change stuff like the hood and the fenders and the front clip and once you decide to go this route you have to make the decision do you want to have the inboard headlights or the outboard so a lot of folks put them out here on the fenders kind of like they were originally this one has the conversion to the the front the middle here and i think that this looks really really cool now one thing which is pretty common across just about every volkswagen baja is the complete lack of a rear end typically you take off the rear apron and the rear fenders and then you have the engine exposed to the elements and then it's always a good idea to go ahead and build yourself a crash structure back here but this is great you got a lot of airflow to everything these are air cooled engines right maybe reduce some of that that potential beauty body work which can get torn off off-road and then build yourself a nice little structure so that when your friend inevitably miscalculates the jump he takes behind you you're not going to take out your entire engine now volkswagen bajas have a huge variety of engines an early car from like the 50s might have a very original engine which has been untouched but most of them have been kind of upgraded for speed and reliability and go fast goodies and this is no exception so 74 this would have had like a 1600 cc volkswagen engine i've been told though that this one's upgraded to 1776 so one cubic centimeter per year of our country's foundation which i think is pretty funny but like lots and lots of stuff you can do to this so for example this one has a very aftermarket exhaust with these really cool headers and that stinger that just shoots straight up there in the back but if you look a little closer it's got a bunch of changes so like this is where your mechanical fuel pump would have gone that has been replaced with an electric one it's got an aftermarket carburetor on it you can see over here we've got a oil filter the volkswagen's never actually had oil filters they had these little mesh things underneath which would kind of capture little bits of sticks and twigs in your oil but this is probably a good upgrade um aftermarket valve covers if you look underneath there you've got aftermarket oil coolers um the the crank pulley's been changed so you can really dial in your timing um the only real way to know if it's a 1776 would be to kind of tear it apart and pull the heads off and do some measuring around there but it is pretty cool the number of things you can do with these volkswagen engines to really suit them up and get a little bit more power out of them they're they're very customizable and parts are super cheap now one of the nice things about sticking with the original volkswagen body shell is you actually have a real roof so if it rains or drizzles you're not going to get completely drenched like in a sand rail or in a myers-megs kind of design but overall i mean once again this is pretty much standard volkswagen here 74 we got the safety steering wheel with you know that nice little cushion so that when you slam into it you're not gonna well you're probably gonna die still but it's gonna be a more comfortable death um it's got the original gauge in it with speeds up to 100 miles an hour i've had a couple of volkswagens that i've never seen 100 mile an hour speedometer might have always been older i think 100 is probably a little optimistic bold depending on who you ask but uh yeah very standard volkswagen interior lots of stuff you can do to in here a custom audio system change the door panels change the seats carpet kits whatever you want to do you can probably do on the inside of a volkswagen this one also has a fire extinguisher which is always a good thing to have so most of these baja builds will use an extensive amount of fiberglass so like this is a fiberglass hood fiberglass front clip fiberglass front fenders that's pretty common um i mean you can do them out of steel but it gets a lot more expensive really quickly let's check out what is under the hood the quickest opening hood in the industry so a super beetle will have a very different front end with of course some mcpherson struts here and they're just not as durable when you're off off-roading but check this out you got your typical volkswagen rats nest that is not aftermarket that's pretty much how it would have been from the factory and yeah a little bit of storage space with your fuel tank in the front because the engine's in the back so this baja bug is rolling on a set of 30 by nine and a half r15 wheels and tires really cool design i love these aluminum wheels it just looks great um now the thing about bajas right is it's pretty affordable to make them look really cool but really expensive to make them handle like the baja 500 so when you start diving into suspension and and how you dial those in for like long distance awkward races that kind of stuff adds up super super super quickly but to make one of these kind of look cool and you know zoom around in the dirt fairly well you can do it for typically well under 10k i think brendan paid even under four or three grand for this guy so it's definitely an affordable way to have a lot of fun out in the dirt so brendan where did you find this thing uh another facebook marketplace spine believe it or not another facebook marketplace find huh and it was just like some dude owned it yeah i think it all right i'm giving up online yeah uh i i guess it got traded to him with some sand rail and uh he didn't really want this so he kept the sand rail and gave this to me and uh i guess he wanted to keep the sand rail that just didn't want this and it hadn't run in like two years but uh yeah nice solid to me well this is really cool i mean the cool thing about this ride is it's by no means pristine but it's in a condition where you can kind of drive it around um have some fun with it but not worry about like parking it anywhere yeah exactly i mean that's the kind of nice thing about this is it's all dented and dinged it's got a little bit of rust and the interior's not the best so who cares yeah whatever happens to what happens what the heck is it horner yeah the horn works so i thought i think this is funny so let me show you this so that i think uh is you hear this noise when you turn the key that's either the fuel pump or the blower fan but there's no switch actually to turn the blower fan off so we're just gonna deal with it just makes it a little more noisy is it some more character all right are you ready [Music] all right here we go [Music] this engine feels like it's got a little bit more pep than it would have originally had i think so for sure now if you've never driven a volkswagen they are the easiest cars to drive they're just super forgiving about anything the clutches are easy the shifting is easy it's just a fantastic thing to drive an initial impression you know the ride is really well sorted on this thing did you do anything with the suspension i have not this is i just kind of got it this way uh did a little bit of exhaust work carburetor and few other things but suspension is just how it came i've driven a bunch of 1600 bucks this has got a lot more power than the 1600 yeah i think that this has probably been pretty massaged over the years yeah that's that's what i've been told this is the only beetle i've ever driven but oh yeah i guess the other ones don't feel this as quick no it's not anywhere near this place this thing is freaking awesome in this field at a good 20 miles an hour right now it's just taking it dude it does really well yeah brakes leave a little to be desired yeah oh yeah this thing's great this would be so fun i'm like bring it to some sand dunes you know oh yeah i'm happy i asked you ryan that'd be a blast no the cool thing too is there's not a whole lot to break on the volkswagen little one when things do break they're cheap super cheap yeah all right let's give it some power down the back stretch here [Applause] oh yeah this is a fast buck this is an uber fast buck behind the hole this is fun i need one of these oh yes everybody needs a baja bug in their life absolutely i'm happy to have one in mine i bought this as a flip but uh i just love driving it so much i'm gonna keep it i i don't oh gosh i don't know about relying on this as a daily guy broken down on you a number of times right i think this is what the third time we tried to film this video that's okay it's all part of the character right freaking awesome i enjoyed that so much sure good to see you again [Music] now i do have to say as much as i do like me the originality of like an unrestored you know survivor bug this thing is way more fun you know it's just like you can zoom in it around everywhere you can take speed bumps at 50 miles an hour and it's just an absolute blast so uh i'd be tempted like if i only had a few thousand to spend on a volkswagen you know don't go for the original one that's like you know beautifully preserved do this you're gonna have more fun with it you're gonna get more smiles and laughs and it sounds freaking cool let me know what you think in the comments below we'll see you in the next video

Channel: TFLclassics

Views: 99,654

Keywords: baja bug, baja, vw bug, baja bug build, vw baja bug, vw, bug, vw baja, volkswagen baja bug, vw bug baja, baja buggy, vw bug baja build, vw bug baja kit, offroad vw baja bug, vw baja bug offroad, super beetle baja bug, vw beetle, vw bug baja exhaust, vw baja bugs, vw super beetle baja bug, baja bug race, baja bug empi, baja bug jump, rzr vs baja bug, baja bug clips, super baja bug, rally baja bug, baja 1000, class 5 baja bug, baja bug racing, baja bug desert

Id: TZbvfU9cHxw

Length: 12min 10sec (730 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022