"How to ruin a perfectly good 1970 Volkswagen Sedan"

By Les Hall
What is it that drives a man to take a prefectly good, reliably running semi-vintage Volkswagen Type I and turn it into quasi-utilitarian, pseudo off-road Baja-Bug? I don't know. If I could put on my finger on that particular blip on the crazed radar screen that is my brain maybe we could have talked me down and saved a lot of money and grief.

But that didn't happen. So here is the saga of my Baja.
Please observe Exhibit A to your right. A fairly decent 1970 Volkswagen Beetle. I bought it , June 1997, from a solid upstanding citizen of Dallas, Texas - my home town.

It ran pretty well, seemed pretty solid, but had a terrible paint job. You can't really tell from these pictures, but the front end is a matt texture. When I first picked up the car and took it to the car-wash, huge flakes of paint flew off under the pressure hose.
You can see from this picture (left) how there is some strange rippling or shading on the hood - you can just make out some chipping on the edge of the hood as well.

After having it tuned and generally made into good running order I started to day dream about painting it. By September '97 I had a small amount of money allocated for the project. I started to inspect and repair the body work.

After some discussion with a few members of the Air-Cooled VW mailing list and a visit to a local franchise I decided I would use Maaco to paint the car.
Many of the cheaper chains of automotive paint shops are not considered as a source of quality work, but Maaco are respected more than most. They use quality paints, they bake the paint on the car and, if paid enough, will prep & prime well.

I took the car to Maaco in Irving,TX and was shown the facility and chatted with the foreman. It was decided that if I prepped and fixed any major rust or holes, they would sand, prime and paint the car for about $350. Further, they would match the paint to its original VW colour - Pastel White.

Time to break out the tools...