As a VW owner, it is amazing to me how VW missed the boat when they ceased supporting the air-cooled VW vehicles. With millions of air-cooled Volkswagens still on the road, the potential for continuing profits would have been great for the company.
Now, all of us are at the mercy of after-market parts. Some are good, and some are not. Many times it is difficult to know which supplier has the best parts. I have gotten parts that were listed as “OEM German” on a supplier’s site, only to receive something quite different, and not OEM.
Talk to folks that have done major restorations and they will tell you who, and who not to floor pans from. Some are solid and some are thin metal that flexes when you step inside the car. Not getting a material that is equivalent to the original is frustrating to say the least.
The differences between original and aftermarket may be quite small but still be noticeable. This came to light just the other day on the 1966 VW beetle forum with a long-time member. He wondered if the headliner material under the rear window happened to actually be perforated (like the top of the headliner) or if the dots were just printed on the material.
Well, my entire headliner was replaced back in 2005, before I transported the Sea Blue ’66 to Wisconsin. I have to admit, that I have never looked that closely at the headliner. So, in response to his question I went out and crawled on my beetle’s backseat to take a look. While it was extremely hard to tell, it seemed to me that the material is perforated. In addition, I looked at Wolfsburgwest.com and they are usually pretty good at supplying authentic reproductions. Their site shows everything in the headliner as perforated.
So, I reported my findings back on the forum. In the meantime, the forum poster had found out that indeed the OG headliner was in fact printed under the rear window. It sounds like the door pillars were also printed material. The reason, it seems, is that those sections would be glued to the metal underneath. Any holes would have had glue coming through the fabric. This makes perfect sense to me now.
So, as you can see what might look OG from a supply house, might just be a close approximation of the real deal.
Of course, there are “New Old Stock” parts available now and then on-line. The people that sell them know exactly how much they are worth. You will end up paying a premium for them. Ask me how I know.
This is where VW missed the boat. They could still be producing everything for the beetles from bumper to bumper and would still be making a fortune off the existing VW population. I’m rather amazed at the number of folks that are continuing to find really old rust bucket beetles and are taking the time and effort to restore them. Hey VW, just take a look at YouTube videos created in the last year. You will see just how large a market you could have retained. For those of you that are doing the restorations – Thank You! You are keeping this piece of automotive history alive.
I cringe when I think about where the old beetle body panel presses, and machinery probably ended up. All that machinery probably relegated to a scrap pile somewhere. How sad, not just for us, but for VW as well. They missed the boat!
