Sometimes it’s the things you don’t look for that are missing. It could be that you might be missing something that was a standard accessory on your 66 beetle.
That just happened to be the case with my beetle. I got involved in a conversation with Dario, a long-time member of the 1966vwbeetle forum. He had some questions about the rail that runs around the back of the rear seat. That got me looking at my bug and then I started asking some questions of my own.
Way back in 1975 when I had my first 1966, I’m positive that the car a couple of things that I now noticed were missing. For 1966 beetle owners turn to page 11 of your owner’s manual (if you are lucky enough to have one). You will see a rear seat retaining strap, designed to hold the back seat down so you can put more luggage in the rear of the car. No sign of it in my Sea Blue bug.
You will also see a rubber tie back strap attached to the rear seat near the passenger side wall (just under the ash tray in the picture above). That strap is screwed into the back seat frame and then the rubber strap attaches to a metal hook to hold the rear seat in position. That strap is missing on my bug, but the hook is there…and it’s broken.
Since I have neither of those straps, that bothers me. However, they are available through different aftermarket suppliers. Now, I also discovered something even more disturbing. The rear carpet extending from the lower back of the seat into the parcel tray, is not attached to the metal channel that would hold it in place.
What makes this even more perplexing is that no one has a good answer for how that material needs to be fed into that channel. It sounds like the most reasonable answer is that a metal bar should have been inside the carpet and then that end would get hammered into the channel. However, I’ve reached back out to Dario, my 1966 forum friend, to see if he can tell me how he attached his.
The good news is that Dario confirmed that a metal flat stock is indeed in the carpet sleeve. That’s his picture above with the measurement of the width, which appears to be 1/8th inch. The overall bar length is 36″ long x 3/4″ wide. Surprisingly, Home Depot carries that exact piece of flat stock. Now I will need to round the corners off and paint it black to prevent rusting. I think it will be a bear to hammer it into place, stay tuned for how that goes. Also, if this works, and someone needs one, I will be happy to make one and ship it to you for cost (but I need to see how this goes first).
The great thing about Dario is that he is a purist. He wants things to be original and authentic. I love that, because I feel the same way. Unfortunately, most of the reproduction stuff is not very authentic. If you read my last post (click here) about VW missing the boat, you will see what I mean. So, we are relegated to doing the best we can do at this point. The good news for me is that there are still people like Dario around that can tell us what “original” really means. In the case of the carpet flat stock, I would never have known the measurements without him.
I’m surprised that my carpet wasn’t attached when it was redone back in 2005. My guess is that the metal bar was missing. No idea about the luggage strap, but it had probably rotted away years before.
I see some work ahead of me to make things original once again. It’s sometimes the fine details that get overlooked. At the very least I will get the rear seat retaining strap and the rear carpeting attached. I will need to remove the rear seat to install the hold back rubber strap. I have already located the hole for the screw. Hey, who knows, once I pull the seat, maybe I’ll find a missing part – weirder things have happened.
