can someone who has more vw beetle love and experience tell me why the hype regarding buying pre superbeetle rather then superbeetle.....some say super beetles harder to find parts...harder to lower as they use macpherson system rather then drop spindle.......is it the body differnce...please someone give me your thoughts
Ummm personally i dont like the look of supers, they just look all bulbous and odd to me. thats just me though, everybody has there own thing.
personally i like the pre super models becaise tje rear lid has nicer contours and i like the horn
grills and the head and tail lights.......might sound lame but they are different than the super beetles but not taking nothing away from supers as i
own one and love it
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those are some nice supers.... they look ok when you put some nice wheels, a decent paint job and lower them....
as a Super owner I find it has more to do that it doesnt have a beam front end. You cant take the body off per se. You dont have pedigree.
It is definitely more a CLF (Cal Look Forum) and DKP (Der Kleiner Panzers) thing. Google them.
The Europeans lover the Supperbeetles (1302 & 1303). Supers are moe adaptable to the Porsce, Remmele & kevlar look
10-15 years ago when SBO forum started it grew HUGE. That then joined with Shop Talk
That is where i found the almost apartheid attitude.
My first beetle was a 1964 - but that was back in 1979.
I have only driven 1303's since then
Most of the general public don't even pick the visual difference between supers or standards till it's pointed out let alone know there were
actually 2 different models.
Superbugs are one of the easiest to get parts for in Aus as they were so common.
Nearly all the bugs sold in the 70s were superbugs as they got disc brakes, 1600 engine, IRS, bigger boot etc when the cheaper standard bugs only had
1300, swing axle and 4 wheel drums, less trim and boot space for a toothbrush, so there's alot more of Supers around but rust in the floor pans and
back pillars from the death foam was the big killer.
Agree with Mick, it takes the right stance and rims to get a super looking right, a bog stock one is very plain, but so are all standard 68 on bugs
when left standard.
I was an early beetle snob originally for the visual appeal, but once I got bitten by the performance bug so to speak I realised the handling of
Mcpherson strut front end still used in todays new cars can be developed so much further than the old 30s designed torsion bar layout.
There's a good reason nearly all the Germanlookers are based on strut bugs.
The beam front end has it's limitations and the curved screen of Lbugs has big aerodynamic advantages as well as the safety aspects.
Being a more complex front end means more to go wrong and the old timers that are more familiar with the torsion bar front end generally don't know
where to start when things like the 50mph shimmy starts so they get a bad rap for that especially when the basic beam front end thrives on neglect.
Supers were made for upcoming USA safety laws... especially the 1303... but most of the safety laws didn't eventuate so the 1976 beetle was a NON
Super although Karmann kept making the Karmann cabriolet beetles using 1303S parts... until they stopped making them.
Its just a personal thing really... I couldn't tell the difference between a superbug [1302] and normal beetle for many many years.. lol..
I suppose You could say that non supers are old school..???
whereas the supers are more modern especially the 1303..
interesting that only approx 1600 1303s were ever sold in the UK..
and hundreds of thousands in North America..
Performance wise road holding the Supers have it all...
if You are just using as an a daily or weekly driver then any will do... lol..
A done up 1303 really looks modern ...
just My thoughts
LEE
I'm not a fan of fat chicks 
We have one of each
as long as the cars are well maintain they are all good to drive.
I have loved the look of supers from when they first came out - I reckon they look more 'muscly' and touigher.
The older beetles look more 'feminine', if that is the right word? IMHO
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posted by h I'm not a fan of fat chicks |
^nono no debate required
Well you're no bloody fun then.
I spent most of my formative years in a super that my mum had, great car and with a stance adjustment they look the "shizzle".
i prefer the lines of the older models tho IMHO, and as much of a pig as mines been to get back on the road i wouldn't swap it for anything. i sold
my WRX just to buy it, you can say that i have bugs in the brain (or whats left of it)
Lee they sold plenty of strut bugs in the UK. However for the UK market from 1971 the choice was only the basic 1200 torsion bar Beetle, or the basic
1300cc strut Beetle with front drums and low-back seats (called the 1302 or 1303, dependng on the year). The 1600cc disk brake strut Beetle (called
the 1302S or 1303S) was only available by special order and was rather more expensive. It's THIS version that didn't sell many, and probably what
you're thinking of. Find a copy of 'Safer Motoring', January 1974. Peter Noad tests a new UK-spec 1300c drum brake 1303.
The US market got the deluxe strut Beetle with 1600cc engine, but it wasn't a 1302S or 1303S as the US cars had front drums. Volkswagen of America
sold them as the 'Super Beetle.'
Australia also never saw the basic 1300cc strut Beetle (1302 or 1303). Here our basic 1300cc Beetle was torsion bar with drums and swing axles. Ours
were a bit like like the Euro 1302S and 1303S, but they were made in Melbourne and painted in Datsun paint colours. Ours were sold as the Superbug S,
and the Superbug L. Volkswagen called their rear the 'double joint' rear end, NOT 'IRS'. Swing axle is also 'IRS.'
The 1975 Superbug L was just the second VW on our market to have self-stabilising steering geometry, called Negative Steering Roll Radius. Only the
Passat had it earlier.
If I had to have a bug it would be a 1303 done up as a german looker.
Nothing good in early bugs imho.
oh and super have Mc pherson strut which is pure F**king EPIC WIN! 
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posted by vlad01 oh and super have Mc pherson strut which is pure F**king EPIC WIN! |
Yes your point?
I was going to say a standard bug front end looks like something off a massey furguson 
Just saying that there are horses for courses. There's no way that a Superbug could keep up with my tractor front end Baja on a rough track without
destroying itself.
So they may be pure epic win in one respect, and absolute epic fail in another.
just goes to show that there's not a be all and end all.
Smiley
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posted by vlad01 If I... ....Nothing good in early bugs imho. .... |
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| Originally
posted by Smiley Just saying that there are horses for courses. There's no way that a Superbug could keep up with my tractor front end Baja on a rough track without destroying itself. So they may be pure epic win in one respect, and absolute epic fail in another. just goes to show that there's not a be all and end all. Smiley |
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Originally
posted by h
eye test is in order so you can see the slender figures book it in quick n you can see the light!! (it can be bulk billed) |
for a bug anyway.
I have a Super and a 69, Super is registered, 69 in pieces, therefore Super ftw
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| Originally
posted by Smiley Just saying that there are horses for courses. There's no way that a Superbug could keep up with my tractor front end Baja on a rough track without destroying itself. Smiley |
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I'm a fan of both!
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| Originally
posted by vlad01 bugs were built as road cars, thats just how I see it anyways. Kinda stupid compairing the 3 suspention setups on different surfaces to eachother and surfaces the car was never intended for when it left the factory. Its like saying "well my 4x4 is better at handling than that model of 4x4, well its better on road than yours though" the argument is invalid |
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posted by Arpspasm No but surely it would be fun trying |
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Yes Lee, the UK vw market had some strange things going on in the early 1970s, and it's interesting to read period VW magazines to see what was going
on.
The UK had a bigger VW range to choose from than us. Apart from the torsion bar standard 1200 Beetle and strut 1300 Beetle, they also had the VW 412
range and the VW 'Caravan' - what they called the Kombi in those days. They also had the VW K70, and the new Passat range, and the Scirocco TS, with
the Golf just around the corner, the Type 3 having just been phased out. Most of the letters to Safer Motoring were complaining about VW's switch to
front-engine front-drive. It was a very tough decision at the time, but in hindsight there is no doubt VW made the right choice. Their air-cooled
sales were in permanent decline and they were hundreds of millions in the red. VW would have gone bankrupt if not for the Golf/Passat; by 1976 VW AG
was back in the black and today are the second-biggest car company in the world.
'PS' is the German word for horsepower, which stands for 'PferdeStarke'. It's DIN horsepower, which includes all the ancilliaries on the motor.
SAE horsepower, which was used in the US and Australia, is 'raw' horsepower without the ancilliaries. So SAE gives a higher figure. The famous '40
horse' 1200, for example, is 40-bhp SAE but only 34-hp (or 34 PS) DIN. Likewise the 1600 was 60 bhp SAE but 50-hp DIN. Nowadays the DIN values are
the standard in all metric countries and the figures are in kW - like the 155 kW Golf GTI. You multiply the DIN HP figure by 0.746 to convert to
kilowatts, or divide kW by 0.746 to get DIN HP. There's no conversion for SAE because it's a different measurement.
Yes the Clayton factory also assembled Mercedes trucks, but not MAN. Nowadays Volkswagen AG owns MAN (and Scania too).