This morning I was driving along at about 70km/h and there was a sudden loss of power, no response from the accelerator.
After it slowed down a bit I put it in 2nd and regained full power, and no problem shifting up again.

Any thoughts what this could be and could it be related to a couple of times recently the car not starting straight away - alot more cranking than usual before it fires up.

This is a 1600tp beetle, 1500 box, twin 36 idfs.

Any ideas?

crap in your fuel lines, change the fuel filtre it could be gummed up.

Yep, sounds like fuel to me too. It would be worth your while in taking the tops off both carbs too, just in case something got thru and is now risking blocking the main jets.

The disadvantage of your current setup is that if one main jet on one carb blocks partially, those two cylinders fed by that carb will run lean. The other side of the engine will still run ok. You might be tempted to continue driving which could result in a melt down of 2 cylinders if your trying to do 70 mph.

Also consider running two inline filters. One in the engine bay before the carb fuel line t piece, and the other under the tank before the chassis pipe. Cheap ryco inline filters are fine.

just an easy tip- buy the totally clear ones instead of the white version- easier to tell when they need replacing.

cheers guys, I will look into that.

That sounds relatively painless, I had all sorts of visions of something worse.

Hope you are all correct.:thumb

Hmm.
Not a fuel blockage. The electronic ignition died.
Back to points for me.

I just had the same thing happen to me on Monday and it was the points closing up. Seems it is not just electronic ignitions.

Yogie

Points are easier to fix (less expensive) though.
And the RACV would have been able to do it on the spot, instead of getting towed.

:o