Recently purchased a '74 L bug, now affectionately known as Betty. Was actually looking for a tidy Type 3, but this car literally turned up in my driveway with a for sale sign on her and after my first drive of a 'modern beetle' I wasn't letting her leave.

She was completely standard, but amazingly nearly rust free (my mechanic was dumbfounded after giving her the once over up on the hoist).

So far she has received a new set of shoes - Cosmic replica's and is getting a much needed overhaul with a top end rebuild, steering / bushes and brakes. I've ordered a set of Topline Maxx struts and camber+ kit which Jon from Topline thinks should work with the wheel / tyre combo. Fingers crossed.

Plan is to get her handling, braking and running well, then a trip to the paint shop, still debating to keep Wattle yellow or go with a midnight blue to keep the wife happy.

Will post updates as the work progresses.

G'day.
Nice looking beetle. Always loved L bugs.
You might have issues with the Cosmics and lowered struts
See how you go. You may need to become friends with Cam(ber)
You won't regret a well handling L

Thanks Bizarre, yep the lowered struts with the Cosmic's are a risk. Ultimately I want her lower and handling as well as possible so the Cosmic's may have to make way for some rims with a better offset. Thanks to you and Steve for your advice on lowering the car in the tech forum.
Once the struts arrive I'll play around with them and the camber kit. Fingers crossed as I love the look of the rims.

Nice score, good luck with the build. After years of driving around in a torsion beam car an L bug is sooo much nicer to drive.

Can't agree more with a nice handling super. Like driving a go kart on the street.

Stage 1, get the car handling and stopping well (currently in progress). Stage 2, paint and body to make the wife happy. Stage 3, make it fast. Hopefully in time for next years Super Sprint

Hi Spearsy, Saw your car on Superbeetles only. A friend has a set of Boxster rims similar to yours which he is willing to part with if I can't get the Cosmic's to fit once lowered. How did you do the conversion to bolt on the Porsche rims?

Stage 2 paint. A couple things to consider is how much you want to change the colour, and how much you can afford to spend.

A same colour respray will always cost less, as you do not have to get as concerned about awkward spots to paint like in the luggage compartment, behind the dash, or behind the sound deadener in the engine bay.

If you go full new colour, there will alwaysbe spots inside that will show the old colour. Still it all depends on how far you want to go or how much you can do yourself.

A drive in drive out full bare metal colour change could cost from $10K to $20K. An outside repaint could cost as little as $3K, if it is cheaper paint and no removal of old paint. There are just so many factors.

For me to do a full bare metal repaint on the our Beetle, and repaint in original colour, cost $2K in materials only. That is no labour cost at all, and I spent about 140 hours on the whole job. Obvoiusly I did not have to worry about painting in all of the tucked away spots.

Thanks Hellbug, yep my preference is respray original colour. Especially since the shell looks like it has had a respray sometime in past and is in good shape. It's only really guards, doors, bonnet and deck lid that need new paint. Wife doesn't like the wattle yellow. Hopefully I can convince her and spend that extra money on the engine.....

Wattle can look good if it mixed to the proper formula, I had a Wattle Beetle for years, I went lemon yellow tinter to get that real yellow.

There is a factory yellow from late 70s Golfs called Ryard Yellow that looks like Wattle with some balls, it might be worth looking at

Finally installed the Topline Maxx struts and new rotors / drums and the boxster rims on Saturday. Starting to look like a clone of Spearsy's car. Might have to do something about paint next!

Sweet!
I'm biased, but they are the best wheels for L Bugs.
Just makes them look so solid. Love the last pic.

Hey Bizarre,

Did you have standard hubs on your L bug? Wondering how I get the centre caps to fit on the front rims. The hubs stick out about 1cm too far.

One or more of the following methods
1 cut and shut your grease caps
2 carefully panel beat your grease caps
3 custom make caps for the wheels
4 get after market Porsche caps that are flat and not concave
5 put your Porsche caps in boiling water and make them convex
6 drill a hole in the centre of the passenger Porsche cap so a the speedo cable sticks through

I had a mixture of 2,4,5 and 6