OK, let's not beat around the bush here. Amongst the collection of sad VWs adorning this place like a collection of ugly garden gnomes not going anywhere fast is a '66 Beetle. I paid $1200 for it. At the time it seemed like a bargain. The engine was rebuilt, the gearbox silky smooth and the brakes actually worked. It was a Maleny car, and anyone around these parts of QLD who knows of Maleny is probably thinking it's covered in rainbow murals and "I won't shop there" tributes to a certain major shopping brand whose name begins with a big W. Hmmm.

Well, this one moved from Maleny, dropping a cool one-quarter mile in elevation to the beach area and drove around on 13-inch wide-five rims with low-profiles? It was a sort of sun-kissed, weathered beige.

I'm not sure if that was the orginal colour or the sand from the beach. In the few years that I've owned it it's started to decay. Badly. And now the floors have perished. I will never buy a coastal car again!

So I would like some advice please. Given that I can build up the nerve to turn this ex beach bug into something respectable, what's the deal with changing the whole floorpan to a later VW and registering it? Is it a body change, or a floorplan change. I'm guessing the former - which implies later style lights need to be fitted. But that means no sloping headlights any more if I opt for a, say, 1970 'pan. Welding in new pans isn't a problem, BTW, just that...

Has anyone done a similar swap and learned of the bureacratic pitfalls the hard way?

The pan is what is important and what it is registered as

if you put an oval body on a 1976 pan - it is still a 1976 beetle.

that said - probably the best thing you can do.
Lots of benefits, discs, decent drums, IRS etc etc

but you loose the wide 5 bolt patters.

Thanks guys. Years back I read somewhere that the lights needed changing too to reflect the new pan year. That wouldn't work for the front lights, but the rears... Anyway, I don't mind losing the wide-5s - already doing that with the '66 Fastback upgrade.