This may seem strange to some, but after being into VW's for over 20 years, I've just bought my first Beetle. The car in question is a 1956 oval windowed bug that I've bought to build as a budget racer. The idea is to put together a car for Speedweek 2010 and the rest of the year use it for drag racing.
I had originally intended to use the Type 4 engine in the Ghia for a year or two and then build a rail / drag car and campaign it in the VWDRC in the UK, but sice moving to Adelaide, there are no local drags, and the nearest strip (in Portland) is only 1/8th mile. The trip to Speedweek earlier this year planted the seed for building something to take to the salt. I had originally thought of a volks rod - chopped and sectioned like the 'death' rod, but the oval turned up on AussieVeeDubbers, and I was inspired.
The car was in Caboolture just north of Brisbane, I bought it, unseen (well apart from some photos), and arranged to have it shipped to Adelaide. It arrived last week, and is now in the driveway awaiting transofrmation into a race car. I've spoken to a cage builder and will hopefully get it into his shop in a few weeks time to get the cage made up, this leaves a few weeks to split the pan and fix up any rust issues.
The patina will stay, as it is this which mostly attracted me to the car in the first place, but I will give it a clear coat to prevent it from getting any worse. I need to speak to someone who's done this before to find out what / how they did it.
The first item to fix up is to fit some moon discs - these are on order and will arive next Tuesday, once these are fitted I can get the wheels powder coated and get the rubber sorted out.
I will keep you posted of the progress.