The story.... Back in March of 2006 I located and acquired a nice Sea Blue 1964 Type 143 Karmann Ghia. This four-owner Karmann Ghia had 154,200 miles on it and has a well documented history from the date of purchase until the day I bought it. It was originally purchased in Florida and made its way to Georgia before arriving in Mansfield, Ohio around 1998.
The documentation that came with the car is amazing. I have the original window sticker, sales purchase order, sales invoice and the salesman's business card. I also obtained a stack of receipts showing every bit of work that had been done to the little car over its history leading up to my assuming ownership. The new owner will get every bit of this documentation.
Here are a few pictures of the way the car when I first brought it home from Ohio in March of 2006.
Here's the original window sticker. Price? How about $2,347.04 including $35 for the white wall tires! The car was trucked to its dealership at a cost of $17. Engine number is 8549644, which matches the 40hp stock engine that came with the car.
Here's the original sales invoice showing the dealer-added options of undercoat ($19.95), New car service ($29.50), Radio ($62.50), Outside Mirror ($7.95) and 2 Seat Belts ($19.90). Final price, $2,514.58. This would equate to about $18,200 in 2011!!!!
Note the buyer traded in a 1962 Oldsmobile 2-dr. Cool, huh?
One thing I really enjoy doing up here in Wisconsin is taking the VW's out to local car shows. Its always fun to see people's reactions to the VW's as they just aren't very common up here. The questions and comments people make are fun, and its great to meet people who share a passion of cars like me.
The following shots were taken at a few of the area car shows that I've taken the Ghia to.
The above shot was taken at the Norther Wisconsin VW Club car show in Appleton, WI by a member of the NWVWC. Yep, that's me walking back to the car and that's Curtis (then 11 yrs old) at the passenger door. I won 1st place in the Ghia class.
Thanks for checking out my "Ghia" page.
In the fall of 2006 I took the Ghia to its first car show by attending Appleton Wisconsin's "License to Cruise" in the historic old downtorn Appleton.
I joined up with fellow Northern Wisconsin VW Club members and we parked our VW's down "Wisconsin Avenue."
It was a cold, rainy night, but we had a good time attracting a fair amount of attention from our old VW's.
Documentation:
As mentioned above, the documentation that came with the car is amazing. Here is some of the documents that I have:
Here's how the car looked after a little work.
After a couple of months I had performed a bit of work on the car to improve the brakes, tires and various things. It had become a nice looking little car. My daughter began to refer to it as "Dory" since the color was "Sea Blue".
There is some work to be performed on the car leading up to the sale that includes the following:
Engine:
The original 40hp matching-numbers engine will be rebuilt. When I bought the car I removed the engine to one day rebuild and return to stock. The engine is tired and leaks oil, so I will go through it and will carefully utilize as much of the original parts as possible. Without question, the engine case will be re-used. Expect to see a clean, well-detailed 40-horse stocker resting in the engine bay with all of the original parts.
Transmission:
The original matching transmission works well and is quiet. Plans are to inspect the gearbox, fix any oil leaks and replace the gear oil, axle boots and mounts. No plans to paint it as they weren't painted from the factory.
Exterior:
The orginal bumpers were pitted and dented, so I've sourced replacement pieces and will have all the bumper parts re-chromed.
The window scrappers on the doors will be replaced with NOS items.
Interior:
The interior was re-done in a matching black and blue seat configuration and there's a black carpet kit. Otherwise the interior will be stock.
Wheels:
I've reconditioned the original steel "smoothies" that came with the car, but I may bolt on a set of original Mangel chrome rims and some "nipple" hubcaps to spruce things up a bit. The sale of the car will include the original wheels, mounted or not. The car will be sold with all its parts.
The gas tank has already been refurbished. Its been completely boiled out and cleaned and only holds gas now. 8-)
