Lily is a 1971 Beetle from Nuremberg. She belonged to an electrical engineer and was later passed on to his son. The original owner was Kurt, not Hans like I said yesterday, and from evidence found in the car he liked chocolate cake, soap, bicycle puncture repair kits, hipster sunglasses, and he was a smoker. And he liked to keep things very nice and tidy in his Beetle.
The car came with its original registration, but the users manual was not in the car. :(
Letter of registration
Description of the car. German class paid off! Strangely enough, I started learning German because of my first VW, ended up majoring in it, getting a PhD in German studies, and finally, buying another air-cooled VW. I could have saved a lot of time by skipping steps 2 and 3...
Information about the origins of the car.
De-registration. Luckily, endgültig (irrevokably, finally) does not actually mean that the car cannot be registered again. Phew!
Lily was built in Wolfsburg in 1971, but first registered in 1972. She must have been a year-end special! I wonder how many of the other cars sold at the same time are still on the roads...She's a standard 1302 model Beetle. The 1302s were first produced in 1971 and featured major improvements in the front-end technology over previous models. The engines were slightly bigger than older models (1.6L, up from 1.3L) and Luxury and Sparsam (economical) models were also available, but Lily is just a plain old Beetle.
The interior is is remarkably good shape for a 40 year old car. I figured out this morning that the springs in the drivers seat were not actually destroyed, but rather that the seat was configured to what seems to be gangster style setting where the driver is leaned back so far that it is doubtful that they can actually see over the hood. There are only two ways to have the seat in this Beetle - either straight up or this gangster setting. Since I'm pretty small and can't imagine I'll need room in front of me for making silly hand gestures in rap videos, I've opted to adjust the seat so that it keeps me sitting upright. Speaking of seats, I managed to get the passenger seat moving again and closed off the heating ducts on the floor.
Here's a picture of the interior.
The upholstery seems to be the original and since I'm quite fond of that shade of blue I think I just want to get it steam cleaned instead of buying new seat covers.
There are a few small holes in the headliner, but that's to be expected in a car that old. Eventually I'll patch that or replace it. I'm reluctant to rip the headliner out, but I'm not sure if it'd be patchable...Everything is original - the old radio is still there, the steering wheel is in excellent condition, all of the buttons and knobs work...except for one.
(Steering wheel, radio, sound system with one tinny little speaker behind the steering wheel...the original radio is staying, but something more modern will be installed in the glove box!)
One of the points that caused the car to fail its roadworthiness inspection was the lack of functional windshield wipers. They're there, but the switch was until now pretty useless. In an effort to get my windshield wipers working, I started moving fuses around. Luckily, the blown fuse was the only thing preventing the wipers from working, but the cover to the fuse panel was misleading so I thought that the blown fuse was for something else. Now, I can drive in the rain!
Like I said yesterday, the previous owner left a lot of interesting stuff in the car. The front of the car was full of tools and useful things. Behind the seats were more things of varying levels of utility. My favorites include the little fold up stool that is the perfect height for looking into the engine compartment, the nice set of sockets, and the required warning triangle and first aid kit.
(The complete haul included two bars of old man soap, three puncture repair kits for a bicycle, sunglasses, and many much more useful objects!)
View in the back: This guy was prepared for *everything*! He had a tow cable, countless cleaning cloths, gloves, rain gear, the lovely little stool, and so much more hiding in the little compartment behind the back seat!
Once I sorted through everything, I put most of it back in its place. Sure, that place was the trash can for some of the things (old soap, most of the collection of shopping bags kept in the back), but I kept a lot of the other things because they just seem to go with the car.
Tomorrow I'll get my new tires and put that rusted old hubcap back on.
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