VW Type III: 1962 T34 Karmann Ghia

Hi Greg, well there isn't much of a story, but here it goes: I bought the
car in early 1980. It was semi-abandoned behind an old gas station south of
columbus. After a week of searching I found the owner's uncle and he
handled the sale. I paid $250, and never even met the owner. The car was in
really bad shape, a total rust bucket, and someone had crammed a 1970 fuel
injected type III engine in it complete with 12 volt flywheel and all of
the FI stuff stil on it!! As if it would really fire up on 6volts!!
Anyway I was really lucky that all of the trim pieces came with the car.
Those would have been very hard to find, because they changed alot of the
pieces in mid 1962, so the early stuff is extremely rare.

I spent about 1.5 years restoring the car and tried to keep everything as
original as possible. I changed the color, (it was turquoise before yuk!!)
and I cant find a good '62 single side-draft engine so I used the 1970
engine that came with it. I used a 1966 bus 6volt flywheel so I would have
the big (200mm) clutch, but could keep the car it's original 6 volts. Other
than that I rebuilt the suspention, the gas heater, and brakes. I have only
put about 20,000 miles on it in the last 16 years, so I haven't had to do
much to it since 1983. I did replace all 4 front wheel cylinders last year
with NOS units (tough to find) and installed electronic ignition. Got tired
of points. 

One interesting thing I discovered about the car is that it may be the only
343 directly exported to the USA by VW. When I wrote to the factory in 1986
to find out it's birthdate, they said it was exported to VWOA in New
Jersey.????? I thought that had to be wrong because everyone said that none
were imported here. In about 1993 Lee Hedges convinced me to write to
Karmann to see what they said. They said the same thing! It must have been
brought here for some type of promo. So maybe it is the only one---I don't
know. Anyhow, they must not have liked my car, because the decided not to
import them!!

Well that is the story, short 'n sweet. Perhaps if the weather is good I
will see you at Auburn Hills this year. 

Bob Dervin