Customer Reviews

VW Beetle Restoration Handbook: How to Restore 1949-1967 VW Beetles to Original Factory Condition

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If you really intend to "restore a beetle into factory condition" you should probably look out for a better "handbook" than this one. Thats the summary of my impression (or should I say: depression?) after reading this book. I own a beetle built in 1965, which has come to the point where it's necessary to strip it down completely, because the heaterchannels have rusted away (their bottoms) and it doesn't make any sense to try any "quick-repairs", but a complete rebuild is needed.

So I bought this book, full of hope to find needfull information, but was disappointed in a very cruel way, when I got it. For example there is a chapter dedicated to a beetle, which needs no restoration at all, because it has gone less then 50.000 miles (if I'm not mistaken ..sorry, but I can't look it after. Reading this book makes me angry!), a fact, which is very interesting but doesn't help me in solving my restoration-problems at all! Another thing is, that problems, you are surely involved in, when restoring (and that means: "RESTORING"!), are not mentioned by a single word, or are solved by using new parts. The beam is one of the most impressing examples! As the authors say:" We decided to get the complete unit,.., so all the work was already done. We just had to bolt it in." Fine! But I missed some words of how to restore this section... The No.1 rust point of the beetle, the heaterchannel, is not mentioned and it seemed to me, as if beetles in the US don't have to be splitted into frame and chassis even after 50 years of use. Welding seems not to be necessary to "american" beetles. The highlight of this book is (in my humble opinion), when it tells you to fill small holes in the floor-panel by using bodyfiller! Thats what I call a real "Restoration into factory conditions", though I've never heard about any beetles leaving the factory with bodyfiller on their floorpanels;-) I was deeply impressed, when reading the 4th chapter (Installing power windows & doorlocks), but still wonder in which years beetles left the factorys with power windows and door locks between 49 and 67? But thanks God I'm told, that this is no job "for the inexperienced enthusiast". My conclusion? If you want to restore your beetle yourself, don't buy this book! Especially, if you want to see it in original factory condition after all that work....

WASTE OF MONEY!!! I was under the impression that the book would help me restore by bug back to original. But instead it showed me how to install power windows and other basic stuff. I do not recommend this book.

Just like the other reviewers have stated, this book has nothing to do with the restoration of a Beetle. The subtitle, "How to Restore 1949-1967 VW Beetles to Original Factory Condition", is not just misleading, it's a bold-faced lie. Complete waste of time and money. HPBooks and VW Trends should hang their heads in shame. Booo. Hiss. If I didn't love anything and everything VW Beetle, this book would be getting returned.

Most people who drive air-cooled Volkswagens are at least familiar with John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, a Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures," known with varying degrees of reverence, amusement, and/or disgust as simply "Muir." Almost every situation one can encounter when trying to keep a Beele running is covered in Muir, and the procedures are exhuastive and almost fool-proof when followed faithfully. When VW Trends announced the publication of the "VW Beetle Restoration Handbook," I was hoping against hope for a restoration procedure manual that would be comparably compreshensive. That has not happened, but the editors of VW Trends Magazine have still produced a very useful book. The chapter on engine removal alone is worth the price of admission (this is a very affordable book). Since the book consists of reprints of articles from VW Trends, there are about seven or so column inches of photos for every one of text, so we see in great detail what needs to be done. Also likely to be useful to the average VW enthusiast with a less-than-perfect car are the chapters on shock-absorber replacement and ignition-lock repair. The centerpiece of the book, though, are the FOUR chapters on engine rebuilding, which show you in gloriously picturesque detail how to tear down a "vintage" engine and make it look and run like it just left Wolfsburg. Conspicuously absent are chapters on heater channel and floor-pan replacement. Certainly these topics must have been covered in VW Trends at some time. If they haven't, they should be, because these are the two most daunting tasks any would-be VW restorer faces. Unrestored cars with intact floors and heater channels are almost impossible to find these days, and in a few years will have gone the way of Ship-to-Shore Morse code, black-and-white teevee, and the Houston Oilers. There is, at least, a chapter on floor-pan refurbishment that looks useful, but only if your pans are good enough to be saved. VW Trends could have done Beetle drivers and insurance companies a big favor by including information to help evaluate whether or not the old pans have become unsafe. The above, though, are minor gripes. If you are about to restore your first Beetle (or even your second or third), you will find this book extremely useful, although not invaluable. And if you have restored ten or twenty VWs, please get off-line, go out and buy a real basket case with no floors and only a few rust flakes where the heater channels were, and make it look new, carefully documenting your every move with pictures and text. Now. I guarantee I'll buy a copy.

about a third of the book is devoted to modification and not restoration.
there is no continuity of the restoration process, just various articles on various projects on various years of how to do various repairs...
anyone interested in puting power windows in your vw using a certain kit from a certain place?

Restoration handbook?? Not even close!! Reading the title, I thought that the book would show you a step by step process to restore your beetle. From tear down to re-assembly. Power windows and locks?? Who in the hell wants power options on a vintage beetle! I have a 57 oval... and the book was useless and a waste of money. I was very surprised that VW Trends (with their knowlegde and experience)would allow such a title to be published under their name. Shame on you VW Trends!!!

THE BEST OF THIS BOOK YOU HAVE ALL READY SEEN, IS THE NICE PICTURE IN THE COVER AND THE AMBISIOS TITLE OF THE BOOK. THE CONTENTS IS NOT TO MUCH IN ACCORDANCE WHITH THE TITLE. IT HAS A COLLECTION OF PROYECTS (NOT ALL OF THEM ARE BAD)TO MAKE SOME MODIFICATIONS TO YOUR CAR, BUT NOT REALLY TO RESTORE. WHEN I ASKED FOR THIS BOOK I DIDN'T READ THE CUSTOMERS REVIEW SECTION, THE NEXT TIME I ASK FOR A BOOK I WILL FIRST READ THIS SECTION.

I bought this on clearence for just a few dollars and am very glad I didn't pay more for it.

As the other reviews state, this book is simply a compilation of VW Trends articles put together by the editors to try and make a buck. There is no continuity and the articles are not detailed. If someone is already a mechanic, it may be help a little by showing how it's specific to VW, but do NOT expect to be able to accomplish any of the tasks simply by reading the articles and looking at pictures.

Furthermore, each task is frequently for a specific model year, so the title "1949-1967" means there are articles pertaining to those years but not that each procedure discusses how to make perform the task for all years.

I am extremely disappointed with this book.

'How to Restore...to Original Factory Condition'...NOT!

Whoever came up with the title didn't bother to look at the book.

If you want to restore your VW Beetle buy the Haynes Restoration Manual VW Beetle and Transporter or something better if you find it. This book is a joke when it comes to restoration. It's a book of modifications and upgrades, not restoration.

It does have some projects that you may be interested in but make sure you look at the book first. It didn't have anything in it that was of any interest to me so I returned it.

Very disappointing book!

If your Beetle is in as good a condition as it was when it rolled off the line, then this book is for you. However, if you have a Beetle that you're actually trying to restore back to the condition it was when it was at the dealer, then this book isn't for you. It was a waste of money, and only provides you with information that would be needed to improve your already restored Beetle or maintain.