Meet Schnitzel

This is Schnitzel, he was born in Wolfsburg, Germany on September 9, 1957 and delivered to an employee on September 10.

His original colors are: L41 Black paint, blue/grey vinyl door panels, blue/grey/black woven cloth seats with blue vinyl sides and seat backs and off white piping, light grey cloth headliner, light grey assist straps, dark grey carpet in the front and lighter grey carpet behind the rear seat. The shifter boot, hand brake boot, floor and tunnel mats were originally grey colored rubber. The steering wheel, steering column, seat frames, shifter, and hand brake were all L471 stone beige. The correct original color for the wheels is L87 Pearl White on the inside rim and L41 Black for the outside of the rim.

Schnitzel is a European model Beetle so he has bumpers without the upper bars and with shorter guards. He also has semaphores, both the bumpers and semaphores only appeared until 1954 in the U.S. specification models. The headlights are European, and the cloth seats are also. The American models had 2-tone vinyl seats. The speedometer for this car goes up to 120km and the accessory VDO fuel gauge is in German.

The original gas tank was in great shape and in the original gray blue paint. I pulled it out and it is in storage. I will be using a spare one that I drilled for the sender for the VDO gauge. The spare tank didn't come with a gas cap, and my original one was dented quite badly. So I began hunting at swap meets and online for a replacement one. I found a perfect original accessory "cog" style cap at the VW Show in Norwalk, Connecticut.

The trunk had a gas heater installed in it at one time, but it and the original semaphores were stolen out of the car before I purchased it. Unfortunately, when the thieves made off with the heater they didn't take the holes in the trunk with it. I had several round 1 inch to 2 inch holes welded up and a four inch square hole as well, and some miscellaneous small holes from the heater mounting. It looks like new once again The bumper bracket mounts in the rear were repaired as well as the rear shock mounts. At some time in his life he was rear ended and has a very slight wrinkle in the frame on the left side to be straightened. Also the rear apron had a crack in the lower right side that was welded.

Schnitzel has his original transmission but not his original engine. I found a low mileage October 1957 engine to rebuild as a replacement, it is a few months late for my car's production date, but close enough for me. I degreassed the entire engine, which was amazingly filthy, removed the mouse nests from it, took it apart down to the shortblock. I had the heads redone at a machine shop locally and the engine rebuild was done by me!
I straightened all the bent tin, and repainted everything in satin black paint. I reused the heater boxes from the motor the car came with. I coated and cured them with the POR-15 intake manifold paint in grey along with my intake manifold and muffler. I installed this engine in September 2003 after the old one failed emissions. It passed with no problems, runs very smooth and started right up the first try... after I remembered the fuel tank was empty and added gas, that is. It was then pulled back out in after receiving my 2 year inspection sticker and will be reinstalled when the restoration is completed.