My wife has always loved Karmann Ghias so I figure that will make a good graduation present in May. I am curious if anyone here has any experience with them? I haven't started to look at them, in person yet nor have I looked for a forum about them, yet. They are not terribly plentiful and can get fairly expensive. I am looking for a project one as my funds are limited (see above graduation present for reason). I am going to start really researching them before I get too serious so I know what I am looking at in terms of common issues, upgrades, rusty spots, etc. Figured I would start here!

Based on extremely limited knowledge I believe the rust spots are lower on the pan; rockers, lower fender edges & compartment wells.

Years ago I almost bought one for Dawn for the same reason, if you pick one up I'd love to check it out.

Quick poll: Who had to look that one up?

< raises hand



Cool little ride for sure!

They are neat little cars. All handmade. The first one I've looked at had more rust and bondo than metal and he still wanted $2500 for it! I offered him $400 and walked away. Found a promising one, but it's 4 hours away and needs to be trailered since it hasn't been run in 4 years. Was running and driving when parked, supposedly though. Definitely has some rust and bondo but much, much less than most in my price range and looks more complete. Guess I will be going on an expensive road trip this weekend!

Karmann Ghia's are pretty cool. They are getting expensive and harder to find in descent condition. I worked on tons of Volkswagens over the years and a few of these as well. There are 2 types of Karmann Ghia's the original type 14 and the 2nd, the type 34. The type 14 is what most people refer to as the Karmann Ghia. The difference between the 2 is huge. The type 14 is based on the Beetle (type 1) chassis and the type 34 is based off the Squareback and Fastback (type 3) chassis.

Good luck finding a good one. I'd love to see what you end up getting. I still have a 1967 Fastback that has like 40,000 original miles on it. I got it from my Grandma when she passed away in 2000 and before that, she had it store in her garage in Montrose for about 20 years. Love the car but don't have time to work on it right now. I rebuilt the whole thing minus the paint about 10 years ago but had problems with oiling in the motor.

Awesome! I had a GF in high school who had a convertible one. Was a ton of fun for the 2-3 weeks we were dating. Man - I hadn't thought about her or her car in years.

My wife wants me to restore a classic convertible bug for her... That will have to wait a while though - I have more than enough to keep me busy for the time being.

I bought one! It is ugly but in pretty good shape, surprisingly! $900 helps too! I'll post pics next week. It is quite compete with very little hard to replace rust and less bondo. Very happy with it!!

Sweet! Looking forward to pics. Ghias are awesome.

Here is a quick shot from the craigslist ad. Rusty in the rockers, a little in the quarters and a tiny bit in the front fenders. Floor boards are good. The bits of rust all have cheap and readily available replacement panels. It even has a ton of maintenance records dating back to 1983! 3Gf3Ia3Na5N85L45O2d3l8fc2e8d29e6c1505.jpeg

That's cool

I'm thinking that an exo cage with 33's would be perfect. ARBs in the diffs since it's for the wife, it'll have better street manners.

Believe it or not I think I am going to try to talk her into lowering it a couple of inches! I know she is going to want some power though...guess I will be looking into engine options. I will get better pics when I am back in town next week.

What motor is in it? I'm guessing 1.6L? If so, the 2.0 would be a decent upgrade. I was around Porsche 914s a little, and the 2.0 4 cyl VW motor performed well. There was a 2.0 Porsche 6cyl that had more hp, but the 4 cyl had more torque, and was considered a better round town performer.

Hey I believe it. Those things look great lowered an inch or two. Stiffening up the springs a little and a decent set of shocks would make for a really fun car. Heck, I'm contemplating dropping my VW an inch or two. With your skills a hot motor should be an easy build, given that those things have something like 6 moving parts in the entire car.

1.9l TDI? Probably a lot of work, but you could get performance and economy!

Diesel would be cool, just don't put a stack on it, lol

2.0 tdi. The WRX got totaled a couple of weeks ago. Kirk, I promise no stacks.

I've always loved 'Ghias. Agreed that they look best lowered.

If the 2.0tdi, make sure you have the gear driven oil pump...

Well, I toyed with it tonight. I pulled the tank, cleaned it, replaced the fuel line from it, rebuilt the carb, checked the plugs, checked the ignition system, replaced all fuel lines and installed a charged battery. It started right up! Runs pretty well, actually! Now I can really start getting things going on it. I'm going to replace the plugs, wires, cap and rotor and change the oil and call the engine good. All of my lights work, the alternator charges at 14.4v, the transmission shifts and engages all the gears while the engine is running(didn't move it far), the front suspension and steering is really tight and looks like all new ball joints and tie rods, the front brakes are recent and in good shape, new front shocks, new rear shocks and I found a car bra in it for the front end! Overall I cannot believe the condition this thing is in! I am going to clean the interior up really well and look into getting some decent seats for it. It should be running and driving safely by the end of this week pretty easily. Then its all cosmetic stuff. So far I have less than $1200 into it total. My wife is going to be blown away

I hope you get the reveal on video! I am excited for her!

Well I haven't touched this thread in over a year! Sad really. We are still messing with the car a little at a time. It's been a much busier year than expected. I stripped the car down quite a bit not long after giving it to my wife but really wanted her involved in it more so I waited until she could be involved. Well her residency has been busier than school was so she hasn't had any time for it until quite recently since her residency is about done finally. Honestly I've been busy with work, travel and my bronco anyway. Now we are really going to start on this thing properly! We have almost all of the rust repair panels on hand to fix the rust and we just bought another karmann ghia for some parts, primarily the brand new left front fender that came with it. Really just wanted the fender but he wouldn't sell it separate so we just bought the whole thing. The complete fender alone is worth far more than we bought the whole thing for so it is worth it to us. Her fender was hit at some time. I thought it was the front edge but it crumpled the fender most of the way back to the door. The new fender will be really nice! This is going to be far more body work and rust repair than I've ever done but we're really excited for it. I'll keep this thread updated as we progress.

This is where it sits right now. It is getting a new left front fender, New left side rocker, New left rear wheel arch, New left rear metal from door to wheel arch 10" up, New left rear metal from wheel arch to back of car, New right rear wheel arch, New right rear metal from door to wheel arch and new metal from wheel arch to rear of car. It will be getting a bunch of custom touches and full custom interior with a kicking sound system along with a new decently built engine. This is going to be a full on restore. Should be very nice when we're done! Only thing we are likely to let someone else do is paint to make sure it lasts.

Looking good... Helped a buddy resto one about 15 years ago...always liked the look of those

x2, sweet rides. I'll be stoked to see your progress.

Well we've done a bit more work on it. We cut the left rocker out and found, as expected, more rust. The heater channel was just about gone so we ordered a new one. I spent a little time today and got the old rusty one out. It is a fairly structural piece so I braced the door opening before the work began. Overall it wasn't too bad to get out. A few little pieces of rust repair and I'm ready to install the new piece. Hoping to get to that tomorrow.

Nice! Stoked to see the end result.

Well, it appears as though this build is going almost as slowly as Justin's ! I haven't done much to it in a while. I have cut the left front fender off and installed the new heater channel and rocker on the driver side. I have also sanded a bit more and cut more rust out. My wife's birthday is this Saturday and she mentioned wanting an engine for it so I spoke with a local air cooled shop and looked for turnkey engines but ended up ordering a complete stroker engine kit. Includes a brand new, pre-clearanced and full flowed engine block, forged H-beam rods, forged pistons, ported and polished, large valve heads, big cam, forged rockers, etc. It will end up fuel injected and close to 200 reliable hp. Goes from 1600cc to 2275cc. 9.5:1 compression. I received everything but the engine block yesterday. Going to be a fun car once it is done.

Nice! That'll be a ton of fun in that light chassis. And I'm not slow, I'm thoughtful. Yeah, that's it, thoughtful...