1969 VW Beetle – rolling chassis with engine & transmission, no title

Up for sale is a nearly complete rolling chassis from a 1969 VW Beetle, complete with engine and transmission. The VIN is 119355994. The chassis was obtained in a swap for Thing parts from a friend who also obtained it in some kind of swap some years earlier. Neither of us has done a darn thing with it, and neither of us has a title for it or knows who the original owner was. The VIN is not in any list of stolen or salvage vehicles, and according to the State of Texas, this VIN has never been registered in Texas, so the Bug was last registered in some other state. If it had a body on it, a Texas bonded title could be obtained, which after a delay period of several years would convert to a full title, assuming no owner stepped forward during the delay period with the original title. The original body is long gone.

The pictures tell the story. The rolling chassis is complete, minus seats, minus steering column, minus gas tank, minus axles and CV joints, and minus brake fluid reservoir. That is the pedal cluster lying on the drivers floor in front. It has 100% of the original suspension and it all looks to be in very nice condition. Someone spent some time working on the brake systems, as those are stainless steel over-braided flexible hydraulic lines at the four flex points. I did back off on the brake adjusters a wee bit and the chassis rolls easily. The axles and CVs were removed for towing purposes but I did not get them with the bellypan as part of the swap, no idea why not.

The installed engine was a 1300 cc VW factory rebuild. Engine code is (recycle symbol) followed by F011984X. This appears to be a circa 1965/66 1300 cc engine someone bolted to the transmission. The engine is complete, minus air cleaner, and it runs. I started it in early May of 2017. The transmission is the correct IRS style, missing its CV joints and axle shafts. For no obvious reason, the clutch disk if not both clutch disk and pressure plate are missing as while running the engine I could not spin the tranny by shifting it into gear before starting the engine. Note that with the pedal cluster out, there is no clutch cable, and no accelerator cable either. This 1300 cc block is upgradable to a full 1600 cc single or dual port engine configuration, the crankshaft and cylinder holes in the block are all good for the upgrade, no machining required. You would need the new pistons and cylinders and heads, and the engine tin for the larger parts, as well as the dual port intake manifold. You probably want to upgrade to the modern ‘dog-house’ style oil cooler and will need some additional sheet metal and parts for that. What you won’t get with that conversion is the dual oil pressure relief system that came with the real 1600 cc engine block, but you will get all the displacement and the improved performance.

The belly pan is in rather awesome condition for a 1969, and for that I thank the fact that this was a coupe and not a convertible, and it got very little water inside the car. Even the battery area in the passenger rear is mostly intact (see images). Right now the chassis has a set of 4x low mileage Kumho Solus 185/60R15 tires on OEM 4.5J15 rims. The problem is that the tires are 12 years old and therefore probably unsafe to be taken up to highway speeds. With a couple spares it might be possible to tow the rolling chassis to a new home, but over long distances I think I would want a full set of 4 spares handy, if not on the chassis for the road trip. No tow bar is included in this sale, provide your own, they are inexpensive and plentiful on The Samba.

What I understand is that this belly pan made the trip to New Mexico, to the Kubelwagen kit folks out there, with the intent of it becoming a Kubelwagen. When that turned out to be a wasted trip, for reasons I won’t go into here, the chassis got towed home again to Houston. The original owner no longer wanted it so my friend inherited it. It moved to my barn some years back and has been sitting there since. The engine spins fairly easily by hand, so I went ahead and cleaned up the carb, replaced the distributor with a centrifugal unit, and started it. The engine runs but the front main seal must be going bad as it leaks a lot of oil from the bell housing. I shut the engine down and put a note on it to rebuild it before starting it again. The crankshaft doesn’t seem to have a lot of end play so my best guess is that only the front main seal is leaking. The chassis comes with no battery.

This rolling chassis could be the start of an awesome kit car, a dune buggy, or a sand rail. The chassis is being sold as-is, no warranty, buyer will arrange pickup or transport from Houston. It is as complete as is shown in the images. There is no title. There is nothing loose, except the pedal cluster, and nothing else comes with the chassis other than what you see in the images, no spare parts.