thevwspot

I saw this nice old Porsche Carrera on Atlantic Avenue In Brooklyn. I thought I’d share a few pictures of this pretty baby! Take a look.

The question is when to purchase new old stock and when not for your Volkswagen. At what point in your project does one make the decision that everything should or not be NOS. In the journey of my Volkswagen restoration project, I started out in the beginning stating that everything must be authentic for it to land on my ride. If it wasn’t originally on my Beetle and couldn’t be restore, then the replacement part had to be N-O-S. This was a really easy mission to derive in the planning room, but miraculously, my idea changed like Donald Trump into a homeless person. The deciding factor was money $$$ and time.

Lets face it, neither money or time is without boundaries. At my job, I work daily and at the end of a two week period, my job pays me for the work completed in a very limited payout. As I tackled my restoration project, these two factors caused me to drop my very aggressive idea to keep my Volkswagen completely Volkswagen and not Brazilian (no disrespect to Brazil, they have the girls). In the process of my own discovery, I spend a lot of time and money, most of which has been redeem by reselling to recover dough from my ambitious and premature project decision. The time was lost forever and could never be regained, unfortunately. I had a 36 hp NOS engine case, NOS pistons, rods, door and even original floor mats, all to be sold later because I realized I went a bit to far on the NOS mission. I was even replacing things that didn’t need to be replaced by buying things only because I thought it would be hard to find in the future if I didn’t buy when I saw it.

My advice for the NOS conscious people out there. You don’t have to follow it, but here is my two cents anyways. Buy NOS only if it will increase the longevity your finished project. A lot Volkswagens supply companies out there have quality replacements that they’ve designed out of frustration of the poor quality, all year stretching parts that are available. For example, Wolfsburg West sales great reproduction bumpers and chrome headlight rings. BFY Obsolete Parts sales great German carpets kits. The list goes on and all you have to do research it. Search for companies specializing on making near perfect reproductions parts. When it comes to fenders and door, use undamaged items can easily be restored and obtained for a fraction of the cost of NOS and better than reproductions. On body parts, never skip out on original. But, if you want to cut your budget, restore what you have, look for used and as the last resort, go NOS.

Would I buy a pair of NOS bumpers or Wolfsburg West bumpers? Well it depends on the price. If I can get the NOS bumpers at a decent price, I would surely buy them, but if they are going to cost me thousands…, Wolfsburg here I come!

The moral of the story, don’t be cheap, be smart!