Hi Guys , this Karmann Ghia may be a very rare 1973 Sport Edition . I had never heard of it until today when a comment was left letting me know. From what I have found only about 200 were made . If you have any info on this please leave a comment here. Thank you all for the great comments and likes 👍.
Being as rare as it is it’s a shame that they just left it to rot for 30 years if that is the case it being a rare model Carmen Ghia obviously when they parked it there they did not realize this probably. that it would ever be aValuable car. Just goes to show you peoples neglect for things
I still to validate this car is not just a yellow Ghia with a steering wheel / rim swap👍....I'm going to remove what pieces are left and look for the org stripe
This is indeed a 1973 KG Sports Edition. I own a convertible of the same car. It was only sold in the US in 1973 in Saturn Yellow. Nobody knows how many were sold or how many remain. I have been told that there are not many around. The things that are different than a normal ghia are the GT steering Wheel, Rally Seats, Sport Wheels and different shifter. This car has all that stuff. The original Sports Edition would also have black decals on the rocker and atop the fender wings. GREAT FIND!!
There are literally thousands and thousands of similarly desirable cars left to rust and rot all over the country... people can be jerks & idiots, but, if they own the car...
looks like you will never have enough VWs and that's good because you will never run out of content. Really love to watch you find these free in the land of the free. Thanks for sharing
Crazy! I abandoned my first 72 Karmann Ghia back in 1982….how stupid. In 1995 I purchased a yellow convertible 1971 Karmann Ghia sold it and purchased a 1974 Karmann Ghia and I have been driving it ever since. Nice find Jason…well wishes on restoring.
Do you know whats better than finding a karmann ghia in the woods? Finding a Free karmann ghia in the woods. What a fantastic find man, anf it has an engine in it. Have an amazing day my friend
You're providing a real community service here. Thousands of people like me can sit back and be entertained watching you drag this out of the woods. It's enough participation so that now most of us can resist the urge to try to do it ourselves. Thank you!
Love to watch y'all pull these old vehicles out of the woods !!!!! I spent 35 years fixing these wrecks but never got to do what you do! To busy chasing the almighty dollar! Be generally and keep the videos coming, thanks
Hey man Kevin here from Australia. What a find. Looks like your wife finally has that daily driver she's wanted. Your such a thoughtful hubby. ✌ Peace man.
The secret to Mustie1's sketchy recoveries is that he always has Brian with him to go the heavy lifting. Glad that you were able to find a Ghia to save but this one is even further gone than the pine cone beetle. I'm amazed how complete it is, though, not having been picked over for parts.
yes , having that Ox Brian is a huge bonus :) . I did find the outside mirror in the needles and broken decklid " Karmann Ghia " script . I'm looking forward to cleaning it out and looking in the trunk . Have a great weekend Shane
I hate living in the godforsaken South, but the one good thing about it is that we do not have the rust issues that you guys have to deal with. It is so sad to see one in such poor condition. We just don't have to deal with that down here.
yeah , that felt so wrong ! I had to for the highway ....I bought 4 Ghia's in Va and trailered the worst one home 1st . I had to pull over as the nose was coming apart and flying off on the highway ! Good thing I did , the rear bumper was hanging off the trailer at 5 o'clock !
Wow! That is going to need a lot of work...but I’m really looking forward to seeing how you progress with this one, just love to see these beauties saved...cheers
reminds me of last Monday, when I drove 120 miles 1 way, from Providence, to Shelton, CT to pick up a 1956 Allstate 175 Motorcycle in similar condition for free. Except when I was sweating my ass to load it up, back tire was locked, I asked myself "WTF am I doing here for this!!!?" But it looks so much like an Indian motorcycle I had to go get it. At that point I had to complete my task and it made it home with me. Rear wheel is still stuck and not sure yet where to begin, to get it to roll. I hammered the hub and axel a little. Mystery Oil down the cracks for a week.. May go out tomorrow with a breaker bar and try to take the axel nuts off.
Such is the life of a "true Volkswagen aficionado" - search & pursuit of that rare VW that is begging to be brought back to life ... When in its prime, that would have been one very nice looking VW Ghia ... A project for not the faint of heart, however, it takes a lot of heart to go the distance with a vehicle such as this Volkswagen Karmann Ghia ... The potential is there to "down the road" have an excellent example of a German VW of Italian design, a true survivor ! Slainte ' ! Cheers !
@@5150mxVW Likely this Sports Edition VW Karmann Ghia was the "sister" of Volkswagens 1973 limited edition Sport Bug. Was available in Saturn Yellow or a blue/silver color. Model was a Super Beetle that had black body side molding with red strip that wrapped around below rear window air vents. Had special Sport wheels. Interior had Recaro bucket seats, sport steering wheel, Sport Bug shifter,. Tops of front signal lamp, usually chrome, were black. Same for ring around the taillights. Still have the original 1973 Volkswagen Sport Bug brochure. Also have various VW model brochures from 1970 to 1976. Have a collection of VW advertising from various magazines too.
Man, you REALLY wanted that car. And from the looks of it you’ve still got a WHOLE LOT of work ahead of you. I’m sure it’ll be beautiful when you get it all fixed. Good luck.
Good tip , someone else recommended dish soap . In the end for the 2 hour highway ride I'll take no soap / WD and not worry about it sliding around :) .Thank you GN , I appreciate it
Wow I have a great appreciation for persistence and tenacity. Recommend bringing more of everything including friends with muscles. Enjoyed the video and keep posting.
Jason I love to see you rescue these VWs. Years from now people will be looking for ones rougher than this, and you’ll have them all! I’d like to see you actually fixing more of them at home. But I do love the rescues , will it runs, and of course any thing that features Josh - he’s amazing. The only things I like on RU-vid are your channel and Mustie. Keep it up!
Hi , yes Sir ! I agree , I have a 2nd welder now for the driveway projects here at the house . ( and I have used it lol ). The weather is good now and it is time to GET TO WORK👍. I do work on the cars off camera , sometimes you just want to enjoy working on your car . Also somethings just do not seem very interesting to film . Thank you for the feedback and kind words , I appreciate it . Oh and as for Mustie1 , it doesn't get any better , on or off the camera👍
I have been sitting here on the edge of my seat for 20 minutes, stuffing my face with Thanksgiving dinner, cringing every second of the way. That was one of the most nerve-wracking rescues I've ever seen. The jack placement and the car sliding off of it repeatedly, how close it was to the edges of the ramps, and the front bumper ripping off all made my heart race a little. Might I suggest adding a cheater pipe and a Milwaukee M18 1/2" impact to your rescue toolkit, I could see the Dewalt wasn't cutting the mustard!
Hi To To , I will get it cleaned up this week , maybe we can find out more about it . There is a comment about this being a very rare 73' Sport Edition Ghia .
That's fantastic. So cool that people are still running across these scenarios where somebody just gives a classic car to get it out of their environment. If only it were early model. That thing is prime for radical customization! :D
Def a 1973 Sports Ghia from the Lemmerz rims, GT Steering Wheel and of course the Yellow... def a rare old Ghia, hope ya got it a little better she was rusted out for sure.... shame but Amazed at the effort and time you put into recovering her and appreciate ya for sure!!!! Check out SE Beetles web page on FaceBook the moderator knows all about these cars ands it a Great story VWOA was so pleased buy the sales of the 1973 Sports Beetle they made a limited Ghia Version but VWCorp did not approve it and cancelled the production... Rare Car!
Holy moly dude! I applaud your tenacity and ingenuity but a single axle trailer?!? Yikes! My son and I have rescued lots of split buses and Beetles. Bring everything, all the time. Drum puller, cave man tool (for 46mm axle nuts), a torque multiplier for 36mm axle nuts, and 5 “rollers” and a breaker bar. Makes a miserable “rusty rescue” bearable.
Thank you and yes a lot of people freak over my trailer ...it's to West Palm Beach FL and through to PA mountains to VA for 3 Ghia's ....man , 30 cars at least :). I have pulled drums before but with the winch now I just drag them on ...getting them off is more interesting this way lol. Thank you for the comment and advice Gary , I appreciate it
Your optimism, determination, will power, strength and hallucinations ( It didn't look THAT good with that rim on it) are inspiring! Maybe you should not do these things alone. Thanks for making the video!
@@chopperhehehe it's possible. Just not worth it. At that point you'd be re constructing a whole new body lol. If the bodies that bad... then I wonder what the pans look like 😬😬
pans ? rockers ? I dug in the pine needles and couldn't find them lol . However, this may be a very rare 73 Sport Ghia . A commenter brought this to my attention .
@@5150mxVW I hope you practiced that line ( "a very rare 73 Sport Ghia") all the way home so you would have a story to tell the wife when she got her first look at it. I still think you're bat-sh*t crazy but I love every time you get one of these gems in the rough and start to work on them. Keep at it!
After pulling that out you should relax😉. I would say its possible to restore. But it needs time and feeling. As always with such models the lower part got the most rust. Its always like this. My Beetle from 79 looked also very bad. Take many pics of how the parts had been fixed. The more the better. Then prepare yourself on a restore-story of minimum 4 to 5 or 10 years. And then close your eyes and go through it without giving up. Step by step you will succeed. You need a heart for that and it will work. You got to strip the car completly. All parts that may be used again but also the broken parts put into seperate boxes that you label and write on them what it contains. You have to work organized. You will see that after the damaged and rusty parts are removed or cut out on the lines where they should be removed on the welding points (carbody handbook from VW Service) it will look already much better. And then find original car body parts or create them by yourself if not so difficult forms. But before all that you should weld inn some strong metal sticks between left and right and between the space where the door belongs. So you avoid that when you remove old parts, the car distances and spaces between doors and sidepanel will change. Its a protecting frame which you can cut and weld out of massive steel sticks. Further you should look for old prospects from the 70ies that shows this model with interior, textile sorts combined with bodycolour and carpet. You know, thats really work, but interesting and a work to rescue another thing that contains history. Mostly the people start to restore a car because they think its done within 2 weeks, because they have no clue. And then they will realize that its a lot a lot a lot of work. But mostly these kind of cars are then already disappeared and disasembled in any carton boxes and in the end the garbage truck will pick it up. Wrong way and no clue. And another cultural technical object will be destroyed forever. So: make it with brain and without "giving up"-factor. Most worktime on that Ghia you do by yourself. So less costs for that. But you will need a lot of new material and parts. That is also cost-intensive. Take your time. And please have a good welding equipment. The quality of welding is a must. Then bring it all back in good condition. Dont use old parts that you cant repair. If its broken its broken. Shitty old parts will make a bad look. Beginning with old window gaskets.....simply throw it into the garbage. Restore the engine, look what you need new and which parts are still ok. After some years when youre finished and it looks like just out of the production hall, in original colour and interior you will compare the new pics with the old ones from the finding in the forest. You will say: YESSS!! It was all worth it!!😉 PS: i forgot to write it..... the body will be seperated from the chassis of course. The only way to reach everything for welding and replacing.
You have a sport edition Karman Ghia, first it has the rally sport rims, with the black VW center, those models have a wooden shifter, I believe you could get it with A/C, these models were were so unique, cause the Porsche had the 914 , which is basically a Karman Ghia, which they were known as the poor man's Porsche, when the 1975 to 1979 Volkswagen beetle came out it had the same trims, and it was called " Le grandes Bug", the 1973 model beetle had what is known as cookie cutter rims, stripes, in the dash it had a clock/ amp meter, the reason there were 200 made, was because they were gazing out the Karman Ghia,it could also be the Wolfsburg Karmann edition.
a 914 is a nothing like a Karmann Ghia ..." cookie cutter " rims came on Porsches only , never on a Beetle ....the La Grande Bug came with the steel sport rims you see on this Ghia with a different offset .
Seriously, you will be able to get some parts and glass, interior pieces, so call it a win, save whats decent junk the rest. Will the engine run ? More than likely, will it ever drive? Probably not, experience. Priceless
WI hope you have VERY deep pockets!😊💲. I own two KGs ...a 1961 cabriolet and a 1968 coupe. The ‘68 I brought back from scratch and spent about $25,000.00. It’s a beaut. The coupe is also a very beautiful car . It was in excellent condition when I bought her from the original owner in 1990... I am now 84 years old and I still love my KGs...great video. Good luck with this project... yer gonna need it!
Eu tô impressionado com essa carroceria em metal!!!! No Brasil todos os Karmann Ghia que eu vi foram em fibra de vidro. Também fiquei impressionado com as lanternas traseiras e de Seta estarem preservadas . Com o sol brasileiro já teria ressecado tudo até despedaçar. Parabéns pelo seu vídeo .
Olá, sim, a sombra dos pinheiros provavelmente ajudou a evitar o sol. No entanto, a sombra e as agulhas de pinheiro mantinham a umidade e o Ghia estava enferrujado em todos os lugares. Linha de teto, chassi, corpo, piso, canais, em todos os lugares. Obrigado, tome cuidado.
To answer your question of how long it's been "left there"..I would have to guess..longggg!?! I'm just kidding man, great rescue..it's sad it's been left for dead in the back.. of that house, if it were mine and I wasn't going to do anything w/it, I would rather give it to anyone who will use it for whatever, least before it's useless!?! Keep doing what your obviously great at..your a savior to.. these cars!!!.
