Yeah... it's a real surprise that the simple little "people's car" has been competing, surviving and winning the likes of the Baja 500 and other off road races in stock form for probably 4 decades.
I'm curious why you just didn't perform the fix for the number 3 cylinder problems. I'll also say that lots of vehicles in that early time frame rarely made it more then 50K without major repairs. And if in 80 engine rebuilds the only tool you needed to buy was a valve guide driver... I'd say it was a fairly good design. If they were taken care of and maintained... they're actually pretty robust.
I will say that they made for poor daily driver in cold climate areas. But they had there place and the front end... transaxle/rear torsion and engine in modified form sure built a bunch of cool off road cars... kit cars... dune buggies rolling through my shop. I've built everything from bone stock 40 horse to Formula V race car engines to 2300 cc drag car stuff. I even electronic fuel injected turbo charged one. I still have a full VW machine shop in storage back in Michigan.
Funny too... the old slug bug still ranks in the top 5 best selling vehicles in the entire world.
P.T. Barnum explained why they're the 5th best seller, there's a sucker born every minute. In the 60's and early 70's the only fix for the valve problem was to wait for the next failure and fix it again. By the time I was working at the garage I'd already bought the rest of the tools I needed because I built so many engines for myself and my friends' cars in high school. I didn't even mention that VW's ate camshafts or what was necessary to replace them. Chevy and AMC sixes ate cams, too. Pull the valve cover, side cover, timing cover, rockers and pushrods and the cam slid right out once the radiator was removed. A VW had to be completely stripped and the case had to be split to get at the cam. The trans axles were a well engineered, durable piece, the rest of the car, not so much. I wouldn't say "pretty robust", I'd say pretty often busted.
They were designed in the 30's because Hitler wanted a car that would go 50 mph, carry 4 people, and be affordable to the average German. Exactly zero were delivered to civilians, production was switched to build Kubelwagens for the military. In fairness, a late 30's Ford or Chevy had problems, too. But Ford and Chevy didn't sell their outdated designs into the late 70's.
I will defend your right to like them but will not allow anyone to claim they were good, dependable cars. Most guys my age, when they say they wish they had there old beetle are actually saying they want to feel 16 again with the freedom of a new drivers license, they don't want the car back and would quickly want to be rid of it if it was their daily driver. Heck, I met a guy at Carlisle who was driving around in a Trabant and claimed to like it. He seemd to be sober, too.
Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and 
