This car was originally purchased by my grandfather in 1972 in Germany. My grandparents decided to go to Europe and take advantage of VW's program to where you bought a car, toured Europe, then shipped it back state side. My grandfather came down to two Karmann Ghias while there, a Gemeni Blue
or a Blood Orange 
He decided to choose Blood Orange as it made the car more visible. To be honest, I was never very intrigued with this color as it seemed as a run of the mill orange... little did I know.
I thought about changing to color one day to a dark blue or maybe even black, Ive always had a thing for black cars for some reason. It was not until recent that a Porsche friend and some what buff by the name of Geoff brought to my attention (apparently he had told me this before, but I guess I had been drinking) that this was a very famous Porsche color... ORLY?
The funny part is that I have dug through www.thesamba.com in their archives of old brochures and NOTHING turns up Blood Orange. The US brochures turn up colors such as Phoenix Red, Tangerine (NOT BLOOD ORANGE!), Amber and the likes. This puzzles me as I cant understand why this color was offered by VW and perplexes me to a certain point. In the end and now that I think about it, Im glad my grandfather purchased the car in this color, it is unique. Digging through The Samba's numerous post it is cited as being a color only used in Germany and on special editions. So I thought maybe the Oettinger beetle edition right? Nope, not the right color. Im interested in getting the birth certificate for my car one day as they still have them in Germany at Wolfsburg but that will have to wait for another day. Long story short, its a Porsche color which was not offered in the states and is mistaken usually for Tangerine... which its not.
Ok enough about color. They had the car shipped back to the States and it was delivered to New Orleans, where my Grandparents once owned a Bed and Breakfast place in the French Quarter.
It originally came with an semi automatic transmission almost like cars today. It had two gears, high and low, and then an ultra low gear. I switched this to a full manual before driving the car as I didnt want any problems with the some what complex autostick. The parts from this old autostick are REALLY going to help the car reach its future goal through some of the interesting parts that came along with the car, any way. The car was then given as a wedding present to my parents. The car was used as the Map Mobile in Birmingham for some years and then retired when my dad went to Saudi Arabia for four years. The car was plagued by having driving issues such as having initial acceleration problems which was due to a rusty gas tank which I later fixed/replaced several times :( .
Here are some pictures of the car when I first got it running and before I started modding it.
Times were better then. These shots were taken at the lake. I was in shape, it was summer, the car was running pretty well... I was with friends, starting college, skinny, and I had a girlfriend. I now wish I had gone to visit her as it was an hour away. The car was stock mostly except for a stainless steel muffler from Denmark, had correct sized tires (stock size was 155/60/R15... Beetles had 165 etc. but this was corrected soon >:) ) which were anorexic at best. I miss those days a lot now. I am a nostalgaholic when it comes to past events in my life. I hate it, and I hate change that I can not control such as growing old and things changing. Any way, whilst in college I was introduced to a one Randall Rhodes. Let me say that again because it was very very very very important. I met Randall Rhodes at his now wife's birthday party. He is now one of my best friends and might I mention I was the best man at his wedding. Any way this story has a point, a big one. I met Randall and he seemed like a nice guy, very different and not your average Auburn college student. Little did I know that Randall had a very awesome hobby too which revolved around cars and a one beautiful STI. This is important because I talked with him as at the time I really wanted to Turbocharge my current truck, a 2003 Toyota Tacoma truck. We discussed it and then I realized that was a HORRIBLE idea. Bas base to make a performance car, and its a truck, trucks are abused and meant to tow things... well this one cant but what ever. So enter me and horrible photoshop skills and blamo
Yes yes, its horrible, but illustrates a basic point and what I wanted from the car. This is what set things in motion and yeah. The car has been through some rough times, and by rough time I mean an impatient me (one of my flaws I must admit) and a burned up engine to boot. I HATE METAL INTAKE GASKETS THROW THEM AWAY! Any ways, this car has been a huge love and hate relationship and I find that it challenges me every day. It is a weird thing that when ever I am at a road that I can fully imagine this car infront of me, next to me, or driving down the road and what it sounds like.
The car has been through some extensive modifications now and sports a lot of performance parts. I will get to that later, but I better save this before I find Firefox blowing up due to a pop up.
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