[ramonesfreak]

It always calmed my nerves knowing I had a specialist shop in town that could do serious work if my car required it. My guy (the only guy) is now in his 70s. Seems totally uninterested in the old cars, and, with so few air cooled cars around here……his skills appear be getting rustier every year based on work he recently did for me.

At some point, like most places other than Southern California, there will be nobody left to work on these cars. I’ll continue to do what I can but have concluded that to own one of these cars (in most locations) you have to be a serious DIYer, with good heath, interest, time, knowledge, money, and tools or you have no issue ($$$) shipping your car to someone that can fix it, or you are totally ignorant.

So I agree with cmpski

There are not enough of these cars left here to support a service industry, and if I was in the market to buy one, I would be asking myself who in town can work on it? In my own part of the world, I’m not sure if the mechanics disappeared first or if the cars did. Doesn’t really matter. Around here there are almost none of either. Sorta feels like I’m sitting on a ticking time bomb. If only I loved my car less than I do, it would be replaced by a 917.

Thankfully I paid $12k for mine back in 06. To pay $50k or whatever prices they go for now? I would have to be very wealthy or basically an air-cooled Porsche mechanic knowing what I know now, or the cars would have to be $12k again