The car I'd love to have,,, If I had the $$$ :(

[MIPS]

There was a period perhaps 10 or 15 years ago where owning a Beetle was a neat idea but even then the value of even the rough shape classic bugs was already in the thousands. The problem I learned later was that they were built to be a cheap and not necessarily an economy car for touring states/provinces the size of multiple european countries (but they were small, moderately cheap and lightweight so a small engine made them pretty good for MPG even before the oil crisis) and if you are going to run a stock Beetle you are NEVER going to stop wrenching on that engine. The body brings out a lot of nostalgia but some of the design aspects are no better than a Yugo.
I'm not sure how it varies out east but on the west coast a beetle carcass can start at $4000 and go from there. How a a fair to poor condition Westfalia can list for and sell above $10000 blows my mind. F*****g hipsters. Be it for performance bugs like you want or to rebuild and flip for five figure prices, they are not cheap cars anymore.