I owned a '68 Karman Ghia that I purchased from a friend. This was the first
car I purchased on my own that was not a family hand me down. Car was bright
resale red with a black vinyl top. Really looked sharp but handled quite
differently from the '63 Bug I was used to driving. I attributed that to being
a different body style from the '63 Bug. Several months later I ran into the
Body Shop guy who had painted it resale red. And I quote, "...Oh I see you
bought my old Karman Ghia. I repainted that car and added the vinyl roof...I
had to add the vinyl roof because after I rolled the car I never could get the
roof to look quite straight...." I kept the car several years but mechanically
car was always a problem. Slight rough idle revealed no compression in #3 due
to a hole burnt clear through the exhaust valve. Rebuild # 1. 10K miles later,
early morning, leave the apartment where I was living, enter the expressway
ramp, approaching 60 mph, hand grenade exploded in the engine and a rod
went through the side of the block. OF course this happened one week before
the delivery of my new '74 Mustang II. Rebuild #2. Now we don't even want to
start talking about build quality of a Mustang II.
Karman Ghia, yeah fond memories of a really fun car and the first real car that
had my name on the title. I remember steaming up the windows at the drive in
but no matter how willing the participants were, there was no room to fool
around in that car.
Jim Gruber
Bugsy '68 Sprite (future Bugeye in disguise)
Cincinnati, OH
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