The article is geared toward off road and stock suspensions. I have a lot of customers that have baja bugs or fiberglass style buggies. I also get asked what is the best year of car to get for an off road set up. Well, that’s a loaded question. It is easier for me to tell you what years not to get...
Super beetles are a no go because the front struts don’t hold up well to off road. They are way too easy to break. So what about the standard beetles? I don’t like ‘66 through ‘68. You’ll see why:
Rear suspension: The best stock rear suspension is IRS (independent rear suspension). You can get more travel out of an IRS safely than you can out of swing axle. The reason swing axle isn’t good is that it arks the wheel and can have a tendency to roll the car over. If you limit the travel so the rear wheel cant tuck under then that sucks because we want as much travel as possible for off road. So IRS is the way to go. IRS came in bugs 1969 and newer. So you think you’ll just grab a 69 or later bug? Well, read on...
Front suspension: The best stock front suspension for off road application is king and link. Why? Well a link pin has a hard time bottoming or topping out, so you get a lot more travel than a ball joint front end. Also, if you look at a link pin you will see that it is 17.8mm thick. Not bad. A ball joint necks down to 13.5mm under the boot - Not so good. Not mention it rides in a slot. If it tops out or bottoms out it is more than likely going to break at some point. The other bad thing about a ball joint front for off road use is the ball joints face each other. So they’re trying to separate in off road conditions. Now the “Thing” corrected that and has both ball joints facing down - Smart- But it’s still not as good a king and link (but better than a bug ball joint front end). Bug came with king and link front ends up to 1965. See the problem?
As you can see, if you buy a bug 1969+ then you have the best rear end suspension, but have the not so good front end. If you buy a bug up to 1965 then you have the best front end, but the rear end isn’t so good. If you bought a bug 1966 to 1968, well you have the worst of both.
How do I get the best of both? Good question. Well you have to weigh out how much work you’re willing to do. It is possible to get both but it takes some welding and knowledge of a tape measure. You can convert a swing axle car to IRS. Companies make weld on brackets that you can cut and weld to your pan and then bolt in the stock suspension out of an IRS car. Placement of these brackets is critical. You need to get them square to the car, so mock up of the arms is important. Also, keep in mind the more you rotate the bracket up on the torsion housing the more the bottom of your wheels will tuck in. The reverse it true as well. So mock up is so important here. The other way is to put the king & link into an IRS car. Unfortunately you can’t just bolt one in. You will need to cut the frame head off the pan and weld on an early pan head. Again this is all about mock up and a tape measure. I find it to be way easier to do the front end than it is to convert the rear end to IRS.
So my suggestion is to start with something ‘69 & newer and replace the front suspension with a king & link front suspension set up. I personally have helped guys with doing the swap both ways and the end result is much better for off road.