Some 12-14 years ago I replied to a add advertising a beetle for sale in PTA.
After speaking to the dude, he was not too clued up of what he had so I left it, about 2 weeks later the dude phoned me again and asked me if I was still interested as he needed to get the car out of his driveway, and told me he would throw in a stack of engine & tranny parts, and even reduced the price on the car.
I had to go to a site visit for work a few days later and poped over to his place.
He gave me a huge amount of background on car and how he got his son into beetles and showed me photos of cars they had built etc. etc.
Once we got to a back room to look at the spares a box with what looked like a K&N filter caught my eye.
After looking at the pile of engine parts I quickly lost interest in the car, this is what was lying there.
A set of Gene Berg inlet manifolds, with the Weber 42 DCNF's & filters still atached, a 36 HP fan housing with the Gene berg linkage, a Scat pulley, a set of HD rocker shafts and 1 big valve cylinder head, an original set of Empi valve covers (not the Chinese ones you get today) as we got talking he explained to me this was all the "rubish" his son was left with after he blew up the engine, he told me the rest of the engine was lying outside.
After digging for some time we found it, it hade a huge hole on the 1 side, 1 rod blew up and took everything in it's way with it, still attached was a flywheel 2 good 92mm cylinders and all the case internals.
After doing a deal I got all the above parts for ........ wait for it .................
R450
He has asking like R1250 for a complete car (can't remember exacly) so in his eyes it was a good deal, there was a few other engine bits I took for a few Rand.
I didin't take the beetle, but he was happy with the parts deal, I was extremely lucky, and happy of course.
When I got home I stripped the block and guess what it had a Oetinger Kombi 76mm CW crank that was usable, BONUS.
All this was the basis for my first real T1 perfomance motor, a 2020cc.
It went like stink, 3 gearboxes later it also gave up the ghost at about 6000 RPM.
This was the best deal I have ever scored, I have scored a few items here & there but this was the best.