Making our Beetle more comfortable with an all-in-one insulation kit

Photography by Chris Tropea

Could your classic’s interior be a little quieter and more comfortable? Fortunately, there’s a fix for that.

When restoring a car, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of installing the interior to then realize, on that first drive, that you forgot to consider insulation.

While putting a new interior in our 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle, we wanted to get it done right the first time. Before gluing in that new carpet kit, we’d first install some heat and noise protection. The goal is to control the vibration of the metal and prevent some of the road and engine noise from making its way into the cabin.

Design Engineering Inc. offers a complete custom kit designed to fit 1950-’72 Volkswagen Beetle and Super Beetles. It retails for less than $200.

The kit includes CNC-cut D-Mat insulation plus some Boom Mat dampening material that will help reduce vibration in the sheet metal panels. Also included are a can of spray adhesive and a roller to help adhere the product.

With the help of the included instructions, it only took about 2 hours to completely install the kit in our Super Beetle. Even though this kit is designed to cover a wide range of years, only minimal modifications were needed for a perfect fit. In the end, it looks great and now we can move onto installing our carpet kit and getting our Beetle one step closer to hitting the road.