Having a piece of luggage strapped to your roof rack or in this case your deck lid rack on your Aircooled VW is nothing new. It’s a classic look that has been around for decades and there are countless ways to do it. We thought it would be cool to show you how we did it.

We knew we wanted a strapped look, but lets face it, getting custom straps and buckles made to fit can be pretty pricey. We decided we would do this on a budget of about $30.

The first thing we did was hit up a local antique sale for a piece of luggage. We knew the dimensions were roughly 28″ x 14″ x 7″. That’s a nice size that won’t cover your back window and still fit the deck lid nicely. We found a piece for $10! The guy did try to get us to buy the full set of luggage he had, but since it was like 106 degrees out, he was easy to negotiate with.

We wanted a clean look so we thought we’d take advantage of the deck lid bars.

A few Ubolts from Ace (about $5) looked like they would do the trick.

We cleaned up the luggage with some ArmorAll. The luggage we picked was that hard particle based type, not the leather type. We knew this would be a piece we wouldn’t use for anything else so we didn’t mind destroying it a little. We also sprayed a heavy coat of polyurethane on it for some uv protection and added durability.

Next we went to Ross (second hand store) and found 2 matching belts about 42″ long for $5. We went with a plain Jane kind of look, but this is an area you can get creative with. There are many many different belt styles to choose from.

Knowing where to drill holes in the luggage to run the Ubolts through required some McGyverism. We took some craft paint we had laying around and put a dab on the bolt ends.

Then we positioned the luggage on the rack, put the Ubolts around the bars and marked the bottom of the luggage.

See? Easy Peasy

Next we drilled holes, pushed the Ubolts through and bolted them down on the inside.

Putting the belts on was easy. We just wrapped them around, made it nice and tight and buckled them down. The straps do go around the bars on the bottom of the deck lid, but they are largely cosmetic as its the Ubolts that secure the luggage to the rack.

So that’s it. Once again, there are a thousand ways to do this and since we didn’t have an real care about putting holes in the luggage, this was a good solution for us. Yes the case is functional. Loosen the straps, open it and put in your bloomers or you Lincoln logs. It’s all good.

If you are interested in picking up a deck lid, check us out on Chirco.com. We have literally thousands of Aircooled VWparts and accessories.

Thanks for watchin.

-TC