At last! Someone asked the question! Now I have to answer it.
The car will be modified using a ute conversion kit from Smyth Kit Cars . The kit will result in the beetle having this kind of look:
There will be a few personal touches, but the most significant by far will be the wood panels.
Now - to answer your question duckmilk. There will be wood panels over the fender on the sides of the bed. These will be 2 separate panels since the panels get a bit too narrow at the top of the fender. The templates for these two panels are shown at the end of Part #3. Eventually the tailgate will have a wood panel on it as well.
The kit will be installed by Michael at Irregular Transformations. He joined here to follow this blog, but he may do a few comments or posts here eventually.