OUR CLASSICS
James returns 17 years after his first stint on CCW and he’s still working on air-cooled VWs. Well, only barely if this project is anything to go by…
OWNED SINCE March 2019 FIRST REPORT TOTAL MILEAGE Zero LATEST COSTS At least £3000 in resto costs so far
1958 VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE
A VW Beetle became my first ever car 31 years ago. That Marina Blue ’73 set the tone for the next three decades of motoring madness and a steady stream of air-cooled machinery has since passed through my hands, although none of it went the way of my current garage ornament.
My ’58 is certainly best described as an ornament because I’ve only driven it once. I took it for one quick spin around the block on the day it arrived to ensure that everything worked before embarking on a four-year campaign of immobilisation.
Loss of income due to Covid and long periods during which I lacked motivation help to explain why it’s taken root in the garage but I think a little background information is in order before we go any further.
I’ve bought and sold my way up the VW food chain since the age of 16; buying cars in need of TLC, spannering on them myself and then selling them for a profit allowed me to buy ever better examples until a Porsche 912 came into my life one day.
To cut a long story short I subsequently made the frankly ludicrous decision to sell the Porsche and take this 1958 Swedish market Beetle in part-exchange. Looking back now, I really shouldn’t have sold the 912 but I wanted a Beetle to use as the subject for a maintenance and upgrades book that I’d been asked to produce. All of the work done to the car would provide source material for the book, and so a deal was made, the work was done and the book was written. It’s all gone a bit quiet since then.
I’ve bought and fitted four different sets of wheels but it's currently back on its original steels. A period-correct 30hp 1200 engine is waiting patiently to be installed and I have everything I need to get the Bug back on the road. So why haven’t I? Simply put, real life got in the way. There was no rush to finish the Beetle when I first owned it because I also had a 1969 VW Deluxe Microbus. Then there were all the familiar excuses like buying a house, becoming a parent, starting a new job and it frankly being too cold to be out
