It’s a strange old world, and it seems that despite the sheer numbers of cars they produced, the VW world is actually quite a small place. This evening, for example, I received a private message on the Early Bay forum from a chap who had seen a picture of the bug on a post on the forum in which I’d been ranting about the awful job they’d made of rebuilding a ’74 bug on Classic Car Rescue the previous evening (seriously, it was dreadful!). Nothing too strange about that you might think, people reply to forum posts the whole time after all. Well this guy seems to think that he might be one of Betty’s previous owners, and that’s why it’s so odd!
In trying to solve the mystery, I decided to take a look back through the box of bits and pieces that came from the chap I bought her from. And whilst there was no paperwork there to tell me who the previous owners might be, there was a cd in there with a few photos of some of the restoration work that had been done to the bug prior to her coming into my custodianship. She’d clearly suffered some pretty significant rot judging by the panels that had been replaced!
Oh, and she’s currently over at Beetle People having her front suspension fixed, and the lovely new recon motor installed – but more of that next time!
Update – it turns out Ian from Solihull is indeed a former owner of the bug – and what a very pleasant chap he seems to be!
