Fast forward 9 years and I was recently back under the car, poking it with a screwdriver and taking photos for Jim to fire over to the lads at the Herbie Hospital with a view to possibly having the car restored. At the time I started writing this we had no idea of the astonishing events in the pipeline!

So what sort of state was she in? Better than I remember, to be honest! Sure, there was a fair bit of rust but it wasn’t the big pile of red dust I was expecting it to be. The engine turned by hand, so I thought it could well be salvageable and I was confident that most of the interior could be reused after it had a decent clean to get rid of the mould. The Empi 8s looked in reasonable nick too. Despite the positives, I thought there was still plenty that needed putting right.

Only a couple of weeks down the line and I’m still convinced that we’re in some sort of parallel universe, because Lucille is back on the road and legal again already! She’d been shipped over to the Herbie Hospital, failed an MoT (Sesame Street was brought to you today by the word Corrosion), then been fixed and passed a retest within a matter of days. Clearly I have have learned nothing about such things over the last few years! I think Jim was expecting the work to take place over a few months throughout the course of the winter (we all were), so Ron doesn’t quite have his garage back just yet. Talking of the big man, he drove Lucille back from the Herbie Hospital and apparently she drove like a dream!

Whilst I’m still more than a little incredulous at the speed (and economics) of the whole thing, it makes me very happy to know that this particular bug is back on the road. There a few reasons behind that, but top of the list of is the fact that Lucille is the first Volkswagen I ever drove!

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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!

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