RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

I’ve owned air-cooled VWs for the last 25 years. My initial affection for them was the result of growing up next door to somebody who had a Beetle, and I have many fond memories of going out in that car with his son and daughter. Plus, as a kid growing up in the 1970s you couldn’t help loving Herbie, so it was inevitable that one day I would have my own.

I like the early Beetles best. I started with a 1968 Beetle, but have just sort of gone back in time from there. I did buy a 1957 Beetle from Sweden which I kept for a couple of years, but I couldn’t say no when somebody offered me three times the money I’d paid for it. I’ve had campers too. At one point I owned four split screen vans, but I have since sold three of those off. I’d brought them over from the USA and managed to double my money, but it was never a business proposition and always a passion.

I still have a 1963 camper that I found in France, and which in a way is how I came to get this Beetle a couple of years ago. The Beetle had been in the same ownership from new, with a gentleman who lived just outside Cardiff. It was the only