Gone to the Dogs

To most people in the UK, finding an un-messed with, restorable, pre-’65 Beetle these days would be a bit of a coup. But what about finding an original, early, UK-market car with a Golde fabric sunroof? Well, that would be akin to finding the mythical needle in a haystack. Although these days the UK leads the northern European table in terms of the number of convertible cars on its roads, that wasn’t always the case. Far from it in fact.

Consequently, finding a Beetle with a factory sunroof wasn’t easy 30 years ago, but is much harder today.

Chris Godding’s experience with the VW scene is undoubtedly similar to many reading this magazine. He first got into air-cooled cars in the late ’80s, his first car was a Beetle, and he built a few before being lured away by the additional