Another (almost) from Toronto

[bandi]

This car was purchased new by my great uncle at Don Valley Volkswagen (in their first year of operation), it was originally java green. He painted it white in 1969 after seeing The Love Bug. While I'd definitely prefer the original colour, whatever paint he used was definitely durable (and he did a nice job!). He had a trailer hitch on it which he made from scratch (it must have weighed 80 lbs), which he used to tow a utility trailer made from an early 70s Peugeot. Oddly enough, while towing 3000 lbs of landscaping material up to the cottage, the clutch let go in dramatic fashion and the car sat behind his garage for a couple of years. I wrote him a letter when I was 11 years old begging him to sell it to us, and he finally gave in.



My father purchased the car in 1994 when it was 28 years old and used it for local trips, then the engine digested a rod bearing on the way home from the Great Canadian Bug show in '97. I picked up a replacement 1300 around '02, but it was just never "right", so the car sat in the garage for years.


Me with the car in 1989, when I was 6.

Fast forward another 28 years to 2022, and it's now mine. I guess I'll have to give it to my daughter in another 28 years!

It's remarkably solid and has never been welded. It has the wrong seats (black ones from a '68-'69) but I still have the original balearic beige low backs which desperately need recovering.



One funny feature, my uncle added a front turn signal assembly to the decklid as an extra running light. I always thought it looked a bit silly, but I'm in no hurry to fill the holes and repaint the lid, so I used some transparent red paint on the lens and wired it up up as a third brake light instead- I figure any extra visibility in a small car is a good thing. When the car eventually goes back to its original colour, I'll fill the holes.

I have a pile of other Beetles (...11 more) and have owned probably 30-40 more but this is definitely a "forever" car.

[Seibert66]

Thanks for sharing your story and the pictures are great!

[jmartini]

Very Cool, I’d leave the deck light lid too!