My beetle, which I acquired from my parents and did up spending hours welding and trying to make it like new eventually, expired on the A21 when it was a dual carriageway many years ago. I had just updated main engine components to make it work more efficiently: New Unleaded 1600 heads, New pistons, Barrels, Hot Cam, 009 Distributor and Weber single draft carburetor. My first trip and return from work found that the oil drain plug had worked itself loose at the start of the bypass and by the end some one-mile later my engine and crankshaft was suitable for scrap.
Some tears and head banging later I decided that things had to get better,. I started out thinking that a total strip of the car was the answer and promptly removed the body work one weekend with a long lost friend and found that the body was really looking like it was going somewhere on its own. I had been driving around in a beetle that had the bodywork attached by glue and luck. The original perimeter bolts holding the chassis to the car came away and left the bolts and metal work intact. A scary thought as I had reached speed of 60mph before this happened.
At the time I came across a GP catalogue, which sparked my enthusiasm in another direction.
Several months later my chassis was dismantled and on the top of my girlfriends Nova 1.2 and took to Isleworth in London for some welding work. I'm amazed the Nova 1.2 took this 1-ton weight but it did and the journey was an adventure of hands out of the windows checking to see if the greasy sticky chassis was still aboard.
My dream was starting to take shape.
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