Hi

After reading another story about lost VWs from Carl and Emily I thought that I would post this.

This is an exert of a article that I wrote for the 2021 VW Nationals magazine.


I used to work for a division of Provincial Motors a VW dealer in Liverpool, it was called Automotive Imports and sold VW parts made by mostly factory suppliers to dealers and private VW workshops which in 1970s were dotted all over suburban Sydney and lots of them were in backyard garages.

For a while I was a sales rep with them and travelled all over Sydney selling parts to these suburban VW workshops. One service station workshop that I particularly remember was in President Ave Sutherland in the lube bay was the holy grail of vintage VWs, a split window Beetle. I pestered the guy to sell it to me but to no avail. I left the sales rep job and started working in VW dealers in the VW parts department. One day I thought I should go and check on the Split Screen Beetle at Sutherland, to my horror the service station was still there but was now a fruit market.

Fast forward to 2007 when the club had a run up to Mount Victoria where Phil Mass was screening the movie that he had put together featuring the VW Nationals from earlier that year.

A lovely couple who were club members turned up as we got to talking his wife encouraged him to tell us about the cars that he had collected, he had few Ovals and English cars and old Mercs but then said I have a split window Beetle, I nearly fell of my chair. The next day he arranged for the club to visit his home in Hartley just down the hill from Mount Victoria.

The club members name was Don Carter, no relation and he was policeman in the Shire and Illawarra in the 1970,s you guessed it, the split windscreen Beetle he had was the very same one that I lusted after in Sutherland all those years ago. Don told me that he knew the proprietor of the servo in Sutherland and that he was working at local club, Don arranged to purchase the split screen Beetle from him and I can still remember Don telling me that he bought it on the 7/7/1977, by this time I had told Don of my tenuous link to this car.

More years passed and Don and I kept in contact and when his health started t fail he put his car collection up for sale and offered me the split screen Beetle, I sadly had to decline as I had nowhere to store the car plus my wife would have killed me as I was doing a ground up build on my Orange L Bug/1303.

So recently I learned that a good friend of mine John now has this car, minus chassis, the split window Beetle was actually on a Kubelwagen chassis, the guy that bought the split Beetle form Don Carter only wanted the chassis. My friend John is putting the car back on the road but with an Oval chassis.

Some photos from when Don was selling the split

I wonder what year model it is and whether the Kubel was the original floorpan?

Its a bit of a mystery, no crutch coolers so that's a clue

It would be a shame if it was a '45 model and that was the original pan.

I remember now the new owner telling me that he removed something and it had a 1951 stamp on it

Love a good lost and found story.
Unfortunately it's still a lost and lost story for us.
Nearly sold our 2 bugs early this year too,.. but for better or worse we still have them.
Hopefully we win the 180m powerball next week and can finally finish our 68 and give our 62 the love it deserves.