VW Beetle

The chance purchase by dad of a VW Beetle converts his daughter to classics.

When I met up with Marcus Johnson, technically the owner of a Volkswagen Beetle known as Little URN, he was wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed: Vee Dub Dad – like a normal dad but cooler. He was wearing it on the strict instructions of his daughter Laura, who could perhaps be described as the spiritual owner

of Little URN. If this is all a little confusing, then do bear with me as I hope everything will become clear in due course.

Perhaps I should start by saying that Marcus might now be a Vee Dub Dad, but he was first and foremost a Ford man. To be more precise, Ford

Cortinas have always been his main passion, ever since buying his first one in 1976. He was oval racing at the time, and got a 2-litre Mk3 Cortina as a tow car. Unfortunately that Cortina was completely rotten as so many of them were by then, although the mechanical side

was brilliant and it did indeed prove to be a great tow car.

'You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a good Cortina Mk3 even at the end of the 1970s,' says Marcus, 'but I did eventually manage to get a better one. My dad worked in a Ford garage in Wisbech at the time, and he came home one night saying that a brilliant Cortina had just come in and that I should go and see it because it wouldn't hang around for long. It was a 2-litre GT, in Daytona Yellow as most of them were, and I went to see it that very evening. I bought it too, and I've still got it.'

So over the last 40 years, Marcus' Cortina ownership made the transition from when the cars were just daily drivers to when they were being regarded as classics. He went to his first classic car

show with the

Cortina Owners Club, and just got hooked. A group of local owners eventually formed their own Cortina club, the East Anglia Cortina Group. That is still going, although they don't have a formal structure or membership any more. His daughter Laura used to get dragged along to these events as a child, but she never clicked with the cars. Marcus' wife Pam isn't into them either, so mother and daughter would wander off at events in search of something that interested them and leave Marcus to the cars.

That has all changed for Laura now though, and it is all because of the Volkswagens. Converting her into an enthusiast happened by accident rather than any devious plan on the part of Marcus, though. Around 10 years ago petrol prices were going through the roof and he needed a car to get him to work as a milkman. He happened to see a Volkswagen Beetle for sale that had been converted to dual fuel

– petrol and LPG. That is an unusual conversion to make on a Beetle because it is not the thirstiest of vehicles anyway and you tend to see LPG conversions on the likes of Jaguars and Range Rovers. However, every little helped long before Tesco had thought of that as a marketing slogan, so Marcus reckoned it might be worth a look.

'I ended up buying that car, mainly because of the

LPG conversion,' he recalls, 'but oddly enough it was that conversion which eventually made me want to get rid of it. It was just a headache – the car would run on gas, but it never seemed to run smoothly. Perhaps the conversion had not been carried out properly, because although the car did come with all the supporting paperwork to back up the work and say that it had been tested, it always seemed to fill the car with gassy fumes, which is not the most comforting of smells to have when you are on the move. So most of the time I ran it on petrol anyway.'

Clearly that first Beetle was not a big hit with Vee Dub Dad, but it was a different story for Laura. She had never shown even the slightest interest in any car before, but with the Beetle it just seemed to flick a switch. 'I was more into horses than I was into cars, but the Beetle was love at first sight,' she says. 'I think it is because Beetles have personality, a character of their own. I'd been aware of them before of course, but when I sat in it and drove around, that was when everything changed.'

'I assumed that it would wear off soon enough,' adds Marcus, 'but it didn't. She wanted to have a go, and that didn't put her off either – driving a Beetle is quite different to driving a modern car, but Laura is into vintage stuff in general, so I guess that sort of tied in with the Beetle experience. After a few goes behind the wheel she was still in love with the car, but I was not so keen. That one had a few modifications besides the LPG conversion, things like wider wheels, and I prefer my cars to be more original. However, when it was clear that Laura was not going to change her mind, I said that if she genuinely wanted a Beetle, we'd see if we could find a more original car.'

At that time, neither Marcus nor Laura had really learnt about the different models, to them a Beetle was just a Beetle and all they wanted was one that was solid and fairly original. They didn't mind a little work, but they didn't want a restoration project, and this is finally where we get to Little URN, the 1970 1300 in our pictures. This was being advertised for sale about an hour and a half away, in Northampton. It was on the road, owned at the time by a youngster who, like most people, had plans of doing it up. Unfortunately, also like most people, such plans are easier to make than they are to carry through. URN was about six different shades of white where panels had been replaced or repaired over the years. The worst bit was where he had been given a couple of replacement doors that were green, but which had been painted white with aerosols. The white was now peeling off and the green was showing back

through – nice!

' We paid just over £2000 for him, which was decent money for a car looking like that,' says Marcus, 'but the main attraction was that it was solid underneath. Right away Laura started using him for the drive to work. She had a Freelander at the time and I warned her not to expect a Beetle with drum brakes all round to stop in the same way. I told her that she should start planning her move and slow down earlier in a car like this, but I needn't have worried because she took to it like a duck to water.'

'The first Beetle dad bought was called Bert,' says Laura. 'I'd wanted to drive that one, but as dad explained, he wasn't keen on me driving around in a car that had been messed about with, and particularly one which smelled of gas. So once I got the keys to URN and was able to drive him regularly, it was great. He always started first time whatever the weather and never let me down. Not that I used him in the depths of winter, because the roads around here get really bad and I didn't want to go skidding into a dyke. I used my Freelander on days like that.'

Even though URN was spared the worst of the winter weather, he was not exactly pristine, and the Johnsons do like their cars to look tidy. Marcus' friend Nigel does excellent paint and bodywork, so they got him to tidy up URN. Not that he needed new panels, just some localised repairs followed by careful prepping and painting.

'Apart from bodywork, we replaced things like rusted out light units and rubber seals,' says Marcus, 'while on the inside we had to have the rear parcel shelf retrimmed. Mechanically it was fine, and we didn't have to do much there at all.'

' We mucked in together and did the work on it,' adds Laura. 'The original intention had just been to sort out the paint so that he was all one colour. We had no idea he was going to turn out as well as he did, but I think I got a little obsessive.'

He turned out so well in fact that before long Laura was thinking URN was now too good to use for the commute to work. There was, of course, an obvious solution – she now has another

Beetle, a 1974 1303, which she uses on a daily basis.

'I think deep down that she also wanted one of her own, because Little URN is technically still mine,' smiles Marcus. 'Not that she'd ever let me sell him.'

In the meantime, Laura had decided she wanted to take URN to shows, which was something of an ironic twist given her disinterest in the ones Marcus had dragged her to as a child. 'The shows she likes are ones such as the big Bug Jam at Santa Pod,' says Marcus, 'which are not really my scene because so many of the cars are highly modified. But she loves them, and to be fair the show cars are detailed to perfection.'

'I'd taken URN to shows before he was done up and would put him in the Show 'n' Shine, just for a bit of a laugh,' says Laura. 'Dad always said that I'd not get anything, that he'd been there and seen it all before, and we did go for four years without any success. But after we'd done him up, I thought I'd give it another go.'

' When Laura said she was going to enter URN in a class for standard cars, I was a little worried that she was going to be disappointed at the end of the day because she had got herself quite psyched up,' says Marcus, 'but I let her get on with it. Then, at the end of the day I was sitting in the car when she went off to see the results. The next thing I heard over the tannoy was "... Miss Laura Johnson." I couldn't believe it, but we had won and she was over the moon.'

You'll notice that it was Laura who entered the competition and got psyched up about it, but it was 'we' who won...!

'So then of course in 2019 she wanted to defend her championship, and would you believe it, she won again. She was very disappointed that the event was cancelled this year because she wanted to go for the third win in a row.'

'For the shows, I spend the day before giving him a good clean and polish, tidying out the inside and cleaning all the little nooks and crannies,' says Laura. 'Then I give him a quick buff up when we arrive at Santa Pod, but after that I leave him alone because otherwise I would be there all day finding things to polish and I'd never see anything of the show. We've been to a couple of other VW shows too and we will usually enter any competition if they have one, it is just something to add extra interest to the day. We take turns driving to these events – usually dad will drive one way and I will drive the other.'

So is Marcus now a VW convert as his T-shirt (a present from Laura) claims? 'I have grown to enjoy driving the Beetle now, even though it is a design from at least two decades earlier than the Cortinas I grew up with,' he admits. 'You can pootle along quite happily at 50- 60mph, it is not noisy, and it handles well despite being on pretty normal tyres. Not that I get to drive it too often... And the shape has grown on me as well. I reckon that if tomorrow Laura decided she has had enough of Beetles, I would keep this one.'

If Marcus has a secret desire to get the keys to himself in this way, we suspect it is a desire that will remain unfulfilled. As is only right, we give the last word to Laura, who tells us: 'I have also bought one of the modern Beetles. I wanted to have a go because we thought it might be a little more economical and a little bit easier, but it just doesn't feel the same – it is a Beetle only in name, not in the driving or owning experience. Besides, I love Little URN and wouldn't change him for the world. In fact I love both our Beetles, but URN will always be my favourite.'

The 1300 engine was 1285cc and developed between 40 and 44bhp. It was sold alongside the 1200 (1192cc) and 1500 (1493cc), though this last option grew to 1584cc in the 1302.

Little Urn is from the period that bridges the sloping nose of the early Beetles and the more bulbous front of the MacPherson strut cars.

There were drum brakes all round on the 1300, and they can take some getting used to after driving a modern car.

The interior is so very functional, but that imparts it own sense charm and style. We loved the addition of a basket weave parcel shelf on URN.

Four speed gearbox has a quirky diagonal movement across the gate that is easy to learn.

Unusually, the Beetle draws pressure to power the screenwash from the spare wheel.