Jan the Beetle enters Concours
THE oldest Volkswagen Beetle in South Africa has been entered for Concours South Africa 2017, which takes place at Sun City on 4-6 August.
The little fawn-coloured Peoples Car is a 1949 model sedan, built in Germany, and imported to South Africa by a private owner a good two years before the very first Beetle was produced here.
What makes this Beetle entry even more interesting is the fact that it is owned by AutoPavilion, the official Volkswagen Museum in South Africa, located at the factory in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape.
“We have been very excited about Concours South Africa, and we will evaluate this year’s event to see if it makes sense to bring a bigger selection of vehicles from Uitenhage in 2018 and use this opportunity to profile our AutoPavilion,” said Matt Gennrich, General Manager Communications for Volkswagen South Africa. “An event like this plays an amazing role in increasing awareness of our rich motoring heritage in South Africa.”
The car in question has had an interesting history, as befits a 68-year-old car. It was built just three years after the Volkswagenwerk in Wolfsburg, Germany was rescued from ruin after sustaining severe Allied bombing between 1939 and 1945 in World War Two
Ironically, it was an English army group, tasked with overseeing the Wolfsburg area immediately after World War Two, that realised the best way to clothe and feed the starving population in the area was to make the Volkswagen factory, used for military vehicle production during the war, a going concern as soon as possible. The Volkswagen sedans that then began trickling off the small production line were sold to the Allied occupying forces in Germany for use as transport. In 1948 the factory was handed back to German management.
Volkswagen production in South Africa commenced in 1951, at a new plant in Uitenhage. This 1949 Volkswagen sedan – the term “Beetle” was not used by the factory – surfaced in South Africa in Mpumalanga, in 1971, after a national competition run jointly by the magazine Wheels and Volkswagen South Africa to find the country’s oldest Beetle. The car was at this time owned by a David Rubin, who was then given a brand new 1300 Beetle in exchange for the classic.
Christened as simply “Jan”, the 1949 bug went on display around South Africa before coming home to rest at Uitenhage, where it went into storage.
Just over a year ago, “Jan” was rescued by a man of the same name, Jan Schiedeck-Jacht, who is the Head of Product Engineering at VWSA in Uitenhage. He organised a team of enthusiasts from Product Engineering at Uitenhage to embark on a restoration project.
“The car was stripped right down to every last nut and bolt, with the body removed from the floor-pan, and every part was either refurbished or replaced with original parts,” says Matt Gennrich. “Or, in the case where parts were unobtainable, they were made in our Product Engineering facility.”
In just seventh months, the fully-restored 1949 Volkswagen sedan was back in showroom condition. With a power capability from its 1100 cc air-cooled boxer four-cylinder engine registering all of 18kW, just as it had in 1949, where the stated top speed was a shade over 100km/h. Now the team’s work will come under the stern scrutiny of a top international panel of judges, led by Wayne Harley, Curator of the Franschhoek Motor Museum. And the humble little 1949 Beetle will be up against some of the finest veteran, vintage and classic cars in South Africa.
Concours South Africa 2017 at Sun City runs from August 4 to 6. The event opens with the HAGI Conference on Value in the Classic Car Market (www.vccm.co.za) on the Friday morning, which is open to anyone interested in classic and collectable cars from an investment point of view.
For more information on how to enter your car in Concours South Africa 2017, how to sign up for the HAGI conference or to book the deluxe hospitality packages on offer at the Sun City event, visit the website www.concourssa.co.za.