surely they havent been scrapped! how many of these cars have people actually seen at shows??

stu wrote:

Think you'll be surprised Stu. The majority will have met their end. 😞

55Kab wrote:

Think you'll be surprised Stu. The majority will have met their end. 😞

55Kab wrote:

it boils my piss to think of all those 53, 54 ovals being crushed, alot with really nice short registrations too, plus the fact you could pick them up for silly money, £50 or whatever :shock: :shock: :shock:

stu wrote:

You have such a way with words Stu :roll: ...Gold oval on piston heads looks nice .Are you tempted?

Sunroof53 wrote:

god damn, its no wonder theres virtually no early cars left in this country if even the vw lovers were scrapping them

stu wrote:

I was 16 and sprayed it mars red because i was reading Colin Burnhams feature in Street machine and thought it was the coolest thing ever.How things change ...

Sunroof53 wrote:

No they don't all change Mike as it still is the coolest thing ever! :wink:

55Kab wrote:

Mike's captured it with what he said already, but I can remember 20 years ago, if a car needed heater channels, A-pillars and pan halves it was doomed. I scrapped a nice UK RHD 58 that was like this! :oops:

Repairs to those areas and body off restos were quite unusual then, all of which we take as the norm today.

The rarity of UK cars is what makes a UK RHD car special I think and worth a premium over an imported LHD example.

Here's a fantastic example of what could be found mid to late 80's. On my many scrapyard hunts back then I came across this. A totally complete 1958 UK RHD car that had been driven into the yard. Yard guys gave £50 for it and all it needed was channels and pan halves.....:cry:

55Kab wrote:

Stu ,Dont take it so seriously ,the phrase made me laugh .That was all.

Sunroof53 wrote:

It’s so sad to see that ’58 sitting there at the bottom of the pile in the breakers yard, but that’s the fate that befell so many relatively good Beetles. I know I wasn’t alone in scrapping several Ovals in the 80s and even more big window 50’s Bugs that would have sold for good sums these days.

The one that I regret most of all was WDR 276 a ’60 model that had been imported into the UK in about ’62, it was in lovely original condition and very solid. WDR was owned by a friend of mine who had bought it from the original owner. unfortunately though she drifted into traffic one day when she was waiting to pull out on to a main road and a passing car ran into the OSF wing, damaging the stub axle in the process. The car was written off but it would have been such a simple repair to replace the wing and bolt on a replacement front axle. I bought it from the scrap yard but simply stripped it of its mechanics and left the body to be crushed. Oh well… :cry:

Looking on the bright side though, I’m sure there must be loads of old Bugs sitting in garages waiting to be re-discovered. Worthing isn’t a big town but to my knowledge there is a ’53 Sunroof Oval that’s been sitting in a garage here since about 1986 and a ’55 that’s been in a garage since about ’92. I’m sure that if I know about those two, there must be dozens of others all over the country! :wink:

Mike

Mike Peckham wrote:

you'd think they'd at least strip the car of its parts before sending it to the breakers!!

stu wrote:

Those were the days when you'd go to the scrap yards with your spanners in hand and climb over the piles of cars to find the bits you needed, they never took parts off before.

pre67vw wrote: