I made a call to the ebay seller and now know some of this cars history...
1958 model right hand drive standard beetle, first registered in early September 1957, making it one of the very first big window beetles after the end of the ovals.
It was originally a company car, driven from new by a Mr. Bird from St. Austell in Cornwall. He worked for a company in the china clay industry and although the car spent all of its life in Cornwall, it was supplied by a dealership somewhere else, presumably near to the headquarters of Mr. Bird's employers.
When Mr. Bird retired, he was presented with his beetle by the company as a retirement gift and it stayed in his possession until his death in 1990.
His widow sold the beetle to the local garage who had maintained it for most of its life and they kept it in storage for 12 years.
It was purchased from the garage in 2002 by Andrew Rippon from Truro in Cornwall who planned to restore it and add it to his collection of three late 1950s beetles.
In February 2006 Andrew decided that as he still had no spare time to start the planned restoration, he would advertise the '58 on ebay. This is where it was bought by another Andrew, surname Ham, who was looking for a 1958 beetle to form the basis of his next resto-cal project (see the "Britain's best Resto-Cal" feature in the March 2006 issue of UltraVW).
Andy had been after a basket case original '58 rag-top bug for ages, which a friend in Norfolk owned but refused to sell, so opted to buy the Standard '58 instead.
His plans were soon changed when his friend phoned with the news that he had now decided to sell the rag-top bug after all!
This is all I know at the moment but I'm sure there will be more to follow...
Edited by user
18 years ago
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Reason: Not specified