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:
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
July 1957 UK supplied RHD Oval. 1972 World Champion Beetle. 1978 UK supplied RHD 1303LS Cabriolet. 1973 UK supplied RHD 1303s.