Bug life: everyday motoring in a 52-year-old car

Open gallery Close News by Felix Page 9 mins read 4 March 2024 Follow @felix_page_ The first day of Year 13 is sweltering – unusually hot for September. The sixth form car park is packed to the gunnels with freshly acquired Vauxhall Corsas and Renault Clios, Halfords headsets pumping drum and bass through tinny 6x9s of dubious quality and the sickly, unmistakable odour of Very Cherry air freshener hanging like a thick smog in the hazy afternoon air. Hordes of lanky adolescents fold themselves, five at a time, into cramped, well-worn superminis with Amazon-sourced ‘sports’ wheel trims and wannabe WRC exhausts and screech off down the high street, jeering at unlucky friends who still have to wait for the bus and arguing over who gets control of the aux cable. Related articles The car park empties quickly, and after five minutes there is only one that has yet to join the raucous, revving convoy. It would be nearly silent, were it not for the ear-splitting, off-beat clatter of an air-cooled flat four wheezing through a perforated manifold, and the exaggerated, exasperated groaning of the three unlucky individuals who have asked for a lift home, without realising that means waiting while the engine comes up to temperature. “I might as well have walked,” mutters one. “It’s not like you’ve got air-con in there, either.” The car is mine: a 1972 Volkswagen 1302 S ‘Super Beetle’, the one with the more bulbous front end and MacPherson – rather than beam – suspension “shared with the Porsche 924”, I tell anyone who will listen, and a few who won’t. It’s a peach too: solid bodywork all round, original seats and headlining, intact inner arches and a working original stereo – the novelty of which wears off when we discover it can only receive long-wave stations. The engine, meanwhile, is the most powerful ever fitted to a Beetle in Germany, mustering up a spicy 60bhp (when new) to give a 0-50mph time of just 12.3sec and a “maximum and cruising speed of 80mph-plus”, according to contemporary promotional literature. Latest Reviews Kia EV9 Porsche Cayenne BMW 5 Series 9 BMW 5 Series View all car reviews Back to top None of which really matters to its passengers on this particular afternoon, as the temperature builds in the cabin and the school caretaker starts jangling his keys with anticipation as he waits to lock the car park gates. It’s not long before I cave in to pressure and get under way, though the car doesn’t feel fully awake yet. My friends don’t quite share my belief in this car’s sentience. They ridicule the way I cautiously ease it up to cruising speed and turn the music down at traffic lights to make sure it’s idling healthily – and 15 minutes after we leave school that day, they laugh uproariously at how nervous I am about tackling a long uphill stretch of dual carriageway at speed, with four occupants, on the hottest day of the year. They laugh, and laugh, and laugh… Right up until my premonition becomes reality and the fuel pump gives out just as we crest the summit. I slip it into neutral and manage to coast half a mile to a lay-by, where we sit and sweat in silence for what seems like an eternity, while we wait for an RAC patrol van and I wonder whether I should have bought a Matiz. To add insult to injury, we have timed this to perfection: every school bus we overtook on the way now thunders tantalisingly past us, its passengers pointing and giggling at our plight as they scramble t