“I had a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name. And, I called him Alexander, and he answered all the same”. You may remember these lyrics from the late 1960`s song by Melanie Safka, and whilst our Classic of the Month is a 1967 Beetle, this one is of the VW variety and is called “Pearl”.
This particular car is owned and beautifully maintained by PCVC members, David and Ann Rolph and is named for its immaculate pearl white paintwork.
She is a rather unusual Beetle as she was not built in the famous VolksWagen manufacturing plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, but is the product of their factory, which was 10,000 miles away in Clayton, Melbourne, Australia. VW established this factory in 1958 with vehicles being assembled from CKD (Complete Knock Down) units, effectively a kit of parts, that had been shipped out from Germany. This had become quite an established practice by many European car manufacturers as a way of avoiding import duties and quotas.
However, as time passed more and more local products and parts were usually introduced, and although the Beetle was constantly improved and upgraded not all of these revisions were immediately adopted by the Australians. The featured car, being from 1967, retains the small windowed body which is more in keeping with the original Ferdinand Porsche design and gives the car a cute and stylish appearance.
This Beetle is powered by VWs legendary flat 4 cylinder air cooled rear mounted engine which in Pearls case is the original engine of 1300cc capacity which drives through a 4 speed fully synchronised manual gearbox to produce almost 40bhp. The car is equipped with an automatic choke, a Solex carburettor, and has a 12 volt electrical system. Other special features include the painted dashboard with original instruments, a period radio and a stylish 1960`s chromium plated roof rack.
Pearl was first registered on the 17th January 1967 and spent nearly 40 years in Australia before being exported to the UK in 2005.David and Ann were fortunate to find this much travelled Beetle close to home in East Sussex in 2023 and enjoyed driving and showing their car with the Bexhill on Sea Car Club. They imported the car into Cyprus this year and are regularly to be seen driving through Paphos and supporting the numerous events of Paphos Classic Vehicle Club.
If you would like to see this and other fantastic classic vehicles come to one of the many PCVC meetings. Full details can be found on our Facebook page, or, on our webpage (www.paphosclassicvehicleclub.com) or, telephone, 97760997.
You may be surprised to learn that Melanie`s song was largely based upon a poem called “Forgiven” that was penned in 1927 by A A Milne (the author of Winnie the Poo)!