This car was built in November 1960 in Germany as a blue VW Beetle. In 1970 it was shortened by 24 cm and turned into a Beach Buggy. It had a stock 1300 CC Beetle engine which had the incredible amount of 35 HP. The Karmann GF (Klinkhammer) Buggy was one of the first Buggy bodies available on the market.

In 1986 my uncle Manfred bought this buggy to restore himself. A year later the car was still untouched as he thought himself a bit to old to drive one. I fancied the car and bought it from him. Little did I know about the amount of time and money I needed to restore it.

Known defects when I bought it:
- the engine didn't run
- it had no seats
- the exhaust was missing and one of the bolts had broken off.

When I started I found that rust can spread much further than the eye can see. Pretty soon it became clear that I had to replace the whole floor plates of the car. After more than a year of restoring (have a look at the pictures) I had replaced to following parts:

Finally in August 1998 it passed the RDW tests and was given an Dutch license plate and allowed on the road.

I had been bugging Inge to use the Buggy as our wedding car (3 September 1998) and now I was running out of time. My father and I finally hand painted (I run out of money, so I couldn't have it spray painted) the car on August 24, just a couple of days before the wedding.

We used the buggy for 5 years in the summer and even as our only car from August 1999 until march 2000 (you attract a lot of attention using it pick up a Christmas tree). It was a fun car to drive and attracted more attention than the score of BMW Z3's and Triumphs who drive around here.

The problem was that you sit very open and catch a lot of wind. As it didn't have any heating or top it got pretty cold when the sun goes away in the evening. It also made driving on the highway not very comfortable.