1963 Beetle
Now this one has a bit of a story, and it goes like this...
Once upon a time, a mad visiting Korean rock band decided to make a music video in Central Christchurch. The ingredients? One XJ12 Jaguar, one Ducati motorbike and a '63 cream Volkswagen Beetle. Add a dash of explosives and a liberal sprinkling of stunt man lunacy and 14 minutes later you get this:
Well, we can blame Mark Anderson (of the metric nut fame) for this one. Mark was a student of mine for a time and drove a Beetle himself, so after Rob broke his leg in three places crashing his motorbike, it was decided that he needed something not quite as fast, and his passion for Volkswagens was rekindled.
The car was purchased for $800 dollars with registration on hold, four good tyres, and a 6-volt battery (the car was 12-volt). It was a solid rust free car, the only damage being a slight bulging to the doors and a badly burnt interior and drivers side front wing. Everthing else survived the explosion remarkably well.
We repainted the burnt wing, and managed to polish out most of the scorched paint. A new interior constructed and various other parts (like towel rail bumpers) were sourced from another Beetle purchased for $275. We stupidly (in hindsight) abandoned the old shell and pan at the metal recyclers (not before the wheel fell off while towing it there!)
The car duly received a warrant and was driven regularly until further time could be found to repaint her. It was decided that the car would be repainted in two-tone green and cream. The car was fully stripped down and painted over a number of weeks.
Everything was reassembled, new window and door rubbers were put in, and the interior panels from the donor beetle were finally cleaned up and used. Eventually the wheels also received a new coat of paint too.
The car is now Bron's daily driver and even sports a flower on the dash board.