The reasons why we choose to build cars are as varied as the makes, models and intended purpose. For some it’s all about extracting the very last drop of performance and testing the the laws of physics, for others it’s the simple satisfaction gained from presenting the fruits of their labour on the static show floor. Regardless of mindset, there’s one aspect of automotive culture that binds us all together: the happiness that cars bring. It’s something we like to call #JoyOfMachine.
For Martijn Groters and his small, close-knit group of friends from Netherlands it always has been, and very likely always will be, about Volkswagens. Together, they’ve been putting their spin on humble commuters from the German manufacturer’s back catalogue ever since they left school, and doing so have created some of the most well-known VW-badged cars in the country under their group banner, VWDepartment.
During that time Martijn has owned his fair share –including a couple of modified water-cooled cars and then a rat-styled and suitably-slammed ’67 Beetle. While the Type 1 provided a first step into the world of air-cooled Volkswagens, he knew it wasn’t the right car to really sink his teeth into. It wasn’t ‘the one’.
T1 panel buses consumed his thoughts for a long while, but given their rarity – and subsequent buy-in price – that idea was eventually put on the back-burner and Martijn went looking for an early oval-windowed Beetle, preferably with a ragtop and within his modest budget.
Ticking off all those boxes was never going to be an easy ask, but Martijn’s patience and perseverance eventually paid off in 2005 when he received a call from his local specialist air-cooled workshop.
There was a car for sale – a restoration project that had only got as far as a partial strip-down. It was a ’57 and therefore the last of the rear oval windowed models, it had a ragtop, and it was parked in a barn in the same spot it had occupied for the last ten years having previously been imported from California in 1990. It was all the encouragement Martijn needed to contact the owner straight away and set up a time to view the car the very next day.
What he found wasn’t that quintessential barn find we all dream of – a totally original, low mileage, one owner car sitting under a thick layer of dust. Instead he came face-to-face with an incomplete Type 1 shell that had been largely ravaged by rot. That might not sound all that appealing, but in an instant Martijn had fallen head over heels for the ‘piece of rust’ and secured the deal.
