Owner's View

John Figg likes early Karmann Ghias so much that he has three of them, the best being the rate 1959 Amazon Green cabriolet seen in our studio pictures: "It's the looks that appeal so much. I love the rounded shape, and in my opinion the 'low-light' version is the prettiest."

John goes back a long way with Volkswagens. When he first started work, in 1960, two colleagues had a Beetle and a Karmann Ghia, the latter an extremely rare beast in B

ritain at that time. John would have loved a Karmann Ghia as well, but funds meant a four-year-old Beetle had to do. He's never been without an air-cooled Volkswagen since, although the first of a string of Karmann Ghia's didn't come along until the mid-'70s. His first 'low-light' car, a 1958 coupe, was bought in 1984 and remains in his ownership today. 

He took on a 1956 coupe as a restoration project, finished three years ago. Between these two acquisitions, he also satisfied another ambition by buying a cabriolet - one of fewer than a dozen soft-top 'low-light' cars in Britain - as a partially completed restoration project imported from Texas: "Most of the mechanical work had been done, but the body was stripped and resprayed. It was genuinely rust-free, its rotten floorpan having already been fixed - I think the car must have been left out in the rain with the top down. The only outside work was painting, seat trimming and having a new top made in the original white mohair-type material. Converting the car to right-hand drive was easy because Volkswagen was providing holes on both sides for pedals and steering column by the time my car was made in June 1959, two months before official launch of a right-hand model."

All three of John's cars have made trips abroad; the 1958 coupe travelled to the Karmann factory and museum at Osnabruck and the Volkswagen works in Wolfsburg.

Mike Kelly, owner with wife Astrid of the splendidly original 1973 Type I Karmann Ghia in our driving comparison (page 100 and left), also has a Type 3 model. This is so scarce that the Karmann Ghia Owners' Club knows of only 51 in the UK, and most of those are off the road. Mike's is one, as it's undergoing restoration, but for 15 years it was a regular travelling companion, venturing as far afield as Budapest (Hungary), and Dresden (Germany); "It's such a practical design, with so many places to put luggage - in the nose, above the engine and inside the car." More recently the Type I has been used for holidays all over Europe.