1968 Type 3 Fastback

• Friday, 16 May 2008
• Jon Gilbert
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Joan Ribera Herdes is a dyed-in-the-wool air-cooled VW fanatic - in fact, it's pretty much all he's owned in the last 20-odd years

Joan is a resident of Catalonia, Spain, who cut his VW teeth on a very clean 1303s Cabrio' loaded with nice accessories in keeping with the age of the car, but when he came across the Fastback you see here - a very rare car in Spain - the Cabrio was quickly sold on.
Now the Fastback didn't quite look like this back in 1997, but it was an immaculate and completely original one owner car that had been brought over from Belgium to the Costa Brava by an elderly Belgian gent to use as a holiday runabout. The car pretty much sat in the garage for up to 11 months of the year and was then only brought out for leisurely jaunts around the coast when the gent came to vacation. It's thanks to this gentle life that the car, apart from the odd scratch or scuff in the paintwork, remained in pretty much perfect and original order.
Joan has a German mother, so he is naturally fluent in German and is proficient with other languages too. So when the elderly gent decided it was time to sell on his summer car, Joan jumped at the chance and negotiated a great deal.
With the deal done and the keys in his hand, Joan simply bolted on a set of original Empi Sprint Stars, lowered the front end in the traditional Type3 way and put the car into daily use.
Back then, Joan's partner Silvia was driving a 1302 on a daily basis - a very clean car loaded with accessories, while Joan was using a very nice 1960 Vespa 125S also loaded with rare goodies. So the Fastback became the new member of the family.
Now fast-forward over 10 years and nothing has changed accept for the upgrades and details to the Fastback that you see before you. The car is a 1968 1600TL model in L620 Savannah Beige. Built on 18.04.68 and then delivered to the Belgian Distributor D'Ieteren Meiser in Topaze with factory-option 252 (rear fog light) that was mandatory in Belgium, and with a black leatherette interior.

For the full story check out the July 2008 issue of VolksWorld magazine. On sale on 16 May and then available through back issues.

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