De Ath of Glory – ’58 Karmann Cabriolet

I will never forget a conversation I had many years ago with vintage VW nut and collector extraordinaire Sean Geddes. It concerned Karmann Cabriolets, or Kabrioletts to be more precise. There was I extolling the virtues of my all time favourite VW - the Hebmüller roadster - when Sean countered that they were positively common, at least in relation to his Split Window Cabriolet. I wasn't having a bar of that at the time but, you know what, he was right - even though a handful have turned up in the few years since we had that conversation, once you start looking you notice early (and by that I mean pre-July '60 semaphore cars) Beetle Cabriolets are very few and far between. Splits are by far and away the rarest of them all, of course, but none are exactly common, so to find one that has never been restored, modified, damaged or otherwise molested in this day and age is a rare find indeed. And ex-pat James De Ath is one who knows that all too well. James is just the wrong side of 40 now and, like many of us, grew up around VWs, his parents owning a '62 Beetle that was given to them by his grandparents. As a teenager, he got his fix through Custom Car magazine, then later VolksWorld, and attended the first Bug Jam, throwing himself into the whole British Cal Look thing with gusto. Since then he's owned a string of VWs of his own, from a
'73 Variant to a '65 Beetle, a '63 Ghia, a '60 Beetle and a '62 Karmann Cabriolet.
With that background, he knows all too well that his chances of finding a car like this '58 in Blighty are virtually non-existent. Luckily for him though, he now works as a technical illustrator in a drawing office in Stuttgart, Germany and so was, as they say, in the right place at the right time. "I need to give a massive thanks to my great friend Thomas, who not only found this car, but talked the previous owner out of it for a very reasonable price. Without him, I'd still be in his barn trying to put my previous utter wreck of a '62 Cabrio back together!" And if there's one thing rarer than an early Cabriolet Beetle, it's parts for one. Take it from us, you don't want to buy an incomplete Karmann Cab of this vintage or earlier as you'll soon find yourself spending close to what you paid for the entire car for the missing bits alone, if you can find them at all.

For the full story on this car make sure you pick up a copy of the April 2010 issue of VolksWorld

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