The kids look at him expectantly and he tries, he really tries, to be more articulate, to describe the special appeal and the uniqueness of the Volkswagen Beetle. But his heart and head are too full of feelings and contradictions to allow him to get out anything coherent. He struggles on for a while but it’s useless. Fortunately, the Ferrous Kid is there and he is able to help.
“Well,” he begins, “my Dad says the biggest deal about the Volkswagen Beetle is that in terms of numbers sold, it’s the most popular and successful car there’s ever been or is ever likely to be. They’ve manufactured and sold about twenty-two million of them.
“And my Dad says the origins of the Beetle are a pretty good story in themselves. Back in the 1930s Adolf Hitler conceived of a people’s car as part of his National Socialism and he employed Dr Ferdinand Porsche to create the car for him. He called it the Kraft durch Freudewagen; the Strength Through Joy car. However, by the time the Second World War started the car still wasn’t in production, although the factory made military versions throughout the war years. And at the end of the war it was the British army, mostly in the person of Major Ivan Hirst, who finally got production rolling. In 1949 they gave the factory back to the Germans, and the rest is history.
“My Dad says the Beetle’s a design classic. It’s not pretty in the ordinary sense but it has a basic simplicity to it that’s very appealing. Even people who find it downright ugly will admit that its eccentricity is part of its charm. Visually it strikes a strange balance between the reassuring and the sinister.
“But my Dad says because it’s so ubiquitous, so much part of the scenery, that means it’s also, in a sense, rather blank. That means it’s easy for people to stamp their personality on it. In lots of ways the Beetle is like a kit car; bits can be removed and added quite easily. It’s relatively simple to customise and modify it and make it your own.
“My Dad says you should beware of anthropomorphism, but he says the Volkswagen Beetle does have real character, and in a world where consumer products are increasingly dreary and empty, that counts for a lot. Don’t you agree Barry?”
“Yes. I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“My Dad probably could,” says the kid, and Barry doesn’t argue.
♦
Sometimes people staying at the caravan site ask Barry what kind of Beetle he has under that car cover.
“It’s just a Beetle,” he says dismissively, but that only whets their appetite.
“Does it run?” they ask.
“Oh probably. I don’t know for sure any more.”
“You mean you don’t drive it?”
“That’s it.”
“Want to sell it?”
“I’d rather sell my soul.”
Then, sometimes, real Volkswagen enthusiasts will come by and say, “Hey that looks like an interesting model. Is it the 1600 with fuel injection?”
“No,” says Barry.
“What is it then?”
“It’s sort of a custom model,” he says weakly.
But that only gets them more excited. “Lemme see it,” they demand.
“No, it’s kind of an unfinished project, I’m not ready to show it…”
“Go on, just a quick look.”
Once again Barry says no and the Beetle enthusiast pleads for just a little peek, and maybe he grabs a corner of the car cover and attempts to turn it back to reveal the car beneath. At which point Barry gets a wild, intense, murderous look on his face, and, if the enthusiast has any sense, he drops the cover pretty damn quick.
Sometimes people invite Barry to join a Volkswagen-owners’ club. Membership, they assure him, will bring with it all sorts of benefits; companionship, travel, sports and outdoor activities, as well as trade discounts and offers of technical assistance. There are clubs of many different persuasions. Some have an historical bent, some go camping, some surfing. Some clubs are for purists, and others are for those who like to attack their Beetles with a power saw, hack off unnecessary items like roofs and wings, and then paint them in hideous colours.
Barry always says he is much happier sitting on the steps of his caravan, with his car kept safely under wraps. But as he sits there considering his conversation with the kid who has the ecologically unsound father, he comes up with what he thinks is a great idea.
He will form a club called the Green Beetles. They will be a group of supremely eco-friendly Volkswagen enthusiasts. They will love and cherish their motorcars. They may clean and polish them once in a while, even sit in them from time to time with their friends and families. The important thing is; they will never drive them. They will leave their cars parked next to their house or caravan, never start the engines, never pollute mother earth with their deadly fumes.
And the best part of all from Barry’s point of view is the fact that this club, by definition, will never have any meetings, get-togethers or swapmeets. It will have no badges, no subscriptions, no officials, no committees, no membership cards or newsletters. Anybody who owns a Beetle but doesn’t drive it can automatically consider himself a member. It appeals enormously to the Zen sage within Barry, even if not to the dormant Zen Road Warrior.
♦
Carlton Bax, a scion of the Bax property and banking dynasty, and its sole heir, has successfully turned himself into one of England’s, if not the world’s, foremost Volkswagen collectors. He is a man of middle years but he still likes to think of himself as something of a playboy. Certainly devoting his life to the Volkswagen seems pleasingly boyish and irresponsible, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.
He wakes early in the bedroom of his London house, a place he always refers to as his ‘gentleman’s residence’. His girlfriend, Marilyn, daughter of one Charles Lederer, love object of one Barry Osgathorpe, sleeps in the bed beside him. The room is dark. He doesn’t know what time it is. He reaches out and turns on the bedside lamp. The lamp is in the shape of a Volkswagen Beetle, is made of blue porcelain, and is surprisingly accurate in its detailing. Light spills out through the windows and windscreen and through holes where the headlights should be. Then he consults the bedside clock, also Beetle-shaped, and sees that it’s ten o’clock. He decides to get up, although on many other mornings he might decide to stay where he is. He doesn’t bother to wake Marilyn.
He goes into the bathroom, sits on the cold toilet seat, thumbs through a copy of the magazine Volkswagen Universe while he’s waiting, a magazine that has recently featured an article about the Bax collection. When he’s finished he pulls a flurry of toilet paper from its holder. This holder too is shaped like a Beetle, the rear half anyway; the axle between the rear wheels serving as a core to hold the toilet roll. That over with, he steps into the shower, turns on the water. He draws the shower curtain. It is mostly transparent but it’s decorated with a pattern of primary-coloured Beetles that career down it as though it is a busy motorway without lane markings. He starts to soap himself with a brand new block of soap that is, again, Beetle-shaped. He gets through a lot of these, since a single shower will wear away the distinctive contours and styling lines, and that won’t do.
After his shower, Carlton Bax goes to his dressing room. As he walks along the connecting corridor he is pleasantly aware of the array of toy and model Beetles that line the walls, secure in their locked and illuminated display cabinets. He barely looks at them but their mere presence gives him a kick. All the great manufacturers are represented here, as well as all the minor and obscure ones. All the examples are in perfect condition, mint and boxed where appropriate, the die-cast and the tinplate, the rarities and the promotionals and the one-offs, the mass produced and the craftsman made. There are Beetles made of plastic and wood and glass and rubber, some fought for at auction, others sought out in obscure and surprising corners of the world, handmade in Nigeria or Egypt or Mexico. The collection spreads throughout the house. Many items are valuable beyond belief. Together they are priceless.