Annetjie Fleming with their 1976 SP 1600 VW Beetle Koos Fleming
Wheels24 reader Koos Fleming has sent in more old photos, this time of their 1976 VW Beetle. He and his family resprayed the car themselves in the 1980s with nothing but common sense.
Earlier in July, Koos Fleming sent us old photos of his 1970 Mazda F1000 bakkie. It included pictures of himself and his young bride Annetjie when he had bought the half-tonne bakkie fifty years ago and a picture of their bakkie decorated as their wedding car on their special day.
PICS | From road trips to their wedding: These 1970 Mazda F1000 bakkie photos tells a life story
Fleming had since sent us another batch of well-kept photographs documenting their DIY respray of their VW Beetle when the entire family helped out, including his two young daughters at the time. He says he bought the Beetle in 1980 as a used vehicle because of its off-road capability and the vast availability of spares everywhere.
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“It had big tyres and a good engine; we could go almost everywhere. It cost about R3 600 as a used vehicle in 1980; a silver 1976 SP 1600 VW Beetle, bought in Pretoria,” he says.
Fleming says the paint started to peel off after a few years, and the idea to respray it themselves came about just “because we can”.
“We are DIY people and do almost all our own maintenance work at home. During one school holiday we took leave from work, borrowed a small compressor from a good friend, and bought the stuff we thought we needed (there was no Google back then).
“Luckily, the car was almost dent-free. We can’t remember the cost to respray the vehicle, but it was not too expensive in the early 1980s. The colour scheme was our own design and the only one of its kind as far as we know.”