This site is dedicated to Pam's 1969 Karmann Ghia and will include all the work that has been involved in her purchase, importing her from California, getting her on the road here in the UK and her long, ongoing restoration.
We will try to keep the site updated as much as possible but as with most things, pages are added or modified in fits and starts so please, bear with us.
As you can see, she was a pretty little thing. Unfortunately the years haven't been kind to her. At this moment in time, she has more of the 'rat' look. This isn't intentional and we hope to get her back to looking at least like a decent driver.
Pam had always fancied owning a Karmann Ghia and some time after I had bought my Corvette, Pam started to make noises about owning a classic of her own. We started to look in our local and national papers, magazines and inevitably, on the internet. I was surprised how big the VW scene was and joined many of the VW forums. After looking for a while, a possible car came up for sale on 'the' online auction site. It had been incorrectly listed in the parts section rather than in the cars for sale section. It hadn't had many views and had no bids. Listed with no reserve, we kept watching. As the auction drew closer to its end a few bids had been placed. We left it right until the dying seconds before we placed a bid, highest bid to us! Then....We were outbid with just a second to go.Pam was absolutely devastated. The car was a bargain but just wasn't to be.
I then started making enquiries further a field. As a regular contributor on the American Corvette forums, I put out some feelers asking if any of the guys over there knew of any Ghia's for sale. I had a few replies but only one came through with information and pictures.
A guy called Rich in Southern California had a neighbour with a white Ghia for sale. It had been sat outside his house for some time with a $2000 price tag. Rich made some enquiries on our behalf and sent us some pictures. The owner Al was very sceptical about a buyer from the UK wanting his car. It took a few telephone conversations with him to convince him that we were genuine and not trying to scam him. The car needed a little bit of work to make her a daily driver. A new windshield as some nice young thug had decided to play baseball with it, new tyres and new brakes. It didn't seem too bad for a 38 year old car.
Al was firm on his price, so after agreeing that he would re-fit the chrome trim and the bumpers, we duly sent him the money. As Al was still a little wary about giving out his bank details to a strange sounding Englishman ( no offence taken ) we sent the money using a service called Moneygram . Basically, you take the money into your local Post Office and 15 minutes later, the cash is available to the seller pretty much any where in the world!
I also sent Rich $200 to cover the cost of replacing the front screen before it was shipped. It made sense as getting a new screen here in the UK would have been more expensive.