Baz Grunnell was down on his luck when he moved back home from Luton to Felixstowe 35 years ago.
But when he met Andy Finch, known as ‘Spike’, who had a passion for air-cooled Volkswagens, a whole new world opened up to him.
“He was into Volkswagens and he took me to my first show, and ever since then I just fell in love with them,” says Baz, now 52 and director of a cargo handling company.
“We started off mainly going to Bug Jam, back when the Prodigy were there, and the Beetle Bash. I enjoyed the racing and the partying.”
In the early days, Baz didn’t have his own Volkswagen or even a driving licence, eventually getting a red Vauxhall Viva, followed by a chocolate brown Vauxhall Chevette and an MG Metro Turbo.
“When I met my wife, Cat, she had a Beetle and used to go to the shows before I did, so she was ahead of the game compared to me,” he says.
Own Beetle at last
Baz was in his late 20s when finally got his own Beetle, and it was very much a family affair, a 1500 that his grandad bought new in 1967.
“The deal was, I was always going to get that car, so when he passed away it came to me,” he says.
“Felixstowe is full of Volkswagens, and everyone around me had them, so once I got it I wanted to follow suit and put my own little stamp on it.
“It was absolutely stock when he had it – he only ever used it to go to bingo. But as soon as I got it, it was in the garage and stripped, and I just went full hog on it.
“I needed to replace all the wings, because he used to feel his way into the garage, not drive in.
“The paint had a blowover, and a retrim on the interior – the inside paint is original – and I put on some Porsche 912 alloys.
Changes for the better
“Grandad may have turned in his grave, but the changes were definitely for the better.”
Baz and the Beetle were regulars at shows, and he still owns the car today, but it’s another VW that he’s brought to the Beetle-Juiced festival in Suffolk for the weekend – and it’s really pretty special.
The 1963 Beetle convertible came to England from California in early 2020, and Baz was in prime position to take advantage.
“As I work in the import and export industry and handle loads of cargo, all of my mates tend to import their cars through our warehouse,” he says.
“Spike had said to me ‘I’ve got a couple of cars coming in a container, can you handle them for me?’ ‘Yeah, no problem’. As soon as I unloaded this one, I rang him and said ‘is the convertible yours?’ He said ‘yep’, and I said ‘not any more…’
“He came down that afternoon, we cracked a deal for the car and the restoration, and the next morning it was put on a car trailer and taken to his workshop, and then completely nut and bolt stripped.”
Not that the car was a mess, far from it.
“It was perfect, in really good condition, but completely stock,” says Baz. “It had the same colour roof as now, but the paint was more like a British Racing Green, with standard wheels. It was a pretty car, but not my sort of taste.”
Spike gets to work
With the Beetle at Spike’s workshop at Spike’s Vintage Restoration, Baz gave him the spec he wanted and more or less left him to his own devices, checking in at various stages of the build if a decision was needed.
With the car stripped down to bare metal, one of those decisions was the colour.
“When you’re restoring a car you think the colour choice is one of the easy decisions, but it actually isn’t – it’s what makes or breaks it,” he says.
“I was going to go for Beryl Green, but it’s just been done so many times, so I thought I’d flip it and go for Manila Green, which was a MkI Golf colour.
“It was quite a standard colour for the day, but a bit of a brave move. I just thought it needed to be something a little bit different, something that no-one had done before.
“In the end I think it’s come out well – I was over the moon with it.”
When they started the engine, Baz thought it already sounded “a little bit throaty”.
Engine overhaul
“We didn’t know what it was, but when it went away for a stripdown and health check I was told it had got cams in it,” he says. “I had it bored out to 1776cc, we put on some twin 40 carbs, and added a handmade exhaust that replicates a Porsche 356.”
The Beetle was fitted with a new wiring loom, an air-ride system from Dutch-based DogBack-Beam, a replacement steering wheel, and Porsche Fuchs replica wheels with original centre caps.
A new hood was handmade by a former Bentley employee, complete with Bentley Corniche-style wool on the inside, while Kent-based 13 Stitches worked on the car’s interior.
Again taking inspiration from the MkI Golf, Baz opted for chequered seats.
‘A bit of chav’
“I wanted to flip it so it’s got a little bit of a Burberry feel – a bit of chav in there,” he laughs. “It’s still mostly period, but with a bit of a fresh twist to it.”
Spike worked on the project throughout the Covid period, mostly in splendid isolation while most of the country was in and out of lockdown, and it was finished towards the end of 2020.
Baz has plenty of other cars to choose from, including a Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, BMW M2, and Volkswagen Amarok, so the Beetle was never going to be a daily driver.
“We use it as a weekend car, for family picnics if it’s a nice day, or we’ll go to local shows or car events,” he says. “Sometimes, if it’s nice we’ll cruise around town and the seafront in it and just enjoy the ride.”
The convertible attracts plenty of attention on these days out.
“Obviously when I’m driving, I don’t notice it, but I do enjoy parking it up and moving away from the car and letting people just hog all over it,” says Baz.
Different, and cool
“People like it. Whether you like Volkswagen Beetles or not, I think people just appreciate something different and something cool, something clean that’s old. It does get some nice reactions, especially from the older generation – they know what it is. It’s nice to see.
“Some people don’t seem to understand the air ride element of it and just look at it in disgust – how on earth do you drive that thing? They don’t realise you can raise it.”
Here at Beetle-Juiced, Baz is among his people, a scene he joined 35 years ago and shares with Cat and children, son Alfie and daughter Daisy.
“Everyone here’s on the same vibe, everyone’s cool, and everyone’s interested in things, whether it’s a show car or not,” he says, “and that’s the kind of passion I like.
“You respect the fact that people love their cars – it doesn’t have to be a show car, it’s about the person that drives it as opposed to the car itself.
“We’ve always brought the kids. Alfie’s now 18 and he’s been coming to the shows ever since he was a babe. In fact, for his first show he was still in his mum’s tummy, and now here he is on a weekend with his dad with his own little car.”
