Volkswagens have been in and out of Harry Cuthbertson’s life since he was a boy.
His parents’ first car was a Beetle, followed by a camper; his aunt and uncle had a matching Bug; his brother had a Squareback; and he and his wife Viv had a Beetle and a Bay panel van in the early ‘90s.
A series of “normal” cars followed, but now – at the age of 59 – Harry has turned back the clock and bought a 1970 Squareback imported from California by a previous owner.
As a veteran of the original Run to the Sun festival in Newquay, with young children Zoe and Lee in their yellow Beetle’s back seat, Harry and Viv are no strangers to the VW festival scene.
And while they’ve attended festivals since in their modern Golf, there’s no substitute for rocking up in an air-cooled classic.
The VW Squareback: ‘something different’
“At my age, I thought it would be nice to get something again,” says Harry, a builder and decorator by trade. “I always liked the Squareback from when my brother and his friend had one as a teenager. Plus, I’d had a Beetle, so I thought ‘let’s look for something different’.
“You go to the shows and there’s loads of Beetles and campers, but you never really see a lot of Squarebacks, so I got looking.”
Harry and Viv passed over some “real mint ones” that were out of their budget, before a friend pointed them in the direction of one for sale on eBay in Surrey.
“It was up for £11,500 and it looked quite smart, so we thought if we could get it for £10,000 we’d go for it,” says Harry. “We put the offer in and they said yeah, so we went down to Surrey to have a look, took it for a drive and it all seemed pretty good.”
The trip home to Lowestoft in Suffolk, however, via Harry’s brother Carl’s place in Wembley, was far from straightforward.
It was early March, and raining steadily when they set off, Harry following Viv driving the Golf.
“We got to Ipswich and the heavens opened,” he says. “I could just about see Viv’s two red tail lights and that was it, doing about 20mph. If she’d driven off a cliff I’d have followed her over.
“We had a good 15 minutes of continuous hammering and once it slowed up there were big puddles everywhere. I managed to get back, parked it up, and it just conked out and wouldn’t start again.
Leaking issues with the VW Type 3 Squareback
“I then realised my legs were soaked. I was that concentrated on trying to follow my wife, looking at the lights, it wasn’t until we walked in that I noticed – ‘bloody hell, look at that’.
“The rain had all come in the screen and gone all over me, all over the floor and in behind the dash. I thought ‘bloody hell, have we done the right thing?’”
Some new windscreen rubbers solved the leakage issue, the starter motor was removed and fixed, and the fuses were dried out and reconnected.
“Eventually, it started, and it’s been fine since then,” smiles Harry, speaking from his Lowestoft home, a stone’s throw from the seafront.
Born on the Suffolk coast, Harry moved with his family to Wembley as a baby and grew up in the north-west London suburb.
His first real motoring memory is going for a drive in his parents’ new Beetle, an identical blue to one owned by his aunt and uncle.
“It was quite spooky actually, because the two cars were bought at different times but they had the same registration apart from one number – ours was GRK 895J and theirs was GRK 896J,” he remembers.
“We had that for a good few years and then ended up buying a camper, so we did a few camping holidays down to Devon and Cornwall and all round that kind of way, sleeping in the pop top. They then got all different cars.”
Harry’s first venture on to the roads was on mopeds at 16, graduating to Suzuki GSXRs (he still has one), before buying a Hillman Hunter once he passed his driving test at 17.
A Mk1 Ford Escort van followed, then a Granada, before a working trip to Florida brought him into close contact with all things American aged about 21.
Santa Pod raceway regular
He became a regular at Santa Pod raceway on his return, and ended up buying a 1970 Chevrolet Nova, running the compact muscle car on the strip.
“I always liked the American styles, the Rockabilly stuff and things like that,” he says, a double bass facing us in his lounge – a Christmas gift from Viv he’s yet to find time to master.
“I’ve been doing up the house, but that’s nearly done now and then I can learn. For now, it’s an ornament.”
The Chevy was anything but.
“I used to drive it on the street, but also race it at the weekends as well,” he says. “A few people I know still do it with the Outlaw Anglias and the Supercharged Outlaws.”
After a good dozen years of V8 fun, Harry did an abrupt about turn and bought a Beetle.
“Where I was working in London, I’d seen it parked up for sale a few times, and ended up buying it,” he says. “That was our family car. It was slammed right on the floor, but Viv didn’t care – she just jumped in and she loved driving it to work.
“We went to Newquay for Run to the Sun, roof rack on, surfboard and everything on there, kids in the back seat with all the quilts and stuff – you could just see their heads popping above that. “Then in the front, where the spare wheel is supposed to go, I took it off and moved it and we shoved loads of bits in there – tents and cots and stuff for the kids.”
The family competed the seven-hour journey down with no problems, but things didn’t go to plan on the return journey.
“Coming out of Newquay, there was a big hill and just as we were getting to the top, the generator light came on and it was ‘urgh urgh urgh’. We managed to get to the top of the hill and pulled over into a layby. It seems that because I’d moved the spare wheel, it had been moving about and rubbed up against the wiring loom.”
When the recovery truck arrived, the driver took one look at the lowered Beetle and said “it’s not going to get on”.
“As he was pulling it up the bumper was making horrible scraping noises, but I said ‘just drag it on, don’t worry’,” says Harry. “Another seven-odd hours back home again, I got it fixed and it was fine for another two or three years.”
From Beetle to camper
After the Beetle came the Bay Type 2 panel van, used for work and to “scrag around in”, as well as for moving the family lock, stock and barrel from London back to the sea air of Lowestoft.
“It got to a stage when Viv moved up with the kids and got a job, while I was still finishing off bits and pieces,” he says. “I’d drive up in the van, do bits on the house and then go back again, living in a flat with my brother. I remember filling the van up for my last journey to Lowestoft about 20 years ago.”
After patching up the old van as required, there came a point when Harry couldn’t afford to keep it going, and it was replaced with a series of “regular cars”.
That was, until this March, when the burnt orange Squareback came into Harry and Viv’s life.
The Volkswagen Type 3 was made in Fastback, Notchback and Squareback versions from 1961 until 1973, with the VW estate Squareback marketed as the Variant in the UK.
Initially equipped with a 1493cc engine based on the air-cooled 1192cc Beetle unit, it was later enlarged to 1584cc and Harry’s car features the at-the-time groundbreaking Bosch electronic fuel-injection system.
Another feature of the Type 3 Squareback’s engine, that led to its nickname as the pancake or suitcase engine, was its squashed profile compared to the Beetle’s, achieved by putting the fan on the end of the crankshaft instead of the generator.
This allowed for plenty of rear luggage space, handy for people like Harry who plan on travelling to festivals with a large bell tent and other camping paraphernalia.
Gradually improving the VW Type 3 Squareback
“It’s just nice to get something again after all these years, and that’s ideal for us – there’s so much space,” he says, planning on gradually improving a car that already looks in pretty good nick.
“I’m building a carport and, once that’s finished, I can get it in there over winter and start doing bits and pieces, including some welding around the jacking points. I’ll generally go through everything.
“The plan is to go to shows, keep it clean and running, and enjoy ourselves.”
So far, Harry and Viv have attended the Beetle-Juiced festival at Woodbridge, and Alive & V-Dubbin at Haughley Park, both in Suffolk.
“We got there and back OK, and it was all good fun,” says Harry, who enjoys turning up in something other than a Beetle or camper.
“We’ve been to shows and you might only ever see two or three Squarebacks, so it’s just nice to have something a bit different. I think Beetles are nice, but everyone’s got Beetles.
“I quite like that it’s left hand drive as well. It’s from California, so it’s all part of it, and it’s quite cool. I’m used to left hand drive because of the Chevy, and I don’t plan on over-taking much – just cruising along at about 50mph. I don’t want to be motoring around in it – just take your time.”
The car’s rarity also attracts more attention than your typical Beetle or camper, says Harry.
“I went out earlier to get some fuel, and as you’re driving around people are looking and pointing, so it’s nice,” he adds.
Harry is living proof that it’s possible to love the thrill of the big V8s at Santa Pod, and the more sedate charms of air-cooled Volkswagens in the more bucolic surroundings of the Suffolk countryside.
After dipping in and out of VW life for more than 30 years, this time, Harry is in it for good.
