It was 1974, and Ray Clayton was driving down the Old Kent Road in his Cortina 1600GT when something bright orange caught his eye.
Until then, he’d never given Volkswagen Beetles a second thought, or even really noticed their existence.
But something about the 1972 Bug in the showroom of Pursers made him double take, stop, and have a closer look.
“I thought ‘oh my God, what is that?’” he remembers, chatting at his home in Bromley, Kent. “I drove in and thought ‘I’ve got to buy this, I don’t want the Cortina any more’.
“I have to have a Beetle”
“Everyone said to me ‘why did you do that?’ I didn’t know, I just saw it and thought ‘I have to have a Beetle’. I didn’t even test drive it.”
It was a big change from the Ford, and took some getting used to.
“The Cortina used to fly – it was fast,” says Ray, “but it was red and I was in my very early 20s, and every time a police car saw me they pulled me over.
“I never got a speeding fine or anything – ‘really sorry officer, it will not happen again’ and they’d let me off.
“Getting in the Beetle, I remember going off down the Old Kent Road and slamming on the brakes thinking I was on the accelerator. Then I realised pretty quickly that it’s a completely different drive. I was going towards the Elephant and Castle too fast, it was raining and I spun the car all the way round twice before driving off.”
Nearly 50 years later, Ray remains devoted to the Beetle cause, owning a ‘77 Karmann cabriolet as well as a Danbury camper from the same year.
Not only that, but in recent years he has taken on the role of chairman for the Volkswagen Cabriolet Owners Club, helping to arrange meetings in the UK and abroad.
VW Beetles are such “a unique car”
“I’d never ever get fed up of looking at Beetles, driving Beetles, or talking about Beetles,” he says. “It’s just such a unique car.”
Ray first ventured onto the roads as a teenager in the mid ‘60s on a Lambretta.
“I was a mod, and the scooter had the fox tails and all the mirrors, just like in Quadrophenia, that was us,” he says. “Then I bought a Vespa SS Hurricane, which was a bit faster than your average Vespa, but I only had it for about a year or so. As soon as I could drive a car I got rid of that and bought a Ford Anglia.”
Then came the sporty Cortina and the orange Beetle, a 1302 that accompanied Ray and his wife Lorna to New Zealand to work in the film industry in 1976.
The couple had met while both working for Humphries Film Laboratories in Camden, buying a house together in Plumstead in the early ‘70s.
“It’s a long story but we used to have problems renting because Lorna is from the Caribbean,” says Ray. “One minute you’d got the flat, and then suddenly you hadn’t got the flat. Ken Livingstone at the time was giving out interest free mortgages for first time buyers, and we got a little place. They were different times, and I’m glad it’s changing now, a lot.”
Shipping the 1302 VW Beetle over to New Zealand and back
The couple had the Beetle shipped over to New Zealand, where Ray could have sold it for four times the £400 he’d paid for it.
“I could have bought two houses in Auckland with that money,” he says. “There were all these colonial wooden houses rented out to people who had just come in from the islands. They weren’t in good order, and you could have got one for a few thousand dollars. They’re still there and you’re now looking at $2.5m…”
Perhaps regrettably, he didn’t sell it, and the Beetle returned with Ray and Lorna to the UK two years later, the couple hopping between the two countries for work until the early ‘90s.
“There was always a job waiting for me when I came back – I never went for an interview,” says Ray, who worked with director Ridley Scott and “did a few bits” on Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back.
The Beetle was sold on Ray’s return, however, and was followed by a regrettable dalliance with a Citroen 2CV6.
“I put down a £50 deposit on this really perfect Beetle and then someone lent me a 2CV because I didn’t have a car at the time,” he remembers. “I changed my mind and thought ‘I want one of these’, so I cancelled my order and bought a 2CV6. I loved it, but it was 600cc and had a three-speed gearbox, and you were forever changing gear.
“I hired one on holiday in Majorca, and I remember going up a steep hill. We got halfway up, I’m in first gear and the car’s not moving, so I had to go up crabbing across the road. When I got back I sold mine!”
Metallic black 1303 cabriolet? Yes, really
That’s when the metallic black (yes, that’s the official colour) 1303 cabriolet, nicknamed Veronica, first entered the Clayton’s lives, bought in 1978 as the family car.
“According to the birth certificate, it’s metallic black, but it isn’t, it’s brown,” smiles Ray, who remembers taking the couple’s children, Serena and Daniel, in the Beetle on the school run.
“They loved going to school with the hood down. All the other kids used to come out and they’d bundle in the car.”
There were also family holidays in the cabriolet to the Norfolk Broads (“I love it up there”), before Ray got a company car and the Beetle was stored at his parents for many years.
“The last time we went back to New Zealand, the Beetle was left parked up and it nearly got towed away as scrap,” he says. “Lorna wanted to get rid of it, maybe part exchange it, but I always found a way to hang on to it.”
It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that the cabriolet was brought back into regular use, thanks to money from Ray’s pension.
Restored VW Beetle
“There was a little bit of cash, so instead of reinvesting it back into the pension I had the restoration done on the Beetle,” he says, driving the still roadworthy car down to a garage on the south coast.
The Beetle was furnished with a new hood – though Ray is not sold on the blue colour – and a strip-down and respray in its original colour.
“I don’t really like that hood to be honest,” he says, a change from the original white. “I thought it might be a good idea at the time. You can get them in a dark brown, which would look perfect for that.”
On the inside, the seats were retrimmed, much to Ray’s displeasure.
“They made one massive error which really annoyed me, but I couldn’t do anything about it,” he explains. “The interior was the original parchment fabric, which you can’t get anymore.
“One of the seats was split and I’d asked them if they could repair it. He couldn’t do it so he ripped the whole thing out and put in what we’ve got now, which is not authentic at all. If they’d phoned me up and asked me, I’d have said don’t do anything, leave it.
“I’ve still not given up on finding the parchment though – I might try Germany.”
The original engine required very little work, while Ray replaced the wheels with a set of SSP alloys, which have not been wholly satisfactory.
Driving the VW Beetle is a balancing act
“You can’t balance them – it’s impossible,” he says. “If you go over about 60mph they judder like crazy. Once you get over 75mph they calm down, but who wants to do 75mph in a 40-year-old car?
“Some of the guys in the club have had all sorts of work done on the suspension and axles, and still can’t get the balance right.
“I’ve got the original steel wheels in the shed and they are going to go back on, once I’ve had them restored.”
Ray had long been an inactive member of the Cabriolet Club but, with the Beetle back on the road, he and Lorna decided to embrace the VW community.
“I joined the club when I bought the car,” he says. “I’m one of the longest-serving members, but I never went to any events because the car was a little bit rusty here and there and I had the family.
“It wasn’t until I had it restored that I said to Lorna ‘let’s go to one of the events’. We went to Rutland and it was fantastic.”
Since then, the couple have been all over Europe with the club, latterly with Ray as chairman and Lorna as club treasurer.
As well as UK events, there’s an annual international event arranged by the club and its counterparts in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany.
120 cabriolet Beetles in sunny weather
“I remember doing a convoy through some Dutch villages and there were 120 cabriolet Beetles, in sunny weather all with their hoods down,” says Ray, a father of three and grandfather of eight.
“The noise was something else. All the kids came out waving – you felt good.
“We also had a great one in Germany. It’s only two guys over there, and we went down to Saarland, which is quite industrial. There’s an old ironworks which was never demolished, and they’ve turned it into a walk-through museum. You can go through the blast furnaces and to the top of these old buildings, which is really interesting. Unfortunately, the beer was awful.”
Covid interrupted these European tours, but for 2022 the UK club is hosting the event over a weekend in August at Loughborough, taking in Calke Abbey and Belvoir Castle.
“There are not so many overseas visitors this year, because of a combination of Covid, the war in Ukraine and the problems with P&O ferries,” says Ray. “We were hoping for 50 to 75, but we’re just short of 40 in total.
“I can’t blame people – we were supposed to go to Switzerland last year but we cancelled because we thought we might get stuck in France because of Covid.”
You’re never far from a helping hand when you own a VW
On the whole, the Beetle has been very reliable since its restoration and, when things do go wrong, there’s usually someone on hand to help.
“I was running late on my way to an event at Tatton Park near Manchester and I put my foot down,” says Ray. “I was probably doing over 70mph and I totally wrecked the distributor cap, the rotor arm just fell apart. I coasted into a service station and there just happened to be a load of VWs all going to the same venue.
“They realised I was trouble and they hunted all the parts out for me from their spares and fixed it all for me. I said ‘how much?’ but they said to catch up with them at Tatton Park and they’d work it out. They didn’t want anything, but I gave them a tenner in the end.
“If you see someone broken down, invariably you’ll pull up and try to help. I’ve seen it happen lots of times.”
The only other breakdown was a couple of years ago, when the thrust bearing on the clutch disintegrated on the way to an event.
“It was only then that I realised it was the original clutch,” says Ray. “It had done 72,000 miles but it was so old it fell apart.” This time, the AA rode to his rescue…
Lately, the Beetle has been running well, partly thanks to some work carried out last year at Jack’s Garage, and it’s all set for many more years of service.
“It’s part of the family,” says Ray, “and I think my son Daniel will be interested in it. He’s not an enthusiast like me, but when the grandkids are a bit more grown up I’d like to take them to some of the meetings.
“The (adult) kids did come to Rutland Water with us once and they loved it. I’d like them to join the club.”
Lorna has just returned from taking Daniel’s son, Otis, to the library, and she, too, hopes the Cabriolet will stay in the family.
“It was our family car, so at the time it was the only car I drove, getting the children to and from school and having up to four kids in the car sometimes,” she says.
“I can’t drive it anymore though. When we went to the Champagne region of France for one of the internationals, Ray left me stranded somewhere and I tried to get it in reverse so I could move it but I couldn’t do it. If I just went forward I’d be OK.”
Danbury camper and project 1972 1302 Beetle added to the collection
As well as the Beetle, there’s the Danbury camper and, in the garage, a project 1972 1302 Beetle bought out of someone’s garage for £300 several years ago.
The camper is almost identical to one that Ray took to New Zealand in the early 90s, using it travelling all over the islands.
“I wanted to buy that one back, but the New Zealand authorities wouldn’t release the owner’s telephone number so I could never find it,” he says. “Then I was at a Volksworld show about six years ago and this was up for sale and I thought ‘it’s identical apart from the colour’, and a ‘77 the same as the Beetle. So I bought it.
“I do a lot of fishing, so the idea was instead of getting up early, I’d find a nice lake that lets you camp up so you can be there early morning and late at night. I’ve done it once!”
It’s had a few reliability problems, but son Daniel and daughter Serena have borrowed it, keeping the family VW tradition alive.
As for the Marina Blue Beetle, it had been garaged for about 20 years when Ray found out it was available.
“I rushed over there about eight years ago, but it hasn’t been used since,” he says. “I pumped up the tyres, put a new battery in and fresh fuel and, after a couple of minutes, it fired up.
“It’s a retirement project to become my runaround. I’ve never got bored with Beetles, and I never will.”
Join the VW Cabriolet Club
Finally, a plea…
Over the years, the Cabriolet Club membership has shrunk from about 500 to its current 160, largely as a result of an ageing membership.
Join for £25 a year for a range of discounts and other benefits.
