VW 1500 Convertible brochure, 1961

I've been waiting to post until something blogworthy presented itself. Fortunately this brochure just arrived in the mail.






Sadly the VW 1500 Convertible — aka Cabriolet, aka Type 351 — never made it into production, but lucky for us the brochure did.

Hollywood Freeway, 1962

A postcard showing the Hollywood Freeway looking north toward Hollywood from the Rosemont Avenue overpass, just north of downtown Los Angeles, on a nice day in 1962. The location is very close to where I live and it looks almost the same today except for the cars. There are a few European imports mixed in with all the American cars — a Volvo P444, an Alfa Giulietta Spider, a Mercedes Ponton and a VW 1200 – and a couple of Detroit compacts – the Big Three's attempt to reckon with the success of the foreign newcomers – but not a Japanese car to be seen. That would begin to change a few years later. As with the Sunset Boulevard photo I posted recently, the goal of my Ghia's restoration will be for it to look like it could be dropped right into this scene.

Andy Holmes shows us how it's done

Andy's stunning late 1961 1500 Ghia makes its debut at Volksworld:




[images by turnhill, nabbed from The Samba]

More photos and the complete restoration story on Andy's restoration blog. Congrats Andy!