There’s a particular kind of satisfaction in taking a photo on a hot weekend, a long time ago, then having the current owner stumble across it years later and get in touch. It means it still matters to someone.
Let's go back to Bug Jam. Santa Pod, Summer 2003.
It was my first one and even I could tell it was different. You drive through the gates and it hits you straight away: suncream, burgers, that slightly oily air-cooled aroma and the faint, skunky note of “relaxation” drifting on the breeze. Rows of Beetles and buses, lowered ones, shiny ones, odd ones, all parked up among sofas, tents, disposable barbecues and empty beer cans.
Somewhere in the middle of it all I clocked a ’61 Beetle in cool, calm blue. Chrome bumpers, overriders, twin exhaust tips glinting in the sunshine. Proper, patina-worn black-and-silver plates: 238 DGE. It sat low, not cartoonish, just right. I took the photo, filed it away with hundreds of others and carried on enjoying my weekend. I don’t remember much else. It was very hot and I had the mother of all hangovers.
Fast-forward nearly 25 years and the current owner emails me. He’d found the picture in my gallery and recognised his car from before he owned it.
He’s had 238 DGE since 2017 and it’s still going strong. Same wheels, same paint, just a tweak to the stance: it’s been raised a touch now, more raked than slammed. In other words, it’s matured. Or maybe the roads have got worse. Possibly both.
I asked about the colour. VW Gulf Blue. Original shade, restored in 2000 and repainted back to factory spec. He’s also got the original 1961 dealer service book, the kind of paperwork that turns an old car into a living thread through history.
But the best bit isn’t the colour name or the service book.
It’s why he bought it.
His first cars were a ’72 and a ’73 Beetle back in the early 90s. He and his dad spent a lot of time working on them together, proper time: learning, fixing, swearing, improving, doing it again. That led him to study engineering, then into 27 years in the car industry with Ford.
His dad passed away in 2016. In 2017 he bought another Beetle in his memory - this one.
That’s the point of old cars when you strip away the scene and the Instagram likes. They’re small machines that carry big, personal weight.
And that’s what I love about maintaining these archives. Most of the time it’s just me documenting a weekend, capturing the scene and filing it away. Then, years later, one frame finds its way back to someone who cares and the effort suddenly makes sense. That’s a real thank you.
