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Orange Crush - Owner: Jon Rivers
I grew up in the '80s in England. When I was 17 and able to drive, I looked around to possibly buy a Volkswagen Beetle, but I ended up taking a different direction and bought a Ford Escort Mk1. In the 90s, I started to get the Bug (sorry for the pun) more and more for Volkswagens. I had friends who were surfers who had buses and a work colleague who had a black Golf GTI convertible MK1 (wow, that was an amazing car).
Eventually, I bought my first Volkswagen, a Silver First Generation
Scirocco. I had a lot of fun with that car until I blew the head casket
on a heavy, cold day. It froze, and eventually, water got into the engine.
The car was never the same after that, so I sold it. Roll forward as I
got older (now living in the United States), I promised myself that I
would buy a 1968 Karmann Ghia Convertible when I turned 50.
By the time I turned 50, I still hadn't brought the Karmann Ghia I promised
myself due to being unable to find one at my price point. 2020/2021 came
around I started to look at other years. A few possibilities came up,
but when I reached out, they ended up being scammers! But the search didn't
stop. At the end of the summer of 2021, I saw a Facebook ad for a 1973
Orange Karmann Ghia Convertible in Bartow, Florida, not too far from where
I lived. I took a drive out to look at it.
The car belonged to an older gentleman (he had a VW Thing as well that he had already sold) who was unable to drive it anymore because neither he nor his wife could get in and out of it. The Ghia was clean and rust-free, but the only thing that bugged me was that it was orange, which was not my favorite color at the time. The car had also had a full restoration about 10 years previously by the current owner.
Anyway, I decided to buy it with the thought I would eventually change the color. This made me the third owner. Since I have owned the car, I have done minimal repairs. Apart from that, I had to have the engine rebuilt because we found a nut in the piston. After nearly owning the car for 3 years, the orange paint color has grown on me, and I wouldn't change it. My kids call the car the "Orange Crush."
Everywhere I go, the car turns heads, including when I was among over 350 Volkswagens driving over the Skyway Bridge in Florida. I can't wait for the nighttime drive over the bridge later this year. It's not a museum-quality car, but it's enjoyed and driven to VW events on a regular basis in the Tampa area.
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