'follow me' airport beetle?

[finster]

looking at the pics of this '55 oval in the classifieds I immediately thought of those 'follow me' airport beetles in the 50s/60s - could this be the remains one of them?
as a diy custom job this would take a lot of effort to convert, finding the right shaped glass/perspex for the curvature etc. I can only find pics of a split based car on the web - what do others think...?
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2218397

having emailed the owner he has confirmed the window is glass, has no history of the car yet has added the words follow me into the ad's heading

[joey1320]

Cool looking bug. Seems like the glass was installed upside down when compared to the other picture.
Good price.
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**1971 Super Project
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[Rome]

In the early 1990's I translated several articles from the German VW magazine "Gute Fahrt" for the Vintage VW Club of America. The articles came out for many years in the monthly editions, written by Hans-Joachim Klersey. The 1-pagers covered many rare, coachbuilt or conversion-bodied VWs from the '40's thru '60's. One of them was for the "Follow Me" Beetle. I vaguely remember a very similar photo as the original yellow Beetle. I don't remember which company made these conversions. Purpose was for the Beetle to meet the landing plane at the runway after it stopped and lead it to the airport terminal. Size of the rear window enabled the driver and/or passenger to look up to the pilot in the plane at a steep angle. I've never seen an actual Follow Me Beetle in current photos. Too bad the seller of this Beetle did not include a photo of the instrument panel.

[finster]

what would a photo of the dash reveal? I'll ask him for one

[Rome]

Just to show what was changed. The ad mentioned "the dash are also modified and cut". I don't remember a photo of the original dashboard in the Gute Fahrt article. But with so many other exterior changes to the car, it's likely the dash was also modified by many previous owners since the FollowMe original conversion was performed.

[finster]

he has sent me a photo of the dash but it has been cut out completely and customised - however there is what appears to be a large bracket where the rear view mirror would have mounted which might be 'original'. I would expect a follow me to have a larger than standard mirror set-up

[banana split]

Just for reference, here's a split window (or maybe an oval if you go by the tail lights) that was made into a follow me Bug :

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My Beetles :
1951 Crotch Cooler 11G Split Ragtop
1953 Zwitter
1964 Chop Top

[Rome]

Thanks for getting and posting that dashboard shot, finster. Reminds me of a small airplane cockpit inspiration.

The follow me Beetle with the pretty gal could play Herbie and follow her around!

[splitjunkie]

[joey1320]

[vwhelmot]

[Motorhead55]

I'll bet the car wasn't still a 6 volt electrical system. In fact, it may have needed an auxiliary generator or an additional generator mounted in the engine compartment and driven by the engine.
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2007 Dodge Cummins Diesel 4x4 6spd stick
1939 WILLYS pickup
1967 Triumph Tiger Cub

[finster]

you're right - they had an extra generator set-up something like this