"Martha", my 1955 Deluxe Sunroof Beetle turns 65 years old

[BulliBill]

Happy 65th birthday to my unrestored 1955 Deluxe Sunroof Beetle! We go back quite a ways, as I bought her at the 1993 "VW Classic" event and have enjoyed her ever since. Her name is "Martha" in honor of the original owner who bought her brand new off the show room floor in Stockton, CA in 1955 and took such good care of her. By the way, this '55 Sunroof is the only one of my eight VWs that I have ever felt the need to assign a name to. It just felt right.

Martha K. (the only registered owner before me) kept her in tip-top condition, never added any accessories (not even a radio, 8-track or cassette player), and Martha and her daughter Patricia put about 52K miles on her over 38 years of ownership. Eventually after Martha K. entered a rest home "Martha" was gifted to Patricia but eventually the car temporarily passed on to a car enthusiast/broker in Santa Barbara who spiffed her up a little for re-sale and sold her to me just months later at "The Classic" event in 1999.

We've gone on lots of adventures together, and she currently has almost 75K miles on her original numbers-correct drivetrain. Back in the summer of 1998 she and I and my co-driver Tom Niedernhofer were honored to be invited to participate together in the upcoming infamous "Return to the Fatherland" driving tour (in June of 1999) from L.A across the USA/Canada, then across the Atlantic Ocean by container ship with eight other USA-owned pre-1957 Type 1's to London and onward to meet up for a spectacular evening with Major Ivan Hirst, then across the English Channel towards Osnabruck, Germany to tour it's collection, then onward to visit and return those nine old VWs to their actual birthplace at the VW Factory in Wolfsburg Germany for three days, and then onward to attend the Bad Camberg event in 1999, and then we retraced our steps all the way back home. That little adventure put about 6,631 miles on Martha's odometer, six countries under her wheels and 28 spectacular days onto our lives together.

So on June 22nd, 2020 she reached the ripe old age of 65! What a landmark! To celebrate, I got a few of my other old VWs out of her way deep in my garage and she fired up as if I drove her just yesterday. Fluids good, check! Brakes working well, check! Off we went for a quick midday spin around our neighborhood to be sure all was in order. It had been a while since we had been out for a drive together, too long! She seemed happy to be running around, so I told my wife Kathryn that we'd be taking "Martha" out for a an hour drive later that evening around sunset to celebrate the birthday event. Here are a few more photos from our evening drive.

Here she is parked on "Main Street", St. Charles, MO among old homes and businesses, a few dating back to the late 1700's.

Martha took Kathryn and I, okay, the three of us for a nice scenic and most importantly an uneventful cruise through two counties and back home again. I owe her some "lovin'" so "Martha" will be getting some light maintenance including a old-fuel drain, all new fuel lines, a new fan belt, clutch and brake adjustment, all new rubber brake lines, etc. over the next few day, plus best of all, some more driving time!

Happy birthday to my old girl, and may we enjoy many, many more years together!

Bill
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I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[56Cabrio]

Great pictures Bill, what a beautiful car you have.
Post some pics from Return to the Fatherland ?
Dave
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1956 Rag Top owned since 1988
1956 Convertible owned since 2000
1963 Hard Top

RIP Dad 4/20/1951 - 2/4/2023

[BulliBill]

Howdy Dave!

How you been?

I don't think that I have ever started a thread about this Deluxe Sunroof, so I figured in addition to announcing how old the old girl is, this could be an ongoing thread about this car, one of the most important to me in my collection. Just for you, here is a shot from the RTTFT '99.

"Martha" and the Tour cars entering the western security gate at the VW Factory at Wolfsburg, Germany in June 1999 on day one of our three-day Wolfsburg visit.

The RTTFT cars driving on the Ehra-Lessien perimeter road and along their high security fencing. During a three-day visit VWAG set up a multi-day program of events and tours, lunches and dinners (yes, there was beer!) for out Tour group. One of the special surprises that I asked my VW contact about, but fully expected would be turned down for, was that VW sent us all on a private tour of the VWAG proving (testing) grounds at Ehra-Lessien (about 20 km from Wolfsburg) where along with German TV and VW's video crews for documentation we met test drivers and were treated to rides with them in a specially prepped "newBeetle Cup Series" VR6 equipped race car on their huge seamless skid pad and then we were allowed to run our own (primitive in comparison) early VWs around the skid pad and their slalom course. Great fun!

One of my favorite shots of Martha and I together (it's my Samba.com "avatar") parked for a VWAG photoshoot of all the RTTF Tour cars and drivers against the backdrop of the old VW Factory building at Wolfsburg, Germany

Man! That was the VW adventure of a lifetime! 21 years ago today we were actually there...

Bill Bowman
_________________
I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[56Cabrio]

I'm doing good,family is doing good also in these crazy times. Thanks for the pictures, not to put you on the spot but im sure everybody would love to see more pics & stories from RTTFT. What a trip of a lifetime,maybe you could start a thread on your adventures or write that book you were telling me about Your articles in Hot VW's were always a good read.
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1956 Rag Top owned since 1988
1956 Convertible owned since 2000
1963 Hard Top

RIP Dad 4/20/1951 - 2/4/2023

[Rome]

Hey, Bill; fine shots of Martha; car looks "alive" with the running lights on in the evening shots. You've maintained the car so well since I first saw it as another short-leg participant of the Fatherland tour in '99 (in Ghia Cabrio). I have numerous photos from the Michigan to central NY drive phase of that trip; I'm sure there's at least one of Martha. I should get busy with scanning them and post them on theSamba.

[joey1320]

Beautiful car
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[BulliBill]

Thanks Joey,

"Martha" came from Wolfsburg that way, and Martha Klein and her daughter kept her that way, and now its my job to be her caretaker. I've enjoyed owning and driving her for the past 27 years and it is my goal to take great care of her needs for as long as I can! With this, and pretty much all of my other seven VWs, money and my efforts are no object to make them happy!

Bill Bowman
_________________
I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[67 Florida Deluxe]

Unrestored, wow ! That is a beautiful car

Happy (belated) Birthday, Martha
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-Kent (BaT "daleallen")

OG member of the '67 Posse

A few of my toys, past and present
'56 Oval, '66 KG Conv't, '67 21-Window, '67 Bug, '79 SuperVert, '55 Pre-A Continental

[scaferr]

Bill,
Thanks for sharing the pictures and the great story. It must have been an amazing experience to be able to take her Back to Wolfsburg and being able to drive her around different places while in Europe . It’s really impressive How she has been well maintained all these years, congratulations and Happy belated Birthday to Martha!

Adriano

[Dave]

Martha is looking great for her age, Bill, my clone to Martha went to a man named Tim in Texas, and as of last week, he said she is still her hale and hearty self, with only routine maintenance being done to keep her up.
-Dave Cormack
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[BulliBill]

Dave! Great to hear from you!

Nice to hear that your old Oval "mate" of mine is doing well in Texas. It was cool that both look-alike Ovals were parked near each other that day at the 1993 VW Classic where I first saw "Martha", and that you had admired her too. I still can't get over the fact that I had absolutely no intentions to buy anything other than a few Classic trinkets and maybe a few small VW parts in the swap meet that I could carry back home in my roll-aboard flight bag, but that I ended up impulsively making the Oval purchase of a lifetime, for me anyway!

I remember asking several VW experts to look "Martha" over and slap some sense into me if I was doing the wrong thing. And everyone to a man said to buy the car before several who were waiting in the wings got her first. A few even said that if I didn't buy her, that they might. Minutes later I owned her! One of the happy highlights of my VW hobby career...

Bill Bowman
_________________
I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[ZENVWDRIVER]

… Wish I was 65 again - our 1955 (nameless) bug was that age in March, 2020 - we had a small gathering pizza party - In a few months, our 1950 11A (also nameless) will be 70 - might hava' small pizza party, then too - hava' happy one, Martha - uncle z

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5/50, pastel green 11G - SOLD
8/50, gray 11A Beetle
6/52, pastel green 11C - SOLD
11/4/52, black Zwitter - SOLD to my little bro.
1954 Porsche, pre A, with VW 36 horse- SOLD
1/54, black 11C Beetle - TRADED
2/55 Iceland green Beetle, on a 1965 pan
3/55 113 Beetle, stratos silver
1955 Messerschmitt KR175 - SOLD, sadly
1960 single cab
1962 SO33, with SO 42 interior
9/63 Pacific blue, Ghia
'87 Toyota MR2
'02 WestFORDia E-150, GAVE TO OUR SON

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[BulliBill]

Hi all,

I thought you might enjoy a short celebratory ride through my neighborhood in "Martha" to commemorate her 65th Birthday on June 22nd, 2020.


Link


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roqN5NcfiwE&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy!

Bill
_________________
I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[aa390392]

Bill thanks for sharing....great car.
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getting grumpy & less tolerant!


55 ragtop
56 delux sedan
56 Kabriolet

[EverettB]

Nice video.

Is the steering wheel unrestored? It looks mint.

I'm curious because the 2 1955 Buses I've had both seemed to have a bunch of steering wheel wear, even though they didn't have tons and tons of miles, under 100K
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[67 Florida Deluxe]

Perfect day for a celebration cruise!
_________________
-Kent (BaT "daleallen")

OG member of the '67 Posse

A few of my toys, past and present
'56 Oval, '66 KG Conv't, '67 21-Window, '67 Bug, '79 SuperVert, '55 Pre-A Continental

[BulliBill]

[EverettB]

[BulliBill]

So I've been treating "Martha" to a little lovin' for a few hours each day and here are a few photos of the work.

Bringing her into a bay in my garage...

Some of the tasks that I wanted accomplish were to replace the used cloth covered rubber fuel lines, so last week I replaced the fuel line from where it exits the rear end of the chassis and goes up next to the transaxle to the metal line entering the engine compartment. While the rear end was up I also slightly adjusted the clutch pedal free play. Martha sports one of the early Gene Berg 1 1/2 quart add-on 36hp oil sumps that I installed right before departing on the 6,631 mile 1999 "Return To The Fatherland Tour" to Europe and back. So I dropped 4 quarts of oil, cleaned everything up and added another four quarts as well as changing the oil in the '55 air cleaner. I new I had one original front suspension stop/"snubber" that was pretty much cracked and starting to come apart, so I also planned to replace both snubbers.

So this week I got her up in the air and safely onto jack stands with the jack as a back-up. Both front wheels came off to get scrubbed (both sides), tires inspected, and then I waxed up both inner and outer faces of the wheels...

In the photo above, I used the floor jack to lift each wheel to take tension off the rubber stop/snubber and removed both old ones. I then I used a water-soluble clear goo used to lubricate electrical wire to be fished through conduit to make things slippery, and with a rubber mallet I easily popped the new snubber on on both sides.

Below you can see my "square" fuel tank where after using the fuel petcock to switch off the fuel flow, I reached in, removed the clamps and old fuel line, and replaced it and clamps. Pretty clean in there.

I wanted to get into each wheel well, remove any road tar/grease and then re-wax the entire well. So here is what it looks like in there after a little rubbing and waxing. That original paint is looking good and the wheel well is again protected from rain and more road tar for some time.

And where you'd expect the worst of rock chips and gunk, it still looks pretty good!

I got a chance to pump fresh grease into all 12 front zerk fittings in the front suspension, and all four zerk fittings on the four tie-rod ends. I'll do the two zerk fitting in the rear on the e-brake cables when I get the the rear wheels off and clean/wax the insides of the rear wheel wells in a few days.

Here is one of the front original paint wheels on a table after waxing both side of the wheel. These white wall radials are close to twenty years old, and I'll probably replace them with black walls soon, but on close-up examination I see absolutely no exterior cracking or signs of wear and decomposition. They are pretty much brown wall radials now.

Bill Bowman
_________________
I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[67 Florida Deluxe]

Simply stunning!
_________________
-Kent (BaT "daleallen")

OG member of the '67 Posse

A few of my toys, past and present
'56 Oval, '66 KG Conv't, '67 21-Window, '67 Bug, '79 SuperVert, '55 Pre-A Continental