MellowYellow1303 - Bernadette

Well first a bit of catching up. I have owned the car since May 1996, but took it off the road in June 2000. I was saving to buy a house and could not afford to get the work done to get it through the MOT. Failure was mostly down to rust, of which there turned out to be quite a lot!

I bought my house in Jan 2002, and Bernadette finally had somewhere warm and dry to live. Then I started the job of taking the car to bits and finding out how bad the rot was. Reduced to a rolling shell, she was taken up the road to Offmore Road Garage in November 2004 emerging again in May 2005 complete with new floor pans, heater channels, sill strengtheners, boot floor, valence and various other bits of repair work. I then started the job (assisted by my Dad) of prepping the shell for paint in my chosen colour - VW mellow yellow B3B3 (a new beetle cabriolet colour) - which I had chosen to spray myself (to keep costs down). Work ground to a bit of a halt in around November as the cold weather set in, with the shell in grey primer. I had already painted various panels such as the wings, boot and bonnet by this stage, as well as obtaining a NOS door, alloys (to be fitted during phase2), EMPI adjustable front struts and some other bits and bobs on ebay. Easter 2006 saw the next flurry of activity with a week off work, and the shell finally painted. The doors still need painting (and one needs repairs) and the front wings need touching up where I have flared them a bit to clear the tyres, but I will do those when I have bolted the other bits to the shell and reclaimed my spare bedrooms and loft!

There are photos of the shell before it was taken for repairs, along with various photos of work taking place in the workshop at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/davux1303/my_photos and http://photobucket.com/albums/y171/mellowyellow03cab and some photos and info about Bernadette in her former life here