Sweet like chocolate

Around a decade ago, Kevin Villa turned his back on air-cooled Volkswagens and got into the watercooled scene. We are glad to say he decided to come back, and what a comeback he has made!

- Ivan McCutcheon

There is very good chance you will recognise this ragtop Oval Window if you were among the thousands of visitors who made the annual pilgrimage to The VolksWorld Show in April this year. You couldn’t have missed it, as it was not only one of the cars you’d have seen on entering the show, it was one of the cars we selected to be part of the main display of the show, our stand.

As well as showcasing the car at our show, we wanted to bring this feature to you as quickly as possible in case you didn’t have the opportunity to see the car for real. Even if you did, I can assure you from personal experience that this is where this article will be of benefit. You see Kevin is French, and the only language he and I share is Volkswagen, so every question I asked had to be translated before being emailed, and likewise every answer I received back. And while online translators are helpful tools, they are far from perfect and you end up trying to decipher what is being said from confusing bunkum.

Paddling pool

What was fairly easy to work out is that Kevin lives in Reims, and this Export Deluxe Oval left the Wolfsburg factory in 1956, though Kevin did not come into the picture until the latter part of 2012, when he made that decision to get back into aircooled Volkswagens. During his damp sojourn in the VW paddling pool, Kevin transformed a Mk3 Golf into a lime green, low riding show car, then turned his attention toward a 1975 Mk1 Scirocco. I recommend you type ‘Kevin Villa VW Scirocco’ into your favourite search engine as you will be stunned by what you see.

Amazing as that car was, after completing it Kevin was boiling over. What he needed was a deep breath of cool, fresh air. And one day, his body clock alarm went off and there was no snooze button. He had to wake up. It was bonjour Beetle o’clock.