Back-to-black Comparison

There’s more than one way to skin a cat as these two Lowlight Ghias prove. Paint or patina? Let’s find out

- James Peene

The Karmann Ghia is without question one of the  most  successful  design concepts in automotive history. Take the tried and tested, reliable and cheap mechanicals of an air-cooled Volkswagen and clad them in a beautiful coach built body. Italian looks, German quality. What’s not to love? Especially when we’re talking pre-’60 Lowlight  examples like the brace of coupés we’ve gathered together here. 

The purpose of this feature might have started out as a compare and contrast piece but, as you’re about to find out, the owners of both these cars actually have pretty similar views, even if their cars, on the surface at least, look wildly different. The one we’ll tackle first has clearly lived a harder life than the other. If one is the  housewife’s Porsche, the other is the dirty MILF your mother wouldn’t approve of and it goes without saying that we’re concentrating first on the down and dirty ’58 that’s the current steed of Type 2 Detective [T2D]’s Mark Fulton. 

On the surface it may look like a gnarly old beater on some big ass Fuchs, but there’s a lot more to this car than that. After all, it wouldn’t do for one of the top Detectives to be seen out and about in such a thing, and why would he want to drive a snotter in his down time when his day job affords him the chance to drive some very choice machinery? Mark: “I’m fortunate to see loads of cool customer cars, to the extent that sometimes you can become a bit snow blind to them, if that makes sense, but there was just something about this car that struck a chord with me.

Air we go