Sani Top, Or Bust!

Sy Symonds did it in 1956 in a Beetle. We did it in 2016 in a Beetle. Now the Aircooled VW SA club also did it in a Beetle. And a Kombi. This is how.

SY Symonds started it all in 1956.

That’s when the former Spitfire fighter pilot-turned motoring journalist had the audacity to ‘drive’ a rear-wheel-drive VW Beetle up the rough Sani Pass. In the winter. With snow and ice.

Mind you, back then the Beetle was carried more than it actually drove. And on the way down, the driver’s door was removed, and driver Ewold von Bergen sported a rope around his waist. Just in case the Beetle went over the edge on the slippery mud, snow and ice, you know, and Von Bergen could be yanked from the cabin and be spared certain death.

In 2016, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Symonds’s achievement, we drove a modern VW Beetle 1.4T Dune up the pass. Thankfully, it had just been graded, so it wasn’t quite the challenging affair of 1956. And it was nice and warm, with no snow, rain or mud: just a couple of mild water crossings.

Amazingly, the front-wheel-driven, turbocharged Beetle Dune (with 10mm more clearance than a standard Beetle) sailed up the pass like it was cruising the boulevard. Only the last few hundred metres of the ascent, the steepest and most slippery, occasionally saw a front wheel briefly lose traction before the computer took over and sorted it out.

We (thankfully) never got to use the tow ropes, wooden planks and shovels we had taken with in the back-up vehicle, in anticipation of some road building.

Enter Port Elizabeth-based Herman Elzerman. Herman is a devout member of the Aircooled VW SA club who owns a 1952 Beetle and a Fleetline panel van. He had been fascinated by Symonds’ feat of 1956, and ever since he read about it, he had wanted to re-enact the trip in his own VW.

Herman shared his plan on the club’s very active forum on the interweb, and there were a number of members who put their hands up to join him, eager for some adventure.