Over 40 years, Anoop Thakoor has restored about 150 classic Beetles. In fact, he's so busy with orders, he hasn't found the time to restore his own Beetle - the only one he has ever owned - a 1975 kiwi-green stunner
Anoop Thakoor in his garage. Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
The first time Anoop Thakoor fell in love with a car, actor Sanjeev Kumar had already called shotgun. "My heart was set on this car. I wanted this car. I was so desperate, but it wasn't in my budget." Thakoor was 16 years old then, spending all his free time in the garage of Dilip Atmaram, who "used to service all the film stars' cars." Kumar's car, a 1975 pistachio-green Beetle, had come in for a check-up, and Thakoor was hooked. Fortunately, he was also loaded.
"We had a company by the name of Oriental Metal Pressing Works, and we had about 14 or 15 cars. My uncles and grandfather were car fanatics. You could drive anything that caught your fancy: from Mercedes to Chevys to Dodges to Ambassador." In 1980, his father also added the Beetle to the collection, as a gift to his son. "It was not in running condition. But the day I took it home, that very evening, I fixed it and it was on the road with me. Of course, then I made a trip abroad and imported all the spares. I restored the car to pristine condition. It featured in many ads, from Cornetto ice cream to Goodknight mosquito repellent. I got some money out of it, which I spent on restoring the car." In the last 40 years, Thakoor has restored about 150 Beetles, but this secondhand Beetle is the only one he's owned. Because sometimes when you're lucky, your first love is also your last love.
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Thakoor's green Beetle
Bitten by the love bug
There's something about the Beetle's curves that turns a man's head. Automotive journalist and communications consultant Srinivas Krishnan, who owns a 1960 canary-yellow Beetle, says, "My Beetle is my first wife. That's my relationship with my cranky first wife." India's relationship with the Beetle began when Goa was still a Portuguese colony. "The Beetle was very popular in Portugal, so Goa became a gateway for the Beetle in India. In Goa, it used to be [as common as] the black-and-yellow taxis in Mumbai. After that, it acquired a cult following because it had a unique shape and a personality. Its engine was air-cooled, and located in the rear. Then came the movie, The Love Bug, which had a huge impact on the way people saw it."
Like Gaurav Gohil, director of product strategy at an MNC, who owns a 1961 turquoise-blue model today because of the 1968 movie. "My love for the Beetle started with The Love Bug and the Herbie series that followed. I remember every scene and the dialogues even today." According to Thakoor, "It's a happy car. If you see a child crying — I've seen in so many places — the mother is consoling a child, and a Beetle comes along, and the child is looking at it in awe. There's something about the Beetle that attracts everyone. At that time [the 1970s], I felt it was something to die for. Other people beg to differ. They say, 'It's a sloppy, old, bloody car.'" But, a Beetle's beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Thakoor can restore the good looks of any fading beauty.
Gaurav Gohil
In the 1980s, once Thakoor had learned enough to strike out on his own, he started a garage out of his compound in Khar. "My friends used to come since I had some experience. I started doing the job slowly and steadily. I really put my heart and soul into it because it was a passion for me. All the engines were built with my own hands." He did work on other cars as well, but he never strayed too far. "There used to be 18 to 20 Beetles parked in my compound. But, Beetles are far and few. How many can I do? So I started working on other cars, but mostly German cars, such as Mercedes, Škoda and Porsche."
In 1999, his joint family split up, and by 2003, Thakoor had moved into a rental space in Andheri. When we visit, the garage comprises a shed, a banyan tree, two dogs, two goats, a handful of assistants and about 35 cars in various states of undress. The space resembles a scrapyard, with seats, tyres, hoods and engines strewn about. In addition to a few candy-coloured Beetles, Thakoor is also working on five Volkswagen (VW) vans. "You'll never see five [VW] vans at one given time. The five vans here are a bonanza."
Srinivas Krishnan
He takes anywhere between one and four years to restore a car, "because I don't have 10 guys doing tin work. They come in an absolutely broken-down condition, in shambles. I have to rebuild from scratch. I have to build a floor plan. All the panels are handmade. It's very time-consuming and I don't know why I do it. People get annoyed, they get angry, they shout. But once the car is done, they pat you on the back." Gohil, who had handed over his car keys to Thakoor in 2013, says, "Being a 50-year-old car, it was a real rust bucket. It took 11 months, which involved a complete ground up of body and mechanical restoration. Anoop is one of the finest VW restorers, so when it came to giving the car for restoration, he was an automatic choice. Till today, I don't face any major issues. The body restoration and the paint job are still fantastic."
A people's car
In his 40 years behind the wheel, even though the Beetle remains the same, Thakoor has seen a gear shift in the Beetle owner. "In the '80s and '90s, there were a lot of restrictions on getting in spares. We had to improvise and do so many things to keep these cars going. In 1991, we formed a Beetle club. Every two or three years, a different group is formed. But since 2013, people have invested money, done up their cars and decided to keep them for good. In today's time, nobody wants to sell a Beetle. Nobody. Even if it's in the worst condition and is absolutely trash, people want to rebuild it." Rebuilding a Beetle costs in the neighbourhood of '15 lakhs. Krishnan, who wouldn't stoop so low as to put a price on it, says, "The Beetle is so beautiful and so curvy, you keep throwing buckets of money on her and it drains away like water."
There are about 40 Beetle owners in Mumbai with about 15 whose cars are in running condition. "All our social media groups are for one purpose only: helping each other keep our car on the road," says Gohil. In addition to driving together on weekends, they also take annual trips to Goa. "This time in Goa there were 90 Beetles," says Thakoor. "I have never seen 90 Beetles collected at one point."
Although, Thakoor's own Beetle wasn't one of them. By way of explanation, he says, "I got married late, in 1993. Then my children came along by 2000. And then I started neglecting my car. One fine day, I decided to strip it down and go back to the original shade. But it has got stuck now because there are so many other cars [to take care of]. My son is 18, and my daughter is 19. I just got them their learning licenses. So now I'm going to get it fixed." He takes a look at his place, where the winter sun is bouncing off the rounded corners of the love of his life. "If I have to leave this place, I'll wind up. Because I can keep fixing my Beetle forever."
The journey of the Beetle
In 1934, Adolf Hitler had envisioned an affordable family car, and lead engineer Ferdinand Porsche had designed it. The Beetle was once the most popular automobile in the world, with a record 21 million units built by Volkswagen. In 2003, VW stopped production on the classic, and relaunched a new Beetle with the same shape, but with a modern, front engine under the hood. This year, VW is going to stop production on this as well. According to Krishnan, "Volkswagen brought in the new Beetle because a lot of baby boomers had owned or driven a Beetle and were sold on nostalgia. Now those baby boomers have passed on, and today's drivers have no nostalgia attached to it." Although Thakoor says, "I was never enthralled by this new Beetle. But, now it's grown on me. That's a fact. This car has to grow on you, and the old Beetle, you take an instant liking to it."
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