Rod Farrell is a VW nut from way back, infact he first fell in love
with VWs when he was just 15 years old in 1962. Rod was so impressed with his friends 1958
Beetle that just before his 17th birthday he purchased his a brand new 1200
Beetle, and proceeded to travel 106,000 miles (170,660 ks) in the next 6 years.
Since then Rod has owned somewhere between 30 and 40 Beetles T3s Kombis etc. In 1983 Rod purchased the 51 Split from a school teacher who had used the split to travel between school and home each day, in Canberra for $5,000. Rod then used the Split for a few years on the road before retiring prior to it restoration.
I can vividly recall the first time we saw the Split and Rod, was at a Club VeeDub camping weekend in the Hunter Valley. Ray Black who also owns Split Window Beetle suffered a puncture on the way up, and thought it would be good idea to get it fixed in the nearest town, because 16 inch Beetle wheels aren’t the sort of thing that any of the other club members could lend him. So off to Muswellbrook Ray headed, a few hours later he returned with Rod behind in him his Split. A wag at the time remarked that Rays Split had multiplied, as it turned out Ray had pulled into Rods service station to get his puncture repaired. You can imagine Rays surprise when the fellow behind the counter said he had a Split Window Beetle as well. Split window Beetles are pretty rare down here as the only ones around are those that were privately imported as official imports did not begin in Australia until 1954.
In the next few years Rod completely restored the Split at an estimated cost of $30,000. In my humble opinion this Beetle would have to the most accurate and and best quality restoration of any VW in Australia possibly the world.