I got Pumpkin in 1993 purely by accident. I had a partner at the time (a giant Scottish madman whom I love dearly) who was helping some other dude find and export splits and early beetles out of Sweden where, at that time, they were in abundance and many completely rust free. I was hearing constantly that there was this one bus they had found that no matter what they offered the guy he wouldn't sell it, he was determined that the bus should stay in Sweden and not be shipped off to the UK with all the others. After a year of hearing the same story I managed to get the number of the seller from him called an ex girlfriend in Halmstad and got her to call the dude and tell him she was looking for a renovation project for her retiring father, the deal done and the bus was mine. I had no idea what she looked like or any idea how I was to go about fixing her but I knew Owen wanted her and that made her worth money! Pumpkin showed up on a trailer, a new battery and a gallon of gas later she was purring away quite happily in the car park, ten minutes later I drove her onto the ferry and into Denmark, a week later I drove her to the south of France. I had quite an extensive tool kit and a copy of John Muir's 'how to keep your VW alive', six months later I had changed the engine, the gear box, most of the wiring and the brakes.... most of them at the roadside somewhere in Europe. We were quite often treated to an impromptu camp wherever pumpkin had decided she'd had enough, which developed this deep attachment to the old girl.