A Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet has been reunited with its owner, almost four decades after it was first purchased.
Charlene Johnson, now living in Montana in the USA, bought the now-classic Golf in 1987 while on a European holiday.
Johnson had originally planned to ship the car home after taking a short-term teaching job in the Netherlands.
Plans changed, however, and Johnson remained in Europe for far longer than expected. Teaching became a career that she has only recently retired from.
Home for the holidays
Returning to the United States after her teaching career, Johnson knew she could not leave the Golf Cabriolet behind.
“It was the coolest car, and I loved driving it around with the top down,” said Johnson. “We went to our wedding in the Cabriolet. I taught my kids how to drive in it. We travelled all over Europe, and it’s become a part of the family. I never imagined keeping the car for 37 years, but I just fell in love with it.”
Johnson had purchased the Golf Cabriolet in 1987 using Volkswagen’s ‘Tourist Automobile Shipping Program’ (TASP).
Designed to allow American customers to purchase Volkswagens on trips to Europe, TASP then allowed owners to have the car shipped to the United States once their travels were over.
Continuing the memories
Although the TASP scheme has long been discontinued, Johnson had kept the original purchase paperwork that accompanied the Golf. When she contacted Volkswagen of America, the company agreed to uphold the deal made more than 30 years earlier, and bring the car back to Montana.
Volkswagen director of public relations, Mark Gillies, explained: “The programme has been expired a long time. But when we read Ms. Johnson’s story and felt her love of our product, we decided to honour it.”
This saw the Golf shipped to Houston, Texas, before being transported to a local Volkswagen dealership in Montana, where Johnson and her daughter were waiting to collect it.
There was just one slight problem: the car would not start. “There was no gas. Put the gas in and it fired right up,” said Johnson.
“It’s been super-reliable. And I think that’s just part of the Volkswagen brand. For me, the memories about the car, they’re really about the people and it was always part of those memories.”
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