My name is Garrick L. Staples (US), and along with Robert McClements (UK), we will be driving a 1959 VW Cabriolet from Beijing, China all the way to Paris, France. I know it sounds crazy, but we are not the first to do it and we won't be the last.
In 1907, 5 cars set off from what was then called 'Peking' to challenge themselves and prove that automobiles had become a viable alternative to the horse. The most famous competitors were the well-funded Prince Borghese and a pauper named Charles Goddard. For the most part, they had no roads, no route, no rules, no support, rudimentary vehicles, and no passports! These were men made of stronger stuff than I.
In 1997, the Endurance Rally Association did a re-enactment as a 90th anniversary celebration. 87 cars made it to the finish line at the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
In 2007, the ERA staged the 100th anniversary rally and my father, Garrick D. Staples, participated in a 1959 VW Cabriolet. He spent years hunting down the perfect parts for a complete top-down restoration of a rusted-out shell of a car. He ended up building a wonderful, mostly-stock, lean mean off-road racing machine. He had an amazing time and hasn't stopped talking about it since! Afterwards, of course, he immediately started work on his second Beetle, this time a 1969 sedan.
Around October 2009, my dad approached me to do the 2010 rally with him, but with me driving the earlier 1959 Cabriolet. After about 3 seconds of thought, I readily agreed. We had been mostly separated for years and this was to be our way of re-connecting and re-establishing our father-son relationship. I admit to being hesitant about putting our relationship to the test with such a stressful endeavor, but he assured me that the difficulty was a terrific reason to do it; we had to sink or swim. The second problem was that I needed a navigator. I had to find someone that could pay his half of the fees, take ~6 weeks off of work, and had the related skills; but I'll get to Robert later. The 3rd problem was that the car was far from being road-worthy and we only had about 6 months to get the car ready! The state of the car was a pretty rolling body with a fresh coat of paint. The car had been languishing in a Long Beach body shop for years and most of the original parts had "walked away". My dad's perfect car needed to be rebuilt from scratch.
Serious work on re-building the Cabriolet started in January 2010. We had until July 15th when the car would be loaded into a container and shipped to China. Work was to be done in his garage with me coming down on the weekends. Because working on the weekends wouldn't be enough time, my dad had to put in a lot of extra solo mechanic time during the week. The work was long and hard, but it has paid off. The car is now 99% completed and running like a champ. The engine is strong and powerful. The body beautiful. The suspension perfect. And the ride is exhilarating!
