What do you do with a 31-year-old Volkswagen Beetle that has carried you 20 000km from the Netherlands to the southern tip of Africa without so much as a flat tyre? You donate it to the AutoPavilion museum at the Volkswagen plant in Uitenhage, that's what!
Dutch schoolteacher Jos Oosterbroek set out from Amsterdam in his 1982 Beetle - which is three years older than he is! - in January this year, and ended his epic drive at the AutoPavilikon in April.
There he recalled some hair-raising moments during his travels from the top to bottom of Africa.
"The closer we got to Nigeria everybody started panicking," he said. "They told us that we were crazy going through Nigeria, that people would kill us, rob us, knife us, and kidnap us. So we got a little scared," he admitted.
Fortunately Oosterbroek contacted a fellow countryman working in Lagos through Facebook, who persuaded his employer to provide an armed convoy for Oosterbroek - at that time travelling with friend, Yme Veenje - during their journey across Nigeria.
“It felt like I was James Bond.”
Oosterbroek said: "From Lagos we had an escort vehicle in front of us with three guys armed with AK47s taking us 900km through the country to Cameroon. Every time we had to go to a toilet or have a smoke there would be two guys with guns going with us.
"While we were driving, everybody on the street was pushed to the side to get our little Beetle through," Oosterbroek recalled.
Travelling in the Democratic Republic of Congo was another challenge .
"This was the most challenging part of the trip," Oosterbroek admitted. "The day before I left Amsterdam I met two Dutch guys with a Land Rover Defender who just came from the DRC; who told me that my Beetle would never make it through the Congo because the hills were too steep and the roads just too bad."
"The route was indeed very challenging, with mudslides and bad roads up steep hills. The only way to get up them was to go flat out, with the car bouncing like crazy over the rocks."
"But I went right across the DRC without any problems.”
“That little Beetle did way better than the big Land Rover."
By the time Oosterbroek - who'd been joined by girlfriend Jorien Stevens in Namibia - reached Uitenhage the Beetle had travelled 20 000km in some of Africa's harshest conditions, but the only problem Oosterbroek rep[rted was a recurring oil leak that had needed attention from time to time.
"In the end the Beetle's top speed was down to 80km/h," he said, "and uphill it only did 30km/h!"
And now? Back to Amsterdam to find a job, said Oosterbroek - to fund the next adventure.
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