BEETLES and Volkswagen vans have long attracted enthusiastic fans but the organisers of a new club in Trowbridge were shocked at the number of people who turned up to their first meeting.

Joanna Ball, 34 and Marc Waldron-Bradley, 38, of Amouracre, decided to start the V.Dub Club for Volkswagen owners because there was nothing similar in the area. Miss Ball said: "It was absolutely amazing the number of people who turned up. We didn't expect so much interest. We had a huge queue of people who had heard about it and wanted to sign up as members."

About 50 people came along to the first meeting, held at the Longs Arms, Yarnbrook, on April 9 and the couple now plan to hold monthly gatherings for enthusiasts. Miss Ball's interest in VW vans began as a child when her father, a keen surfer, would bundle the family into their van and go off to the coast.

She and Mr Waldron-Bradley now use their camper van to go off on trips with their own daughters, Jessica, seven, and five-year-old Jasmine. Miss Ball said: "It is like a house on wheels. You just get in and get wherever you want and if you want to just stop and have a cup of tea on the way you can. It is the sense of freedom that appeals."

Mr Waldron-Bradley, a trainer with Virgin Mobile in Trowbridge, shares his partner's enthusiasm and his employer has leant support to the new club. The couple own seven vehicles themselves, which Mr Waldron-Bradley reconditions and repairs in his workshop.

The club is the latest of many all over the country to be formed, centred on the model of car that has always attracted a huge following and cult status in this country. The next meeting of the V.Dub Club will be held at the Westbury White Horse on May 14 and anyone who owns an old Beetle or a VW van is welcome to come along. To sign up to the club costs £5 per adult.

VOLKSWAGEN FACTFILE

  • The origins of the Volkswagen Beetle date back to Nazi Germany when Hitler ordered a cheap, mass produced car be developed.
  • Production was interrupted by the Second World War but started in earnest when the factory was reopened largely due to the efforts of a British Army officer, Ivan Hurst, who persuaded the military to order 20,000 cars.
  • The one millionth car came off the assembly line in 1954.
  • The last Beetle was produced in Puebla, Mexico, in mid-2003.
  • The Beetle has been regarded as something of a cult car since its 1960s association with the hippie movement and was popularised further by a series of films centered on a VW called Herbie.
  • In 1950 the Volkswagen Type 2, a camper van, was introduced.
  • In America it became known as a VW bus, a vee-dub, a hippie mobile or hippie bus, and a combie.