For many people, the memory of their first vehicle is something unforgettable. It represents a series of memories of the effort they had to make to obtain it. The hours of hard work, the savings, penny by penny, and the illusion of being able to sit behind the wheel and make your life more comfortable. For Brazilians, the Volkswagen Beetle beetle is one of the most used and preferred cars by drivers, and for Orlindo Rodrigues, a 71-year-old retired cabinetmaker, who currently lives in Tapejara, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, not is the exception.
He had one of these models in 1975, but had to sell it eight years later, in 1983, to set up his own joinery. However, he never forgot that old vehicle that gave him so much satisfaction and moments of joy in the company of his wife and his daughter. Then, to surprise him, his Connecticut-based daughter Gabi decided to bring back her father’s old four-wheeled best friend.
She says that she doesn’t clearly remember the car, but she always heard some stories from her father and him. Orlindo always expressed his desire to recover that red beetle. “I always heard the stories about the red beetle from my father, so he was always a part of me. When he sold it, he made the man who bought it promise that if he was going to sell it he would offer it to him. But it never happened,” Gabi said. In this way, the young woman insisted on searching until she found the owner to make her an offer that she could not refuse.
However, the task was not easy at all. The current owner did not want to sell the beetle for any reason. “We made several offers, but he did not accept. However, my husband and I did not give up,”she recalled. They finally managed to close the deal in early June of last year. From the United States, Gabi contacted her cousin, Edsomar Franz, to help her with the paperwork to restore the car. Upon receiving the car, Orlindo could not contain the emotion․ He never expected to see a surprise of that size.
But, also, as if that were not enough, the emotion was even greater when he finally had his family reunited after 22 long years. For her part, Gabi refused to reveal how much she spent on acquiring and restoring the Beetle. According to her, the happiness of her father is priceless. The reunion of her father and her beloved bocho, 37 years later, was well worth every real. What an extraordinary gift and what a loving daughter, isn’t it? Definitely, there is no word or brush that can reflect the love that a son feels for her father.
