Manvel resident John Hendrickson remembers racing Volkswagen Beetles in his younger days.
Those days are long gone, but he still drives a VW, and this one is different that all those others. That’s because he never has to fill it with gas.
It was while filling his Cadillac at a gas station in 2007 that Hendrickson first thought about building an electric car.
“I thought gas stations were ripping us off, so I decided to just go build my own electric car,†Hendrickson said.
He asked a neighbor if he knew of any VWs for sale. That’s how he learned of another neighbor’s rusted 1972 Beetle that hadn’t been used in over five years. Hendrickson bought it and parked it in his garage.
“It wasn’t much to look at,†he said. “It was full of snakes and fire ants. We had to cut small trees that were growing up through it, and drag it out of the woods.  More info