Stuart Johnston | A rare South African split-window Volkswagen Beetle from 1951

It's been 45 years since the last bug was produced here, yet the Volkswagen Beetle remains a common sighting in every city or town country-wide, writes News24 Motoring classic car guru Stuart Johnston.

The sight of a genuine split-window Beetle certainly gets your blood racing if you are a fan (um, let's make that a "disciple") of air-cooled Volkswagens. The sight of the three of them together at the recent George Old Car Show was something special, simply because of the rarity value of these old bugs.

To get an idea of how special a "splitty" is, consider that they were only made with the distinctive divided rear window up until the early months of 1953, before giving way to the one-piece oval rear window models, which were produced from '53 to '57.