In the early 1950s, ARNOLD released a very nice Split Window VW toy car made with a hard plastic body with cut out windows. The catalog number was 4000 and came in a colorful carton with children playing with the VW in the carton design. Body details of front and rear hoods, door seams, taillights, license plate light, VW emblem and round horn grilles. Tin metal chassis, painted either gold, silver, white or black had nice front and rear shiny metal bumpers. The ARNOLD Split VW had a friction motor, rubber tires, with or without front wheel steering. There was a colorful tin lithographed interior design of a 1950s era VW as well. The toy VW was a nice size at 19th scale, 215mm or 8.5 inches in length.
Unfortunately, when the children playing with them sometimes dropped them and because of the hard plastic body, they were subject to cracking, chipping or just breaking apart and most likely gotten rid of. I have seen these ARNOLD Split VW selling for a small price, over the years, as collectors were not interested in the broken beaters for their collection.
With that said, I have acquired and sent many of these ARNOLD Split VWs through my Restor-Version (R-V) Shop to give them a makeover and a new lease on life. They each receive a restoration as well as a conversion (Restor-Version). I have a good friend, GreG Carr, Florida, who is one of the best plastic repair hobbyists around. I acquire several of the plastic ARNOLD VW bodies and those needing extensive repair, I send them to GreG to do his magic. If the body repairs are minor, then I work on them myself. After I receive the repaired ARNOLD VW paint ready bodies back from GreG, I then create a custom paint and decal theme for them. For GreG’s repair work, he gets to keep one with his own idea of a paint and decal theme. So far, 56 of the broken, beater ARNOLD Split Window toys have gone through the R-V Shop and are looking great with a custom paint and decal theme. Please check out the photos to see these brought back to life Vintage ARNOLD VW toys. Also, on this site under Restor-Version Toys (RV), there are examples of the more detailed repair work showing many photos of the before and after, start to finish results.
