One Man’s Quest to Reunite With His First Love: A 1971 VW Bug

Locals in Pawleys Island have a special affection for classic vehicles. The coastal South Carolina town is home to many nostalgic retirees, and on weekends its streets see plenty of restored ‘60s-era muscle cars.

Of all the classics motoring past Parlor Doughnuts on Ocean Highway, none has captured the community’s attention like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Volkswagen.

“Everybody in town rubber necks and waves when this Beetle drives by,” says Rev. Wil Keith, a 47-year-old priest. “It’s one of the much-adored cars in our little town right now.”

It is a 1971 red Super Beetle and its story is special.

Jeff Siegrist was a student at the University of Tennessee when he first set eyes on her at a Knoxville dealership.

Siegrist pounced, handing over his father’s old Ford Falcon and $2,278.54 for the Bug. He kicked in $67.45 for an AM radio and $5.95 for a cigarette lighter.

“So that was my car from that day forward,” says Siegrist, an executive search consultant specialising in the forest products industry.

The Beetle was a sales phenomenon and a pop-culture hit that ushered in the era of mass European auto imports. It was also a Hollywood star, thanks to Herbie from the “Love Bug” movie franchise.

Siegrist road-tripped his Beetle all over. When he met his future wife, Mary, he took her on a first date in the red Bug. When the couple had their first child, the baby boy came home in the backseat.

“It was part of the family,” says Siegrist. Mary gave the car its name, around Christmas time in 1972: Rudolph.

The couple had two more children and ultimately sold the car in 1996. “It just wasn’t practical anymore,” he says. “There were tears in my eyes.”

Up to this point, the story isn’t much different from many of the more than 21.5 million original Beetles that Volkswagen sold.

But during the pandemic, things got interesting.

“I kept thinking, ‘Boy, I wish I knew where my old Beetle was,’” says Siegrist. “I wondered whether other people loved it the way my wife and I did.”

Eventually he got serious. He dug up the car’s original bill of sale, which had a vehicle identification number. He had sold the car to someone in Georgia, a quarter century earlier.

So he called the Georgia department of motor vehicles. Turns out the car was still registered and on the road. But that’s all the office would say.

Siegrist got an attorney involved. Two weeks later, the lawyer called with a name and a phone number for a woman he believed to be the current owner. So Siegrist called.

“I was shocked,” says Tracy Swift, who teaches dental hygiene at Albany State University in Georgia. “He started the conversation with, ‘You’re going to find this phone call very weird.’” Swift thought she had a stalker, and recalls Siegrist saying, “I’m not crazy, I promise. Just let me tell you my story.”

Swift did drive a 1971 Beetle. She checked the VIN number and it was a match.

Siegrist traveled to Georgia, met Swift at her office, and drove the car in the parking lot. “I didn’t want to sell the car,” she says, “but because of his story, I felt like it needed to go back to its owner. It was the sweetest story.”

They agreed on a price (he says “many times over the original cost”) and the car showed up on a truck in Siegrist’s driveway days later. It was just before Christmas in 2022.

The first thing Siegrist and his wife did was drive around the block, with tears in their eyes. “Rudolph is back!” his wife yelled as they drove.

Siegrist went digging in a bucket full of coins and junk for a key chain. At the bottom, he found Rudolph’s original key. He didn’t remember saving it.

The Beetle needed restoration. So Siegrist asked advice from someone he trusted. Enter Keith, the rector at Siegrist’s church.

“When you’re at church,” Keith says, “and the service is over and everyone is filing out, that’s when folks share, often, important information about their lives.”

Keith, it turns out, had grown up the son of a car restorer and worked on cars himself in his garage. He was not a professional. He worried if he would have enough time. But a parishioner needed help. How could he say no?

It took about a year. “Aside from the paint and some engine work,” Keith says, “I ended up doing more than I was expecting, with no complaints whatsoever. In some ways, it was like I gained a parishioner. Only it was a car.”

In 2024, Siegrist began driving Rudolph around Pawleys Island. “Rarely can I go anywhere where somebody doesn’t stop me,” he says.

“Because probably 50% of the people of my generation have owned a Beetle or have had an adventure in a Beetle. People want to know the car’s story. So I tell it.”

As for Keith, he says, “It’s a point of pride that I had a hand in it.” Like most classic car stories, this one continues.

“As soon as Jeff stops finding little things for me to fix, then the story will be over,” he says. “But he keeps finding things for me to do! Which I don’t mind one bit.”

Must even steak be politicised? The American Heart Association recently recommended eating more “plant-based” protein in a move to counter the Health and Human Services Department’s new guidelines calling for more red meat.

Few would argue that eating a Big Mac a day is good for you.

On the other hand, growing evidence, including a study last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that eating more meat—particularly unprocessed red meat—can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s in the quarter or so of people with a particular genetic predisposition.

The APOE4 gene variant is one of the biggest risk factors for Alzheimer’s.

You inherit one copy of the APOE gene from each parent. The most common variant is APOE3; the least is APOE2.

The latter carries a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, while the former is neutral. A quarter of people carry one copy of the APOE4 variant, and about 2% carry two.

APOE4 is more common among people with Northern European and African ancestry. In Europe the variant increases with latitude, and is present in as many as 27% of people in northern countries versus 4% in southern ones. God smiled on the Italians and Greeks.

For unknown reasons, the APOE4 variant increases the risk of Alzheimer’s far more for women than men.

Women’s risk multiplies roughly fourfold if they have one copy and tenfold if they have two. Men with a single copy show little if any higher risk, while those with two face four times the risk.

What makes APOE4 so pernicious? Scientists don’t know exactly, but the variant is also associated with higher cholesterol levels—even among thin people who eat healthily.

Scientists have found that cholesterol builds up in brain cells of APOE4 carriers, which can disrupt communications between neurons and generate amyloid plaque, an Alzheimer’s hallmark.

The Heart Association’s recommendation to eat less red meat may be sound advice for people with high cholesterol caused by indulgent diets.

But a diet high in red meat may be better for the brains of APOE4 carriers.

In the JAMA study, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute examined how diet, particularly meat consumption, affects dementia risk among seniors with the different APOE variants.

Higher consumption of meat, especially unprocessed red meat, was associated with significantly lower dementia risk for APOE4 carriers.

APOE4 carriers who consumed the most meat—the equivalent of 4.5 ounces a day—were no more likely to develop dementia than noncarriers. (

The study controlled for other variables that are known to affect Alzheimer’s risk including sex, age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and education.)

APOE4 carriers who ate the most unprocessed meat were at significantly lower risk of dying over the study’s 15-year period and had lower cholesterol than carriers who ate less. Go figure. Noncarriers, however, didn’tenjoy similar benefits from eating more red meat.

The study’s findings are consistent with two large U.K. studies.

One found that each additional 50 grams of red meat (equivalent to half a hamburger patty) that an APOE4 carrier consumed each day was associated with a 36% reduced risk of dementia.

The other found that older women who carried the APOE4 variant and consumed at least one serving a day of unprocessed red meat had a cognitive advantage over carriers who ate less than half a serving, and that this advantage was of roughly equal magnitude to the cognitive disadvantage observed among APOE4 carriers in general.

In all three studies, eating more red meat appeared to negate the increased genetic risk of APOE4.

Perhaps one reason men with the variant are at lower Alzheimer’s risk than women is that men eat more red meat.

These findings might cause chagrin to women who rag their husbands about ordering the rib-eye instead of the heart-healthy salmon.

But remember, the cognitive benefits of eating more red meat appear isolated to APOE4 carriers.

Nutrition is complicated, and categorical recommendations—other than perhaps to avoid nutritionally devoid foods—would best be avoided by governments and health bodies.

Readers can order an at-home test from any number of companies to screen for the APOE4 variant.

The Swedish researchers hypothesize that APOE4 carriers may be evolutionarily adapted to carnivorous diets, since the variant is believed to have emerged between one million and six million years ago during a “hypercarnivorous” period in human history.

The other two APOE variants originated more recently, during eras when humans ate more plants.

APOE4 carriers may absorb more nutrients from meat than plants, the researchers surmise. Vitamin B12—low levels have been associated with cognitive decline—isn’t naturally present in plant-based foods but is abundant in red meat.

Foods high in phytates (such as grains and beans) can interfere with absorption of zinc and iron (also high in red meat), which naturally declines with age. So maybe don’t chuck your steak yet.

One Man’s Quest to Reunite With His First Love: A 1971 VW Bug

Jeff Siegrist couldn’t take his mind off the car he sold in 1996. So he set out to track it down.

At least for people who carry the APOE4 genetic variant, a juicy steak could keep the brain healthy.