It all started with a VW Beetle back in 2011. Hope Sellars was only 4 years old the first time she spied the classic car at the Champaign Cruisers Car Club, but she knew she wanted one.
So Hope began saving money. Because not only did she want a vintage Beetle … she wanted to fix it up herself.
Then, at the age of 12, she saw the tarnished shell of a 1960 VW bug for sale on Craigslist. She paid $960 for it, brought it home and went to work.
“She bought this rusty, incomplete car because it was what she could afford,” Hope’s mom, Tracy, wrote in a Facebook post last summer. “I don’t have a dime in it to this day.”
Hope, now a junior at Calvary Christian School in Bellefontaine, didn’t start from scratch when it comes to restoring old vehicles. It’s something her family has plenty of experience doing.
In fact, Hope helped her dad, David, renovate his high school car, a 1983 black Mercury Capri, which they finished when she was 12. He not only taught her all about restoring, he helped her rebuild that battered old Volkswagen.
“It was basically a shell—no motor, no interior,” Hope said. “So it was a full restoration.”
The project took her four years to complete. Over that time, she learned to do body work, install seat kits and glass, shoot the paint and weld. Lots of welding. The car had sat in a three-sided barn for years, meaning it had little protection from rain and snow, leaving it very rusted.
Hope put in about $4,500 of her own money to the restoration.
“All the money that went into it I earned myself,” she admitted. “I did odds-and-ends jobs like babysitting, mowing and working around the house to earn the money to fix it.”
And it paid off. Not only is the car now worth about $15,000, but Hope and her Beetle are getting recognition in the classic car circuit.
In early June, the Sellars attended the five-day Hot Rod Power Tour—a traveling car show. One of the stops was Bowling Green, Ky., where about 6,000 vehicles showed up. Hope was asked to display her bug in the Continental Tires vendor booth, a distinct honor.
While there, Hope met Bob Ashton, who heads up the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals, which is held annually at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Chicago. Ashton began the conversation while Hope cleaned her vehicle.
“He’s really passionate about seeing the younger generation work on cars,” Hope shared. “And he said he’d love to have my car featured at the show.”
That’s how Hope—along with her cousin Owen, who has a restored 1948 F-1 Ford truck—was invited to attend the nationals as a Future Generations guest. Though the show has hundreds of valuable classic cars, Hope and Owen added their vehicles to a row of cars fixed up by kids their age. They also sat on a questions-and-answers panel to talk about their work.
Hope earned two honors at the nationals—the Leading Lady Award from MK Insurance and, according to Tracy, the Shining Star Award from “a very generous donor who recognized her abilities and perseverance.”
In addition, Hope and Owen received $450 to put toward their car projects from the Stoll family and Stoll Racing Photography.
The combination of being so young and female meant Hope received quite a bit of attention at the nationals. They stopped by to watch her and David assemble a new motor for her car live at the show, which is also unusual.
This all led to Hope being interviewed for an episode of an upcoming podcast.
“She accomplished a goal that many people start and never finish,” her dad stated. “Let your kids dream their dreams and work hard for it.”
Though she enjoyed fixing up her bug and would be interested in taking on another Volkswagen someday, Hope sees car restoration more as a hobby than a career. She is currently interested in attending Cedarville University after she graduates to pursue a degree in biblical counseling.