Colin Harnett is a British citizen, and Mexican citizen for a decade, who has decided to seek smiles “in a year that has not treated us well at all”
They know him as ” El Señor del Vocho Rosa ” and his car is part of the urban landscape of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.
Colin Harnett was born in the UK but decided to live in Mexico a decade ago. He bought a Volkswagen beetle, painted it pink, and thus became a colorful character in the cosmopolitan and small town of San Miguel de Allende
With each season of the year Harnett’s little beetle changes to “dress up” according to the moment. On Independence Day dressed with flags of Mexico and when approaching Halloween is filled with monsters. But it is at Christmas when the little pink vocho as beetles are known in Mexico attracts the most attention by becoming a kind of gigantic mountain of stuffed animals that circulates throughout the city.
“(…) I feel that we all need relief from the problems that covid-19 has brought us, so I have brought Christmas forward in my Vocho,” Colin explains on his blog.
This year, in February, he was stopped by a federal patrol on the Dolores Hidalgo highway. The photo was popularized in networks because of the uniqueness of such a vehicle.
Although he has not mastered Spanish in more than a decade, Harnett has expressed his love for the country where, as he says, “he is on the lighter side of the road.”
I can tell from the response received so far, especially from my fellow Mexicans, that my idea of wearing smiles is working (…) the thumbs up, the yelling, the smiles on the often sad faces and those of young children, they make it all worthwhile for me, “he highlights.
Colin brought Christmas forward this year because he believes it was essential to seek smiles in the midst of the crisis that the global pandemic has generated. He is one of the more than 18 thousand foreigners who have chosen Guanajuato to live in.
