METHUEN - What do you give a woman on her 90th birthday?

For Margaret Spooner, whose milestone birthday was this week, it was a chance to ride in her dream car, a Beetle convertible.

"This is the best birthday present ever," said Spooner, sitting on the passenger seat of the car yesterday.

The Rev. Mark Hamilton, former pastor at First Church Congregational, came up with the idea for the ride, knowing Beetles are Spooner's favorite cars.

Spooner was wowed like a child.

"Oh my God," Spooner said when she stepped out of her house and saw the car. "I love it. 'Zoom, Zoom.' It's so cute. I wish I could have had one."

Spooner did not want her dream present to go unnoticed. She called the upstairs neighbors so they could see the car from their window, signaled her neighbor across the street so he could also admire car and called her lifelong friend, Dot Bruno, 88, to tell her she was on her way to show her the car.

Spooner waved as she drove off in the car from Amesbury Chevrolet/Volkswagen.

She became obsessed with the car since she saw a bright yellow Beetle several years ago.

"I like them because they are sporty," she said.

Although the car Hamilton brought was not the bright yellow she always wanted, Spooner was no less disappointed.

"This was so unexpected. I never thought I would ride in one."

Spooner drove for 66 years, until three years ago when she had to turn in her license because she is legally blind due to macular degeneration. She did not buy a Beetle because her best friend uses a wheelchair and could not ride in the car. Spooner drove a Mercury Sable sedan.

She is known throughout Methuen for her love of yellow Beetles, as evident from the toy replica of the car she keeps in the living room and the framed photograph hanging on the wall.

A lifelong Methuen resident, Spooner lived on Hampshire and Charles streets before moving to High Street in 1953. She worked at American Mutual Insurance in Lawrence for 40 years.

She is the oldest attending member at First Church, where she was a collector and served on the diaconate and the Women's Fellowship.