Here’s another Outtake from our recent stop in Hannibal, MO, and one which juxtaposes two forms of transportation that were/are very popular in their day; the VW Beetle and the small SUV (note the license plate on the Escape).
The Beetle was still hitting its stride in the early 1970s, with ~1.2 million units produced each year from 1969-73. Sales would begin to slide within a few years, however, as pop-culture interest waned and folks wanting a little more refinement in a compact began to have more options from which to choose.
Volkswagen tried their best to update the venerable Beetle to keep up, but its days were numbered, just as traditional sedans and station wagons have today been sidelined by SUVs and crossovers – at least until something else becomes popular with the car-buying public. Anyone care to predict what that will be?
“Hot” here right now, among young and old(er), the B- and C-segment SUVs and CUVs. Example below. Most likely their market share will only grow in the upcoming years, at the expense of the traditional hatchbacks.
I predict self driving RV’s. With the price of urban homes going through the roof, at least in my neck of the woods (south coast BC Canada). You could take a shower and make breakfast on your way to work in the morning and have an affordable accommodation for when your work day ends 😉
I agree. With housing prices in Portland routinely going past 250,000 dollars, they’re out of reach for most folks here unless they’re won the lottery. RVs are more affordable. I don’t know about the self-driving part, just find an employer who offers RV accommodations as a recruitment perk! Pull a Smart car with it so you can go to the bar or take out a date and the world is your oyster!
Yeah Vancouver has gone insane 1.5-2+ million CDN $ for a crack house and 1 bedroom condos for $500 000 and up. Where I am on Vancouver island it hasn’t gotten that bad. I am enjoying the fact my house is worth more but it is no good for young people looking to get in the market or my kids in a few years. I learned the last time I sold a house, it is kinda like selling fine art and it is only worth what someone is willing to pay.
Buying a house for only $250,000?? Ha ha ha, you guys have no idea how good you have it..
He said “going past $250,000” And in reality, well past. More like double, except for small or fixer-uppers.
Even in Eugene, 250k will not get you much of a house anymore.
Where I live in Thousand Oaks, CA, $250K buys a 900 sqft condo. Bring $500k for a single family home. Yes, we have very high property taxes too.
–That said, we have lots of great rust-free old cars here!
Ed, I think that’s a ’71, judging by the two sets of louvers (instead of four) on the engine lid.
My reference indicated the four slots (each side) in the deck lid were added for the 1972 MY.
You were indeed correct – I misunderstood “four sets of louvers,” as each set has four slots in it. It’s a ’71 as you note.
Very nice pics Ed. I personally remember few red Bugs from this era, but many orange and yellow ones.
Speaking of predicting the future, I was just checking where the total solar eclipse will occur in Missouri on August 21st. The total eclipse with pass just south of Hannibal. Much of St. Louis, and a diagonal swath through the middle of the state will experience it. With the maximum total eclipse occurring in St. Louis just after 1:15pm. The total eclipse will last about a minute.
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/st-louis
The eclipse will also be visible throughout much of western Kentucky. Nearly all of the hotel rooms in the area are already booked and law enforcement agencies are busy drafting plans for dealing with what is assumed will be a massive influx of people. This will be an hour or so south of where I live and we are debating whether or not to drive down to get a good view of the eclipse. I suspect that it will be a massive cluster f*ck, but I’m willing to be wrong about it.
It won’t help that it’s a Monday, as most will take a three day weekend. If you’re only an hour away, you’re still going to experience well over 90% of the eclipse right where you are. I’d stay put myself.
I live less than 5 minutes from the epicenter for Canada’s 150th birthday celebration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa this coming Saturday (July 1st.). I doubt I will attend due to the massive crowds anticipated from across the country. Would rather vacation then.
Being in central Missouri, I’m getting the full-on eclipse. For best exposure, I think I’ll walk out my back door. Duration is about 90 seconds here and nearly 2 minutes about 30 minutes north.
Hotels in the area are requiring a 3 night minimum for that weekend.
You are SO lucky, Jason. A Total Solar Eclipse is still on my bucket list at age 57. Hopefully, you’ll have clear skies from which to view. You’ll also get another shot nearby on April 8, 2024. The two eclipse paths cross each other somewhere near Carbondale, Illinois.
I’m going to make a ‘game time decision’ as to whether to drive into the path of totality, but from Baltimore, it’s at least a 9 to 12 hour drive for me to the nearest the path will come to here. I may be better served by the 2024 eclipse, as I can probably get to Erie, PA or Buffalo, NY in about 7 hours.
We’ll have a substantial portion of the eclipse here, so I don’t feel the need to travel to see that last sliver go away.
There is a HUGE difference between a partial (even a GOOD one like you show in your picture) and a Total Eclipse, Ed.
I’ve seen MANY partial eclipses, and in Baltimore, this is fixin’ to be a great one at 85%, but only in those brief 2 minutes or so of totality, will you be able to take off your eclipse (or welder’s) glasses and look right at the Sun hiding behind the Moon.
But yeah, traveling to see it is going to be a pain, and hotels and airlines are really sticking it to people that want to go, sadly. Supply & Demand, I suppose. Like you, this may be yet another partial eclipse for me. :o(
CC Extra Credit goes to whoever can photograph a Mitsubishi Eclipse on Eclipse Day!
A Mitsubishi Eclipse, parked under a tree, if it’s sunny during the partial phase would be perfect!
The leaves on the tree will act as thousands of little pinhole projectors and you’ll see little images of the Sun on the Mitsubishi Eclipse on Eclipse Day.
See example picture below. Now I have to find a Mitsubishi Eclipse parked under a tree on Aug 21… Hey, if I’m stuck in Baltimore for the partial (as lamented above), this may be a worthwhile endeavor. ;o)
If it’s cloudy, then maybe a Mitsubishi Eclipse that’s mostly hidden by a Chrysler Cirrus.
Well played, Eric. Well played.
Red Beatle. We had a ’67 Bug bought used in 1970. Within four weeks the car was stolen one night from it’s parking spot right in front of our apartment building. Six months later, the police notified us they had found the car and we could come get it from the North Philadelphia police station impound lot. It came back the same color red as this example.
It must have been an Earl Scheib paint-job. Over the next five years, the car slowly developed a case of reverse measles as the red flaked off the underlying white….
Nice find, is that a regular bug or a super?
I really didn’t like those taillights and bumpers in the 1970s, but they’ve grown on me.
Super – note the wide front lid… The deep-curved windscreen was added in ’73. The Super was discontinued in the US after 1975 (except convertibles, which went through ’79).
Yeah, that flat windscreen on the early supers always throws me.
In 1971, my fifth grade teacher had a boyfriend who picked her up each day in blazing yellow convertible Bug, with black logos “FV Formula Vee” on the side of the car. Never saw another Bug like that, it was very cool to my 11 year old mind!
Further reading: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-special-edition-volkswagen-formula-vee-beetle/
Thank you for the info!
… at least until something else becomes popular with the car-buying public. Anyone care to predict what that will be?
I expect small, lively passenger cars will become in demand, just about the time they are on the brink of extinction. Nature has a way of doing that to managements that bet their company on a narrow product base.
Looks like Ford is following FCA in carving it’s offerings down to one sedan platform, and a bazillion SUVs. Ford officially announced the next gen Fiesta for Europe, China and Latin America several weeks ago. For the US? To be addressed later. Focus production is supposed to end at Wayne Assembly mid 2018, so the plant can be retooled to build yet more trucks and SUVs. But the next gen Focus will not be ready for production in China until mid 2019, putting the Focus on a year long hiatus. After a year of Ford dealers telling people coming in for a Focus to buy an Escape instead, they will decide they don’t need the Focus.
This article suggests the Fiesta and Focus may both be dropped from the Australian market as well.
http://www.caradvice.com.au/560672/ford-fiestas-future-in-australia-unclear-focus-cloudy-too/
It dawned on me after this published that the Escape and Beetle are separated by roughly 45 years. Think back 45 years before the ’72 Beetle, and you have the last of the Model Ts rolling off the assembly line – another hugely popular car, albeit because it was the very first car for so many folks.
…It dawned on me after this published that the Escape and Beetle are separated by roughly 45 years. Think back 45 years before the ’72 Beetle, and you have the last of the Model Ts rolling off the assembly line –
Interesting. And when that Bug rolled off the line 45 years ago, it was woefully obsolete. When Model Ts were rolling off the line 45 years before that, it was 1927 and the T, still using 1909 technology, was also woefully obsolete.
The SUV mania started with the downsized Jeep Cherokee of the early 80s, then gained traction in the 90s with products like the first Ford Explorers.
Model T sales peaked at a smidge over 2 million in 1923, 4 years before the T expired.
Global VW Bug production peaked in 1971 at 1,291,612, with 1,029,489 of that number built in Germany. 4 years later, Bug sales had imploded to only 441,116, with a mere 111,872 produced in Germany.
The T and Bug both had about 20 year runs. The SUV concept is now 20-35 years old, depending on which start date you pick: the downsized Cherokee or the start of the V8 powered 190″ long Explorers in 95.
Is the blazing rate of SUV sales now the peak for the concept, soon to be rejected by consumers with sales imploding?
And yet, there was still a (limited) market for the Beetle for another 30 years…
And yet, there was still a (limited) market for the Beetle for another 30 years…
Yes, but it was no longer a mainstream, first world product. It was a niche product in the first world while it’s simplicity still had appeal in third world markets.
My suggestion is the same may happen to the SUV in the US. It may go back to being a niche product like the original Jeep Wagoneer was for over 20 years, as people tire of wheeling such a monster around purely for the looks and, having been there, done that, look for something different.
If you take the viewpoint that to be a true SUV a vehicle must essentially be a truck underneath, the SUV concept as represented by the original Cherokee and Explorer has long since peaked and gone back to being a niche market, probably right about on the schedule you identified for the Model T and Beetle. Now we’re on the next thing, the crossover or CUV era.
Random observation: the 2013-16 Ford Escape in the photo is a base trim level model – technically called an “Escape S”, although there is no “S” badging on it; in the spot on the back where other Escapes have a badge with their trim level, these simply have no badge at all.
I own a 2014 base Escape, and I’m always looking at Escapes that I come across to see whether they’re base models. I’d estimate base models make up about 10% of Escapes. Many Ford dealers don’t stock them, and I’d say they’re a clear minority even of Escapes in commercial/fleet use. The vast majority of base models seem to be either white or black (mine is white). They can be ordered in most of the same colors as other Escapes, however, and once in a while I’ll see a base model in a distinctive color like this one, but not very often.
Some telltale signs that this is a base model, besides the lack of badging on the rear:
–On other Escapes, the prominent horizontal element that runs across the grille is chrome-colored. On base models, it is black.
–On other Escapes, the parking light lenses are clear. On base models, they are a yellow-orange color.
–On other Escapes, the door handles and side view mirrors are body-colored. On base models, they are matte black.
–On other Escapes, all windows behind the B-pillar are tinted. On base models, all windows are non-tinted.
–On other Escapes, the molding that runs along the bottom edge of the windows is chrome-colored. On base models, it is matte black.
–Other Escapes have alloy wheels. Base models have black steel wheels with wheel covers.
–On other Escapes, most of the rear bumper cap is dark gray, but there is a lower piece that is silver. On base models, the entire rear bumper cap is dark gray.
Which fits perfectly with the MO of a “grandma” as the license plate indicates. Thanks for the details on the Escape.
…technically called an “Escape S”, although there is no “S” badging on it;
My beater 06 Focus is also an “S” trim, though there is no “S” badge on the hatch where higher trims wear an SE or SES badge. Crank windows, mechanical joystick mirror adjustment, non-power locks, no tilt wheel, no ABS, an aftermarket radio (tho the OEM radio may have gone west for a prior owner) and manual trans. Surprisingly, the car does have a/c and is painted in Ford’s quite attractive Toreador Red.
The S trim level also lacks an EcoBoost badge because it comes solely with the 2.5. Not that there’s anything wrong with that engine. I’ve driven an Escape with one and it was fine.
My local dealer stocks quite a few base Escape S models, they sell well to buyers looking for a Ute, but don’t need a loaded model.
This may be a regional thing, but when we were shopping for our ’14, the two Ford dealers closest to us did not have any Escape S models in stock, and the third-closest dealer to us had exactly four (all of which were either black or white). As noted in my earlier post, I would say that the majority of even commercial/fleet Escapes that I see around here are in higher trim levels, although a desire to get greater fuel efficiency via an EcoBoost engine may explain why these customers are moving up from what would stereotypically be the fleet trim level (as Edward noted, the S models have the non-EcoBoost 2.5). This is in Central Massachusetts.
I went to Ford’s web site, looked up the ten dealers closest to me, and checked their inventory:
19 Escapes, 0 S models.
37 Escapes, 5 S models.
58 Escapes, 6 S models.
25 Escapes, 1 S model.
6 Escapes, 2 S models.
7 Escapes, 1 S model.
28 Escapes, 5 S models.
27 Escapes, 0 S models.
13 Escapes, 3 S models.
14 Escapes, 0 S models.
The first three listed are the three mentioned in my last post (the third is where we bought our ’14 S). Some observations:
–23 out of 234 Escapes in stock are S models, which lines up well with my estimate that S models make up about 10% of the Escapes I see.
–Three dealers have no S models in stock at all, and two others have only one.
–While none of these dealers have what I would describe as a large number of S models in stock, there is significant variation from dealer to dealer in how many they stock.
I owned a 73 Super Beetle, somewhere around 1985. Even better than being a “Super” Beetle, it was an ‘automatic’. By the time I got the car it had somewhere North of 240,000 miles on it; that was where the seller (a Minister) said the odometer had frozen up the previous year. It was a rugged little beastie, and there was nothing on the car that couldn’t be fixed for $100 or so. Of course, there was no limit on the number of things that needed to be fixed – except that damned auto stick transmission. It was indestructible. I often shifted into 2nd (and top) gear at 55 mph. It was the only way to keep up with traffic. I was literally beaten in a stop-light drag race by a school bus full of screaming little children. Humiliated, I took the car in for a tune-up the next day but it didn’t help much. It accelerated slower than a slug. Still, it could fly right along, given enough Road to get up to speed.
On a highway trip one time, I fell asleep while my wife was driving and woke to see that she was driving an (indicated) 80 mph. I was horrified as we were several hundred miles from home; I yelled at her and told her I hoped somebody would make her try to run 80 mph when she was as old as that poor car. However, we got home just fine.
The car was
pretty indestructibleinfinitely rebuildable, and after I got a decent job a few years later, I sold it to a teen who used it every day to chug around delivering papers in it. He sold it on, and it was still running around the area for some years after that when it must have been at least approaching 300,000 miles.Impressed as I was by its durability, I would never say I really enjoyed that car.
Not a ’72…
Changes for 1970 – Two sets of air intake slots added to engine lid
Changes for 1972 – Engine lid gets 4 sets of air slots
This is a ’72
Ah, my bad, then – I misunderstood “four sets of slots,” as each ‘set’ has four slots in it. That makes this a ’71, then.
nice article .
red beetles tended to get beat to death early on, why so few original red ones exist .
good comments here, meandering all over the map and teaching me new things .
i expect someone will show up with an escape one day and i’ll give it a closer look .
part of why old beetles ran so slowly is : in 1971 the ignition timing marks were changed to retard the timing several derees and so reduce n02 emissions along with smaller main jets .
once you knew what and how, it was a simple thing to install a # 130 main jet and set the full advance timing to 28 ~ 30° total @ 3,000 rpm like dr. porsche and god intended and lo! sufficient power on tap and still passed smog test, didn’t run hot any more and didn’t die in 60,000 miles from dropped valves . -nate .