“I don’t need time, I need a deadline.”
– Duke Ellington
I’ve been participating in various forms of creative endeavors for most of my life, across a span of categories that includes instructional design, fiction and non fiction writing, training videos and documentary films and I have come to recognize that I seem completely unable to marshal the discipline required to complete a task until a deadline appears. Although I remain a devout reader of Curbside Classic, it has been almost six years since my last contribution on my 1979 Mustang turbo. So here I return, now with a Sunday deadline for this and future contributions.
Without going into too much detail at the moment (which I will save for a future piece) I feel I was born preternaturally obsessed with cars. I’m not sure if I could remember the names of all the people on the short (37 house) street I grew up on some sixty-plus years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, but I’ll bet with some prompting I can recall at least one car per home. That’s what I noticed. But I’m going to jump ahead to the first car I ever purchased.
Like many Americans from the 1950s through the ’70s, my initiation into automobile ownership began with a VW Type 1; better known as a “bug” or “beetle.” Like anyone growing up in the States that was into cars, they just had to catch your attention because they were so damned different than the “normal” American offerings. For many, the first adjective that likely came to mind was, “cute.” But the deeper you looked, the more there was to see. The late Artie Shaw once said that one of the most difficult things to achieve is simplicity. The Type 1 was the essence of simplicity. Along with the DC-3, which arrived about the same time, it became one of the iconic symbols of mass transportation and like the Douglas, will likely be in use forever.
Now, I’d never even driven a Volkswagen, until I test drove the first one I took a look at in the classified section of the Post-Dispatch, a 1960 model with around 50,000 miles on it. A high school friend had owned an MG Midget and I had learned the rudimentary skills of shifting a manual, but this was about as far from the Midget as you could get. The car was actually in exceptional shape for being 16 years old, but the lack of a fuel gauge, and more importantly seat belts (which came in handy in a subsequent car) kept me looking. The older sister of a high school acquaintance had a red 1966 Beetle for sale. I took a look and a drive, and offered $500 (the asking price was $550) for it, and it was mine on my nineteenth birthday in March of 1976.
I couldn’t have been happier. Having grown up with the classic VW look, I preferred the cars with covered headlamps (1966 being the last year in the U.S.) and bumper overrides. The windows had been enlarged in 1965, and the front seats made slimmer to add space for rear seat passengers. (We now take the ability to adjust the rake of your seat back for granted, but for those of you who are younger, for decades all you could do was slide your seat – most often a bench for all front seat occupants – fore and aft.) While not infinitely adjustable, there were small cams on each side of the front seats that allowed at least a choice of three positions. Also for 1966, the outer edge of the wheels were painted white and the formerly moon shaped wheel covers were flattened (not unlike those on the Porsche 356 models).
dented rear fender on this one by coincidence
Overall it was in very good shape (I seem to recall the mileage being somewhere between 50-60k) with the exception of the left rear fender, which had a mysterious dent at its very peak centered above the rear wheel. With the exception of a walnut shift knob, it was about as stock as you could get, including the original Sapphire IV AM radio. I bought a generic VW “manual” published by Petersen that told me just about everything I needed to know. And at that time, VW replacement parts, like the oil screens, could be purchased at discount stores like Target. I’d learned from my father the value of adhering to a strict maintenance schedule, so I began a schedule of regular oil changes and also changed the transaxle oil (I still have the 17mm hex tool). There were also some skills I acquired that were not the norm for American cars, like adjusting the valves and manually adjusting the drum brakes. I also bought a very popular, at the time, auto polish called Star Bright. Their advertising featured someone going to a salvage yard and restoring the finish of a junked car. Entirely possible in the days before clear coat, but not recommended today.
I replaced the radio with a low-end Audiovox AM/FM cassette player connected to two six by nine speakers that I mounted on a carpeted piece of plywood and placed in the space below the rear window. This necessitated the installation of a six-volt converter (another relic of the dark ages that was easily obtainable even into the mid-seventies).
I was in my sophomore year at college at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where I was among the 90+ percent of students who commuted daily and as I’m sure was a common VW experience, my Beetle provided me with reliable transportation (with an exception I will get to). I spent most of a spring break attempting to repair the dent in the rear fender, and the results were, well, appalling. It was an early lesson in false economy (not that I didn’t fall into similar traps later on) as I later discovered that a brand new primed fender could be purchased for under $30 from the dealer, and a friend of a friend with an auto body shop sprayed it for me for $15. After I bolted it on, the color matched perfectly, but that only served to call attention to the age of original paint on the rest of the car.
Nothing I had driven was quite like the Beetle. In 1976 my parents owned a 1971 Plymouth Sport Fury Hardtop and a 1971 Plymouth Duster. Both automatics, the Duster, with the base 198 cubic inch slant six, was just plain slow. On the other hand, the Fury, with a 2bbl 383, was the most powerful car we’d ever had (though acceleration was somewhat slowed by the 2.73 final drive). Both handled (like most American cars at the time) like large barges. You turned the steering wheel and sometime afterwards your direction began to change. By comparison the VW was a speedboat.
It was also quick enough that I managed to get two speeding tickets. The first in Calverton Park, a local speed trap municipality. Fortified with the righteousness of the young, I vowed to get my day in court. I showed up and pleaded “not guilty,” and was directed to show up two weeks later. I had no idea what my plan would be, but I dutifully showed up and the cop who issued the ticket did not, so I “walked.” However because of that I missed a concert I’d been given free tickets to at the Mississippi River Festival. The featured performers were the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, but the opening act was someone no one had heard of quite yet, Jimmy Buffet. Another lesson in false economies.
In the fall of 1977, in order to complete my degree in journalism I enrolled at the University of Missouri, Columbia and moved into a dorm. I was lucky to be a junior, as parking passes were hard to obtain for freshmen (the usual first-year students) but that’s where I discovered a mysterious quirk. The car had no issues operating in rain, but once parked and cooled off, would not start if it was raining. It would crank and crank, but no ignition. Once the rain stopped it could still be wet, but would fire right up. Never did figure that out. Finally, for the most part, despite the radically different rear engine power train design, the car did not handle all that differently. Well, most of the time.
There was this night when I was headed south on Providence Road to a party. In this era it was a crowned, two lane asphalt road (now four or six lanes) just past Faurot Field. A rabbit appeared and I swerved slightly then over-corrected and discovered the power of oversteer in a car with the weight of the engine behind the rear wheels and swingarm axles that with positive or negative pressure reduced rear tire contact (similar to first generation Corvairs). Before I knew it, we had slid rearward into a proverbial ditch. I can’t recall the name of my female companion, but I do remember she was fun and quite unpretentious, which was a good thing because as she did not know how to operate a manual transmission she was the one who had to get out and push. Which she did and we were back on our way.
It’s common to hear complaints about the ventilation and heating, but it worked well for me with again, one exception. You had two knobs, one on each side of the parking brake lever. One opened the valve to divert airflow from engine cooling into the cabin via two vents below the rear seat. The other further diverted the flow into vents on the lower corners of the windshield. The cables and mechanisms were below the pan and exposed to the elements, so it was not unusual to have a cable rust and eventually break. On a very late night (actually early Sunday morning) trip back to St. Louis to see the then extremely new and popular comedian Steve Martin the driver’s side cable broke, leaving me to have to lean into the passenger side to see.
As it turned out, that was my first and last semester at UMC. I was hired as a flight attendant by Ozark Air Lines in October and began training the following January. I continued to drive the Beetle until the summer of 1978 when I purchased a 1971 Karmann Ghia convertible which unfortunately didn’t last very long (a future tale).
I could not have had a better “first car” experience. It delivered reliable and inexpensive transportation, it was fun to drive, and I learned a lot. To this day at any car show I am attracted to any vintage Volkswagen. It obviously made a good impression on me, as five of my next seven subsequent cars were Volkswagens.
Related reading:
CC 1966 VW 1300: The Best Beetle of them All, Or At Least The Sportiest PN
A great story, and you met the deadline 👍
I always wondered what the heater levers did, since my 1963 beetle just has a single knob for heater control
Agreed; an excellent story. What I remember most about the controls on our family’s Beetle was that tiny, tiny spotlight VW used to illuminate those climate levers. Endlessly fascinating as a kid, since at the time I couldn’t figure out what it was for. Seemed luxurious, though.
Why did the Federal gov mandate lap belts instead of the Euro 3 point belts in cars of this era?. On impact you could still hit your head on the dash and damage your chest so they we’re ditched in the rear for the 3 points around 97..
The UK went from nothing to 3 points in 1965.
Excellent article, thank you. I think almost all car enthusiasts of a certain age have had Beetles in their lives in some form. Interestingly, my brother had a 79 Mustang, much like yours, while his girlfriend had a Beetle, in which I rode a few times. I’ve driven or been a passenger in several other Beetles, even though I’ve never sought them out…. such was their ubiquitousness decades ago.
I’ve never pushed the button on Beetle ownership, simply because all the affordable ones rusted away around here. Better examples attracted real money from enthusiasts and collectors seeking to rekindle the memories and experiences of their first cars. For the money, other collector cars were more affordable or appealing to me.
I’m happy to read you had such a positive experience with your first car. It’s a nice contrast to many first-car encounters, which , due to tight budgets and delapidation were more challenging.
Great post. I’ve never owned or even driven a Beetle, so I never get tired of reading about them.
Oh, and it has actually been almost *seven* years since your last post, not six. Don’t make us wait so long for your next one!
Thanks. Math never was my strong suit. (Not sure if I have one.)
See you all in 2028!
Welcome back! Although I have never owned a Beetle, you had me after quoting both Duke Ellington and Artie Shaw before the end of the third paragraph. And Oh, how I love that quotation about the need for a deadline.
I was always open to VW ownership, but living in northern Indiana caused them to rust fairly badly, and after the middle of 1979 when gas prices shot up they became awfully expensive for what you were getting, and anything I could afford was a rusty mess. A friend bought a 67 around 1978 or so and fought rust and cold until it wore him out.
I learned something today – I thought I had remembered that the 67 was the first year of the flat hubcaps, but you set me straight. As for that rear fender, I would have thought that a matching red fender would have been plentiful in the boneyards of the day. I managed to score a hood the color of my 67 Galaxie once, saving mucho cost and effort.
Didn’t J.C. Whitney offer super cheap VW replacement parts as well?
Yes, and one order got you five years of catalogs in your mail box.
Thank you. Artie Shaw is kind of a forgotten figure. In addition to his musical career he was quite a writer and pontificating curmudgeon. There were few subjects he did not share his (mostly disdainful) opinion about. I attended a weekend festival in Hollywood in 2002 celebrating the career of Woody Herman. Artie had been invited to speak, but I think by then his health was failing. I half jokingly said be probably would have remarked about how much better a clarinet player he was compared to Woody.
As for the fender, I’m not sure I could have gotten one much cheaper. VW actually used this as a (rather sexist) ad.
There was a really good biography written about Shaw about a decade ago called Three Chords For Beauty’s Sake, and it confirms your suspicion about Shaw’s opinion of Herman. Although he and Benny Goodman had a competitive and frosty relationship over many years, Shaw once remarked to Goodman about Herman “He’s not in our league”.
Shaw may be forgotten by most, but not by me: https://jpcavanaugh.com/2020/03/13/artie-shaw-so-easy-except-when-it-isnt/
As a clarinetist no, but in the nearly 50 years since I became a devoted listener to what was left at the time of the big bands, my appreciation of Woody has only increased. While his first “band that plays the blues” seems very dated today, once he began the “First Herd” in the middle 1940s he produced some of the most innovative and timeless music in the jazz orchestra oeuvre, all while incorporating elements of what was at the time popular music. The Herd at Montreux album is a great example. Who else would have a set list with; a Motown tune, a hit from The Carpenters, a lengthy jazz arrangement of Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man, an original compostion, Montevideo, an Alan Broadbent arrangement of a Medieval Latin hymn, Tantum Ergo, and a big band arrangement of a Billy Cobham tune, Crosswind.
His penultimate 50th Anniversary Tour album was among his best.
What a great story. If there is another postwar car that has touched more lives in every corner of the globe, show it to me.Personally, I prefer the earlier hub caps, especially the ones with the large VW logo. And I still pull out my copy of “Small Wonder” and reread it from time to time. 🙂
My first car was a red ’68 Saab 95 V4, bought in the spring of 1971 when I was a senior at Washington University in St. Louis. It would make a good COAL, but realistically it’ll never happen.
I never got a speeding ticket in the 95 and wasn’t aware that Calverton Park was a speed trap. A bit of context for non-St. Louis people: the city of St. Louis is a county unto itself, and St. Louis County has about 90 municipalities, some of them very small in area and population. Calverton Park is 0.41 sq mi and had a population of 1293 in 2010. I understand that the Ferguson protests of a few years ago were partly driven by the city’s practice of getting a fair amount of their revenue from fines.
I grew up in Ferguson, and the police were, in my opinion, pretty fair. Generally if you were not quite ten mph over the limit you were okay. The neighboring municipalities like Calverton Park and Dellwood had fewer commercial properties and thus not as much tax income. There were streets that had lowered speed limits once you entered these cities.
However, that was during the seventies. Unfortunately Ferguson experienced a lot of disinvestment and came to rely on fines and fees much more than when I was growing up.
I attended McCluer High School, so many of my friends lived in Florissant and the police vibe was very different there. Most weekends there would be a party at someone’s parent’s house. Kids, lots of cars and ultimately discarded beverage containers nearly always resulted in the cops being called. In Ferguson, they’d mostly tell us to keep the noise down, pick up the beer cans and essentially don’t give someone the reason to call again or we’d all have to split. In Florissant, once they arrived, the party was over.
I came home from the hospital in my parent’s ’58 Beetle, written up here.
My earliest VW memory is riding in the one my babysitter drove – I was probably six or seven at the time, and while I have no idea what year it was, I do remember her commenting that it was really old.
We lived in this neighborhood maybe 4-5 years, and I remember riding in another neighbor’s Transporter when I was a little older. The Beatle’s Michelle was playing on the radio. Funny what memories stick with you.
My first car was also a red VW, but it had to be pushed a lot but that’s because it was a toy I received when I was two or three. It flew off the coffee table pretty darn well.
My wife’s family lived in Florissant until 1980, so you weren’t terribly far apart. In Columbia, Providence south of Faurot Field is now a divided four lane section with very wide shoulders on both sides. The shoulders are used as overflow parking during football games.
I also laughed about the mention of two-lane Providence Rd. My wife’s family is from Ashland, and she attended MU about a decade after Jerry did. Whenever we’re in Columbia, she makes a point of telling me how huge Providence Rd. is now.
And it is somewhat ironic that your biggest misfortune in the Beetle was caused by… a Rabbit.
I’m looking forward to more installments; hopefully in less than six years!
Apparently everyone who has ever owned any form of VW still has that 17mm Allen wrench taking up space in their toolbox.
I saw an identical red Bug in Orlando, Florida back in 2006 when my wife and I drove down for our own March break. It had a roof rack and belonged to a friend of my wife’s sister. I took several photos of it – the car was in nice shape and most of the Ontario examples rusted away long ago. I’ve never owned or driven a Bug, but as I’ve mentioned a time or two I came home from the hospital in our blue ‘61. I still wouldn’t mind taking one for a spin sometime. I had a New Beetle as a rental about 5 years ago. I enjoyed driving it, but, still, it’s not the same as the original.
When I was in high school, all the “cool” boys had Bugs. They endlessly spoke about how they fixed them and how they got them to make cabin heat. I thought there must be something special about the Bug, so I test drove one. It was noisy, cramped and the windshield was like 20 cm from my face. The gas tank was just below it. These two factors didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me. I wondered that the cool boys were thinking.
I much preferred my 1974 Toyota Corolla. In the entire time I abused it there was not one single repair. It was so tough I loaded it to the gills and towed a tent trailer.
It also made heat.
Now I await the flames, for I am the only human in the world who doesn’t get all gooey about a VW Beetle. In fact, I detest them. They were designed circa 1930.
1938, actually, although the heating system wasn’t added until 1939. 🙂
Of course a 1974 Toyota was vastly more modern; one would certainly hope so. Kids loved VWs because they were cheap, easy to fix, and parts were cheap and readily available. Kids like VWs in the late 60s and ’70s for the exact same reason they liked Model Ts in the 1940s, and 1930s Fords in the 1950s. Obsolete, yes, but with qualities that endeared them to their fans.
As to the VWs heating system, it’s a tired trope that the heating system was bad. I’ve just re-read two vintage reviews from the 1950s, both of them praised the heating system, and these were both tested in the winter.
If the system was working properly AND if you cracked the vent window a tiny bit, it worked just fine. I spent several Iowas winters in them, perfectly warm. The vent had to be cracked because the VW was essentially airtight, unlike almost any other car. If you didn’t crack the vent, the heat from the engine’s blower simply wouldn’t come in except rather feebly, for obvious reasons.
On a water cooled car, that wasn’t necessary, as the heater core was inside the car and the car’s air circulated through it.
Lack of heat in a VW = Operator Error.
I much preferred a car that didn’t need to be fixed all the time but to each their own.
Lack heat can also mean the heater boxes are shot. The smell of exhaust and oil from said heater was common if exhaust manifold gaskets were leaking.
No thanks.
You’re comparing apples to oranges. Those kids had cars that were 6-15 years old! What do you expect? And they were probably messing with them because they liked, or hopping them up, etc.. Some kids like fixing up cars.
My brother bought a 3 year old ’66 in 1969. It was in superb condition when he got it, and it required zero repairs. He put a new clutch in it at about 90k miles, before selling it to a friend. She ran it for years after that.
I had two older 1200, a 63 and a ’64. I never had any real repairs except the normal wear items. These were built very solidly.
The engine in my old ’63 finally broke a crank because my GF lugged it through the mountains in a torrid heatwave, and overheated it. Operator error. But it was 11 year old by then.
It’s ok if you don’t like VWs, but there really was a good reason why kids bought them as cheap used transportation. They were hard to beat for that.
Much more fun to drive than an old American car, and lots cheaper to feed.
But yes, if I was buying a new small car in 1974, I certainly wouldn’t have bout a VW. That would have been the case anytime after 1968-1969, actually. By then there were better cars on the market from Japan.
I took charge of my Corolla in 1980. It was six years old. I drove it for six years and over 100,000 miles.
I had no repairs. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
I once thought I had to adjust the valves. Measuring the lash, it didn’t need it.
The smell of exhaust and oil from the heater was common on pre-’63 stale air heater bugs, not the author’s fresh air heater ’66, although rusty/rotted heater boxes certainly reduced cabin temps. From the look of that rust-free body, the author’s car didn’t have rotted out heater boxes.
Early 1960’s American compacts did not have a standard heater-defroster at all. Even in 1966 there was no heater on a “weekend special” stripped Falcon.
No flames from this quarter! I don’t get the least bit gooey about them either and have never had the desire to own one. I took my Saab’s ability to make heat for granted at the time, but naturally a Swedish car would be able to make heat.
A friend of mine stuffed his bug into a Michigan snowbank tail-first 50-odd years ago. Shortly thereafter he got a Saab 96 V4.
The Bug had (and still has) charisma. Or perhaps it should be spelled Car-isma. A Corolla is merely extremely competent. Interestingly you waxed poetically about your own Beetle’s successor yesterday.
In the 1970’s a Bug was based on a 30-something year old design. A ’74 Corolla was much newer. Today we here spend a huge amount of time on the 30-something-plus year old designs of all kinds and little on the current ones. Virtually none of the old cars we discuss are remotely as objectively “good” as the new ones. However, the old ones simply have Car-isma.
Today, a ’74 Corolla does have some, it has gained it over the years, but not as much as a Bug. But a new almost anything does not have much if any, despite it being as advanced compared to the ’74 Corolla as that ’74 was to an original Bug. If you had your current Golf in high school and the other kids had ’74 Corollas you’d be saying what an absolute shit-box the Corolla was.
So, Jim, you know what I was saying in high school.
That’s pretty amazing!
That said, even in 1980 I had no desire to drive a car that was designed forty years before.
I have to opportunity to drive a 40 year old car any time I want. It’s a lot of fun but no way I am going to drive one of them every day. It’s more of an exercise of getting stares. A 1979 Lincoln MkV with a TMeyer 434 stroker kit attracts a lot of attention but the Lincoln is so difficult to drive in a city I don’t drive it much. The 1979 Cadillac is a much more modern car.
Let the Bug flames continue!
Let the Bug flames continue!
No thanks. “Debating” with you gets tedious all too quickly. I already regret falling for your trolling.
How about we switch the subject back to pickups vs. Hinos?
I get it. If we don’t like the same thing, we don’t get to post.
I now understand.
You’re free to post whatever you want as long as it’s within our commenting guidelines. Who ever said otherwise?
And I’m free to ignore them, which I normally do. I made an exception, because it’s a subject I know a lot more about than you. I wouldn’t try to contradict you on the virtues of Hinos or Acura TLs or Golf Sportwagons.
You might be surprised to know that some of us come here to actually learn from others and not just to reinforce our old prejudices. Or get into tedious pissing matches.
My brother had a ’66, and I spent a lot of time in it, including a whole summer while he was in Europe and left the Bug with me. having had lots of experience with VWs of the various years and engine sizes, the ’66 1300 is my favorite. Not surprisingly, that’s because it’s the sportiest of the bunch, with a significantly higher power peak (4200 rpm instead of 3600 for the 1200, 1500 and 1600). And it still had the low (high numerical) gearing of the 1200, so it really ran like a Porsche 1300 from the ’50s. It topped out right at 78-80 mph.
And the 1300 was significantly more economical than the 1500/1600s.
Not quite as relaxed as the lower-geared 1500/1600s on the freeway, but perfect for sporty driving on curvy and mountainous roads and such.
I had two 1200s after that, and rebuilt one of them into big-bore 1350, but it still didn’t run quite as well as my brother’s 1300. And its original engine went well past 100k, in the hands of the next owner, who I knew too.
I would love a ’66 1300, but very few likely have their original 1300 engines still.
If you found one, could you rebuild the engine to the original spec?
It was very common to rebuild 1300s into 1500/1600s, as all it required was the bigger cylinder barrels and then cutting out the head to accept the bigger barrels. But once that’s been done, I don’t think you can go back to 1300 barrels.
But sure, anything can be done if you find the right parts. But original 1300 parts have become relatively scarce, as most everyone wanted more displacement and power.
Great story, and having never owned a Bug, I have to live vicariously through the stories of others so thank you. Looking forward to the next one!
PS – You didn’t mention that you hung out with Tom Selleck…
The last time I worked on a VW was 25 years ago….
When I dug this thing out of the toolbox, my hand immediately remembered the whole process. The feel of torque as the oil plug comes off the gasket, then the wrench drops into the bucket, then untighten the plug by hand while hot oil flows over the hand into the bucket. Muscle memory never goes away.
What’s the story with that classic VW smell? I can’t describe it exactly–it’s sort of a waxy, plastic-y odor, not exactly natural but not quite chemical either. My ’63 beetle had it, as did our ’70 family bus and just about every air-cooled VW I ever rode in. It’s not altogether unpleasant, but very distinctive. Am I imagining this?
I’d always wondered about that as well. It was especially unique in the pre-60 models. German plastic? Grundig electronic equipment from that era had a similar smell.
The natural horse hair in the upholstery inevitably contributed to the distinctive smell, more so in moist/humid climates.
Interestingly, my 1st-generation Miata had exactly the same smell inside. Not sure why. Brought back a lot of memories, though.
I’ll have more to say later, but just wanted to add that my first car was a Volkswagen, but not a Beetle! It was a 1975 Rabbit.
However, I drove so many Beetles back in the day, all belonging to friends.
And ironically, the car in which I learned to drive in is very similar to the one in your first photo – it was a 1967 Chevy Bel Air 2-door sedan (pictured car appears to be a 67 or 68 Impala 4-door).
This year beetle was our family’s first new car, when I was 5. With the “insider” vent-crack gambit, on highway trips, and when the outside temps were in the 20’s, it was usually pretty comfortable. The only daunting trip was 100 miles out to a wedding and back with a daytime of 0, with nighttime at -10. That was a bit challenging, and we all wore lap blankets. “Just like when I was a kid”, dad said.
It had a big crank-back canvas sunroof, great for the pre-a/c days living in the city. I still have the walnut shift knob on my tchotchkes shelf. We later had a ‘72 Super Beetle as well. I “drove” this one with Dad around the neighborhood a bit, but that was it.
Years later at a large family party, someone needed to make a run to the store. Dozens of cars in the yard were all behind a beetle at the foot of the drive. That owner couldn’t drive anymore and no one else could drive stick, so off I went.
Windshield. Face. Wow. On the import side, most of my driving was with our Opels -a Manta and a 1900. So this actual drive in beetle was exciting and appalling in equal measure!
I guess we love these for what they were, rather than discount them for what they weren’t. Nostalgia. Everyone had one, knew someone who did, rode in one. Everyone has a beetle story.
Much closer in degree than Kevin Bacon.
My people! Getting a piece of writing done in advance is a lovely idea—I guess, I wouldn’t know; it’s never happened for me.
Welcome to the COAL mine—this is a terrific story and I look forward to the next chapter.
What a great story!
Well it would take wonder if such a car that was sold more than 21 million times would not have a very large fan group.
My first car was a 1973 German Ford Taunus. Rather comfortable seats but swampy steering and fishy handling. No wonder it quickly ended its life after having intense contact to a tree.
Then I got a green 1970 beetle. Much less spacious but a real handy and economical car to learn much about driving and maintenance! And a car where every part was necessary or essential for function except the hub caps!
My first car was a 74 Volkswagen van. My buddy had a 71 super beetle which I spent a lot of time in and got to drive a couple of times. It was faster than my van but cramped by comparison and you couldn’t sleep in it (at least not comfortably). They were great first cars and taught us how to pull motors, replace clutches and do tune ups. Anytime I work on my current vehicles I miss the simplicity of the old air cooled VW’s even if you had to work on them more often.
Great post brings back some memories of the early nineties.
It is amazing how many here had a VW as a first car. Mine was bought for $250 at age 16 in 1966 – a 1960 Beetle owned by a co-worker of my father’s. In addition to the other smells noted above, it also suffered from the strong odor of hunting dogs as that had been its primary use in recent months. Took a lot of scrubbing and disinfectants to make in livable. And the last hand-brushed paint job was peeling off in big chunks. You’re getting the idea of why it was sold at a bargain price.
Dad and I water-sanded the car and my cousin, who owned a body shop, repainted it at no cost except for the cans of Indigo Blue (original color) I bought at the VW dealership. Here it is following the paint job (and some free minor bodywork) and the addition of some accessories (e.g. wheel trim rings) via J.C. Whitney.
I owned two more VWs in the next six years, including a new 69. BTW, the last two, a 63 and the 69, shared the author’s problem: they usually would not start during rain/damp weather. And all three suffered from rusty heater junction boxes/controls – IN was the epitome of rust country.
Looks very nice.
Very nice. Love the color. If I could order a new ’66 I’d get one in Java Blue with the steel sunroof.
Rust was a problem in Missouri as well. You knew trouble was ahead if you inserted the jack in the slot ahead of the rear wheel and your first movements raised the slot but not the car.
First car I bought with my own money was a very-beat ’67 Bug. Blue, with primer grey fenders all around, each one with dents “straightened” with mighty thwacks from a ball-pein hammer. I bought it on my lunch hour as a junior in high school. $300 cash. Drove it back to school. It was months later before I told my mother. I had to park it at a friend’s house to keep it secret.
I owned it two hours and ten minutes before it was totaled. When school let out, every student got into their cars, formed a line at the 4-way stop sign waiting for their turn to go. I was stopped in line with my Bug, the guy behind me was stopped in his Pinto. The guy behind him was doing a rolling burnout; he hit the Pinto, the Pinto hit me. Nobody burned to death. Of course, I didn’t have insurance yet. That may have been my first time in court.
I paid the body shop $28 to pull the fan shroud away from the fan. I beat the crap out of the engine cover with a large hammer, I think I got it to latch again.
One of the first places it went once I got it back was to my restaurant job, where I grabbed a bunch of hot water, detergent, ammonia, and rags. I cleaned all the smoke residue off of…everything. I was scared to death I’d get pulled-over for speeding or something, and the cop would smell the dope odor. Did I mention that this car was previously owned by a guy a year older than I was, who smoked a lot of funny hand-rolled cigarettes?
This car was beat. I really don’t know why I bought it. I *knew* it was a steaming pile of crap. But these were the days of crazy inflation, gasoline shortages…I plead temporary insanity, and the recklessness of Youth.
The shifter was so sloppy, you had to flip the shift lever across to the “reverse” gate, before you could go into first from a higher gear. I bought a “short-travel shifter kit” (EMPI??? Cal Custom???) at K-mart, which meant I didn’t need the large-arm-movements to swing the shift lever, but it still had to throw over to the reverse gate before it could downshift to first. The brake pedal went almost to the floor. I didn’t know the friggin’ thing was so prehistoric that it didn’t have self-adjusting brakes. And from the comments above, I’m the only person on Earth who owned a VW and didn’t have a 17mm wrench to access the transaxle fluid. Never checked it. I did put an electric heater under the oil pan to help with cold-weather starting. Never had a place to plug it in, though.
We’d get four people in the car, hit a bump, hear sparks and smell battery acid. Who the hell puts a battery under the rear seat?
I was driving on the highway out-of-town about ten miles. Car dies. I’m stranded. My friends rescue me. We determined that the distributor popped up out of the engine enough to disengage; when it quit turning the engine quit running. Simple fix, but not on the highway in the middle of winter.
It wasn’t too long before I sold that piece of crap to a guy I went to school with. He was in my first-class-of-the-day. About two weeks after he buys it, he’s very late to school. We took bets on whether the car burned. When he showed up, he said he was late…because the VW had caught fire.
The best, wisest, smartest thing I ever learned about VWs:
[Silly German Accent] Ve Germans iss ze Superior Race. Ve have za blond hair, ve have ze blue eyes, undt ve have ze Volkswagens. Undt everybody knows zat two out of three ain’t bad! [/Silly German Accent]
I’m told that back in the day, zillions of Kraut Can engine cases got melted down into “mag” (magnesium) wheels for American “hot-rods”.
I’m also told that Scat is selling brand-new air cooled VW engines; I have heard but not confirmed that they’re 100% Chinesium. I suspect Hitler would be appalled.
I’ve still got my copy of “How to Hot Rod Volkswagen Engines”.
My Dad’s first “2nd” car (i.e. his commuter car besides our family car) was a ’59 Beetle he bought in 1966. This was up in Vermont, and by then it was pretty badly rusted, such that the floor under the battery rusted and ended up falling through the floor suspended by its cables. He had it a couple of years when it was totalled in front of our house (parked in the street) by teenagers who lived at the end of our street. He was used to VWs from the early 50’s as he’d served in the Army in Germany and was assigned a Beetle fairly often (didn’t just drive Jeeps or Army Trucks). Ours was red and lacked a gas gauge, so you would stall out and pull a lever to get the reserve (they all were like that). After it was totalled he bought a new ’68 Renault R10.
I got the VW “bug” in 1981, but never did the air cooled bit…started with my Scirocco (40 years ago this month) and never deviated, as my only car is an ’00 Golf and the other car (only owned 4 cars in 47 years of driving) an ’86 GTi. But I attribute my liking them to my Father (who really wasn’t much of a car guy but did own some interesting cars)..thanks, Dad!
I had a 1962 Beetle, in 1973 as my first car. Damn near froze in the thing in the only winter I drove it.
My buddy liked mine and wanted to buy it from me, but the engine seized (compression loss) and neither of us had the inkling, resources, or skills to fix it. So he got a 1968 Beetle. We had lots of fun driving around in that car, but if we went out for burgers late at night and it was cold out, the inside of the windshield would freeze up while we ate in the car. We tried using the cigarette lighter as the defroster, that was rather ineffective. We still laugh about it.
My first car was a ’66 Beetle 1300. ( Registered in the UK in Jan 1967 so considered a ’67 there)
This was in 1999 though. It wasn’t in great shape, to put it mildly, and I certainly got no speeding tickets in it.
I’ve stil got my 17mm hex plug for my dearly departed Mercedes W124’s back axle oil plug. Don’t think I’ve even been in a Beetle; ever, although I do love the engine noise when one passes. Most of my memories of my earlier cars are on my back in the snow and rain trying to fix something on the underside. In my Humber Septre’s case, that was the whole bloody axle replacement.
Good memories not; but good experiences nevertheless.
Your reference from Artie Shaw – a man who wipes away all of the many indigestible aspects of himself with the ability to do what he could do with a bit of bent brass – is apt across the whole range of human endeavour.
The Beetle is one such. Air-cooling, a bit basic compared with water, was made to work well out of bits of tin and lots of thought. Rear-engine’s pendulum problem obviated by a flat engine, and its short length. Low power was assisted by aero thinking. Weight lessened by a (sort-of) bent-tin unitary structure. Gearing and breathing such that high revs can’t really happen, helping to a long life. None of which was new on its own, all of which worked when combined just so: all of them, simple, even cheap.
I’ve read someplace before that the artist – or inventor, come to that – could be defined as the person who sees a pattern in a collection of familiar things and links them up. Simple.
But to see it! Ah, there’s the thing.
Of course, Dr Porsche didn’t achieve perfection. Quite apart from working for Hitler, he fitted swing axles, known to me as the Axles Of Evil, and your tale shows for the too-many-eth time the potentially disastrous consequences that even a mere rabbit and them can bring. (The owner of this site knows this and will never admit it, but don’t mention it to him, or you mightn’t get another gig next week).
Nice stuff, Mr Retro. Next week’s deadline is looming, so do make a start by at least Friday night, please.
My first car was a ’67 German home market 1500 Deluxe Sunroof Sedan I bought from a returning soldier. 6 volts and front disc brakes. Cheap to insure for a young male driver, cheap to feed and cheap to maintain, even at dealer prices.
I drove it to High School and University and took it to Maui when I moved there. Its rust is still there in the volcanic soil of that island.