In the summer of 1993, when the temperature was topping 90 every day and the world was one of swimming pools, sports, and suntans, I was thinking about winter. Among other things, I was thinking how cold my trusty ‘72 Volkswagen Bus was on a cold winter’s night, even after it had “warmed up.” I had a plug-in heater to clear a little of the windshield on cold nights, and typically wore my coat and gloves while driving, often adding a blanket over my knees.
As I stood on the dealer’s lot for the tenth time, pondering the decision to give up the Transporter and everything that went with it, the thought of shivering in that box on wheels, squinting at the road through frost that seemed unlikely to melt until springtime, became the deciding factor. I caved…and drove off the lot in a brand new ’93 Fox, the low-end Volkswagen sedan. I ended up owning two more Foxes over the next 20 years, of progressively older vintages. The Fox ended up being strange enough on its own; a Brazilian-built mishmash of VW and Audi parts, front drive with the engine mounted longitudinally, and sort of looked like an early Rabbit or Jetta. The transition from air-cooled to water-cooled, ‘60s tech to ‘80s tech, taught me a lot. But that’s another story.
Fox COAL coming soon.
I got the Bus from an older guy who was having health issues and moving in with his daughter and son-in-law. He clearly would miss it, and I felt like I was going to be a caretaker for a piece of history. I respected that, and him, and did my best. I learned how to do PMs, I fixed rust, and since it was missing the VW logo on front, my brother painted a somewhat-psychedelic one on.
The Bus took me many places, and taught me many things. It took me to Dead shows, which I learned were the only place you could lose a white VW Bus in a parking lot… I learned how to make curtains, so that I could sleep in it or have privacy for other things. I learned that if I hit a deer I was toast. The Bus taught me a great deal about road manners, the Spartan ethos, and of course auto maintenance. And, though I can’t say I planned it this way, having a Bus prepared me for the next phase of my job.
I worked at the airport back then, throwing freight, and soon I started fueling planes, first Cessnas and then airliners. If you’ve ever been to a large airport and watched the planes while you wait to board, you’ve probably seen the big cigar-shaped fuel trucks that lumber around from plane to plane. These are usually eight and ten-thousand gallon trucks (I’ll just refer to them as Eights, for simplicity.) Their acceleration and maneuverability are, well, abysmal. I don’t mean to say that Type 2s are terrible on the road, but they do have certain characteristics in common with the fuel trucks.
An 8 at CMH with an AWA 732 and an Il-62 (8000 gallon fuel truck, at Port Columbus- now John Glenn- International Airport, with an America West 737-200 and a visiting Russian Ilyushin Il-62.)
For starters, the average Bus takes a while to speed up and slow down. I have heard people say, “If you’re being passed by a Bus, you’re going too slow!” A Bus has a fairly low-power engine for its size, and an Eight is similarly under-powered. Their 200 hp diesels have a lot of torque, but they accelerate slowly and top out at about fifteen or twenty mph. Just as in a Bus, then, you have to be thinking far ahead of where you are at that moment. Same thing goes for deceleration. A Bus can take a while to stop, so you need to do a little planning ahead. An Eight, weighing at least thirty tons, takes forever. There are no panic stops to avoid animals or pedestrians; they simply have to stay out of your way, as a rabbit would avoid an elephant.
Changing directions, too, is similar. Both vehicles have the front axle mounted beneath or even a little behind the driver, so steering is slightly different from most automobiles. My brother once said that you don’t steer a Bus, you aim it. In an Eight, too, it’s more a matter of pointing it in the right direction than ‘steering.’ I have heard this referred to, cynically, as “Ouija steering”–just guide it, subtly, in the direction you intend to go.
Overall, though there are some similarities, the obvious choice for drive-ability is the Bus. Still, sometimes when I was fighting to stay on the highway in a brisk crosswind, I’d think fondly of the stability of an Eight! Ten tires and 60,000 pounds don’t skitter around as much as four (slightly bald?) tires and a ton or so of mass. Ah well, we can’t ask for perfection. I’d take the Bus any day. Anyone who has owned one knows the Transporters are the most useful, dependable vehicles on the road.
The Bus with my brother’s VW emblem on the front, at the Ohio History of Flight Museum where I was a volunteer, now the site of a hotel.
Oh yeah, I missed the Bus, and still do. There’s just something about it…maybe that air-cooled, almost-aviation engine sound. The space, too; heck, the stuff I had stashed in the Bus’ various hidey-holes filled the entire trunk of that new Fox! All sorts of useful (and useless) items—some of which I still carry around; I hated the thought of not having the right tool or picnic accessory with me. I missed the grins and giggles and waves and peace signs. I missed being able to look drive-through restaurant employees in the eye (this was before SUVs were a thing, and I’ve still never had one.) I missed not having to worry about just how close I was to that–scrrrrape!–fence. How could I hurt the Bus? With the Fox I had to wash and wax and worry. Before, if it started raining, everyone except me had to rush out and roll their windows up. Not me…the Bus could take it. I could haul anything, with no fear of damaging the upholstery (what there was of it). I hauled quite a few people, moved furniture, carried trash to the dump, even thought about taking a rooster to its new home: hey, it could fly out of a pickup, and the Bus was like a cage on wheels. If the thing got dirty, I could (in theory) just hose it out. I missed the headroom… driving the Bus was like being in the living room of a small house: everything was within a few steps. And I missed the white paint: though it was hard to see in the snow, it kept reasonably cool in the summer.
But I didn’t miss the freezing temps in winter (that’s with the heater on…), or the feeling of running on the ragged edge of the motor vehicle safety laws (the turn signal? The muffler? Yes, officer, I’ll get right on them.) I didn’t miss being nearly blown off the road by semis and crosswinds. I didn’t miss blasting the stereo just to hear it over the engine (and my voice activated micro-cassette recorder was useless, because the noise kept it continuously activated–even when the muffler was intact, the wind noise at 55 was unbelievable.) I didn’t miss struggling just to keep an even speed, much less accelerate, on uphill entrance ramps. It’s nice, too, not having to finesse the stick into gear. Or having to shut the door slowly, so as not to knock the window out of its track and then spend fifteen minutes getting it back in place.
I always felt bad subjecting others to the severe conditions of the Bus. With the Fox I finally I had heat and AC and comfortable seats. ‘Course, the Bus did have that fold-out queen-size bed in back…
I’ll always miss the Bus. But, the VW dealer took good care of it, and it was sold to another Bus aficionado–friends saw it tooling around town. At least I knew it had a good home, because after all, who would buy a Bus except someone who loves them?
At the dealer, forlorn.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1965 VW Deluxe Micro Bus “Samba” – A Truly Revolutionary Vehicle
had a ’67, splittie/barn doors; took out the middle seat, built a little platform out of plywood and 2 bys, and took it on a 3000 mile road trip out west in march of 1970. that’s rita peeking out of the rear window, parked along st, vrains creek. you remember rita; that’s her and me having a cup of cocoa out of the side doors in devil’s garden campground in arches national monument a few days later in the previous photo I sent you. it was still a monument back then and we spent a whole day at delicate arch without even seeing another person. now you can’t even get in the park after 8AM. better stop before I go all ed abbey on you.
Love that picture with Rita peeking out of the window! Yes, the great outdoors is all-too often crowded now. I avoid national parks now and find more obscure places, like the Scablands of Washington, from which we just came back in our van a few days ago.
When we visited Yellowstone in June 1966 there was hardly anybody there. I got to watch Old Faithful with no more than a dozen others and four of them were family. Should have visited Yosemite in the 70s when I had the chance. Pretty much too late now unless coming in the backside via 395.
Yes to just about everything you wrote here. My ’73 was a Westfalia camper model (COAL written in 2018) but what you mentioned about steering and stopping was dead-on. Mine was a manual as well, which meant that shifting was just as vague as the steering and brakes—the pivot was up front and the transmission was all the way in the back. I miss that bus for several reasons but I’m very glad I sold it too.
Owned a very similar VW van but the first bay window a 68 1600 twinport manual, poor lights and brakes it covered a lot of kms then the engine went bang, by then I was sick of the regular problems and cut my losses.
A very well-told story, Mark.
Until reading this, I’d never given much thought to the driving dynamics of airport tanker trucks – aside from having a toy one as a kid…one of my favorites. That all makes sense to me, and I guess that’s one reason why airports nowadays seem to favor alternative ways of fueling planes at the ramp versus piloting one of those things around. “as a rabbit would avoid an elephant” is a great reference.
While you wouldn’t expect my comparison for automotive austerity to be a Mercedes, I totally feel you with the “not wanting to subject passengers to my esoteric vehicle” mindset. That hasn’t stopped me from accruing a large church carpool group though. I’m really curious what others thought of your continued use of the bus. I get a lot of “when are you going to get a new car?” I wonder if the bus was interesting enough for people to suggest replacing it or just supplementing it with a nice comfortable commuter.
An enjoyable read that brought back many (mostly good) memories of my ’71 tin-top Campmobile (your’s was a Campmobile, also?). I, too, carried a blanket for cold weather – it actually does get cold(-ish) in the South. My heat never worked, though, and I had gutted the camper after I bought it, including the gas heater unit, which was a dumb move.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/my-ex-curbside-classic-1971-vw-bus-the-mayfield-belle/
I’ve been on the receiving end of airport fuel trucks (Cessna 172), but have never driven one. Makes sense that they would be slow, though.
I bought a ’72 camper new and keep it 20 years, in California, Pennsylvania and Colorado. I finally installed a gasoline-fired small-aircraft heater under a rear seat, and that gave excellent heat.
That’s what it takes in a bus, to stay warm. The Beetle can be pretty cozy if one follows the directions and the ducts and all are not leaking, but the much larger interior volume of the bus is a different story.
I can only imagine driving those tankers, as my science teacher said in 1959 “a pint a pound the world around” ~ 8,000 gallons WHOA ! .
In case there are any here who still have old air cooled VW Typ II’s, rigging up a curtain from ceiling to floor just behind the driver’s seat works wonders as does jamming it full of happy people .
The Typ II’s all had a -very- long shift rod, IIRC it had three bushings and a coupler , no one ever bothers to replace these so the shifting indeed becomes an art form .
Articles like this make me (sort of) miss my old 1968 #211 one ton parcel delivery van .
-Nate
I have no personal experience with handling on either the VW bus or fuel trucks.
I have flown on the IL62 (TAAG Angola). Takeoff and landing characteristics are unique from any other plane I’ve been on. That would have to be a very strange sight in Columbus. I wasn’t aware these ever flew to US airports outside major international hubs like NY or DC.
I wonder if the plane could be the very similar looking British VC10?
I wonder if the plane could be the very similar looking British VC10?
I wondered about that too, but based on differences in the engine nacelles, it does appear to be a IL-62.
These Kombies were very common in the 70s. They were associated with hippies, but the truth is that their owners included all kinds of people.
My dream was always to own one, a Westfalia version.
Rode in one only once. My best friend, in high school, drove the family 63 Buick while Dad was out with the Tuna Fleet for months. He eventually got a Bus in red. Since he worked for Nurseryland garden store it came in handy. In 1974 we rode up from San Diego to the Bay Area. Relatives of his near Sunnyvale and my parents in Orinda. The entire ride up 5, summertime, which entails the up and down of the Grapevine. I only remember one thing from the trip and that was how uncomfortably I felt with my legs having pretty nothing in front of them. By 1978 he had a Scirocco.