(first posted 6/26/2012) How many vehicles have effected radical and lasting change? Not just in the automotive sphere, but also the realms of society, politics, popular culture, comedy, philosophy; even our very physiology? The VW Bus is such an agent of change, perhaps the most potent one since WW2. It’s a truly revolutionary vehicle that redefined that concept, most of all the relationship of inner space to outer. A 169 inch-long hybrid of egg, box and windows with an ability to comfortably and economically transport eight adults; an impressive feat by any measure, yet just the start of its many capabilities. Perhaps it should have been called the VW Transformer.
The Samba version of the VW Bus is the most transformative of the family. So if seven of you want to hop aboard, I’ll open that giant sunroof, take you for a ride and tell you how that came to be. It’s going to be leisurely and a bit noisy, as any ride in an old VW bus inevitably is. Will you be transformed? Well, if not, at least the views will be good.
Opposites attract (me). And variety is the spice of cars, food, and sex. Accordingly, the VW Deluxe Micro Bus (“Samba”) should have been my second Curbside Classic ever, as the polar opposite and balance to the first, a 1972 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. The two are truly the ying and yang of the automotive universe. And I love them both.
I knew exactly which VW bus I wanted to write up: a daily-driver white-over-green Samba piloted by a proud young dad, usually transporting a gaggle of sun-splashed kids and their friends. For years, it danced gaily through our neighborhood to its distinctive rhythm of frantic shifts and blower howl.
But then it disappeared, just when I needed it. There’s been a VWacuum ever since, and my nature abhors that. Yes, there are plenty of old VW buses around (some consider it the official vehicle of Eugene), But not any old bus will do. The Samba is a towering icon and played a key role in my life; so yes, it has to be a genuine Curbside Classic: real, and being used for its intended purpose of transporting people.
Three-and-a-half years later, it finally arrived. Is everyone on board?
The VW Type 2 story is vast, but its origins are surprisingly brief. Above is the very sketch that gave birth to the VW Bus, as drawn by Dutch auto dealer Ben Pon, who was interested in buying some early Beetles to import to the Netherlands.
During a 1947 visit to the VW factory (under the control of British Occupational Forces at the time), Pon saw an open parts mover cobbled together from Beetle parts. The proverbial light bulb went off, and the rest is history. The lesson: keep a notebook handy; like Pon, you might find yourself designing—in 60 seconds, no less—one of the most iconic vehicles ever.
In 1949, the first prototype was built, but not on the Beetle’s platform as Pon first envisioned. Because that platform frame wasn’t up to the task, the Type 2 was built of unitary construction with integrated ladder-type frame rails; that explains how it was rated to carry up to 1,000 kg (2,205 lbs). However, it shares the Beetle’s wheelbase and is a mere nine inches longer overall.
In order for it to haul a useful load with its 25 hp (30 gross hp) 1133 cc Beetle engine, it was bestowed with the reduction gears on the swing-axle ends from the military Type 82 Kübelwagen. These were a mixed blessing since they added unsprung weight, noise and complexity while increasing the center of gravity.
And since the driving axle rotates in reverse (corrected in the reduction gear), the Bus is famous for its tendency to tuck its wheels under and jack up its rear end on take-off, the opposite of most cars. It’s quite noticeable in first gear, but you have to really be looking to see it in second; never mind the higher gears.
In this chapter of the Type 2 gospel, we’re going to stick mostly to the Samba, a name whose origins are not known to me (or to Google). It wasn’t used back in the day either, but the name has stuck. It refers to the Deluxe version of the Micro-Bus (later called Deluxe Station Wagon in the US) that was the beneficiary of some well-applied Sawzalls, or whatever VW’s workers used to cut all those extra holes in a VW Kombi. And it was specifically designed for tourist transport in the Alpine region.
Supposedly the first Samba was built in 1950, but the earliest brochures date from 1951. Famous for its 23 windows and giant sunroof, the Samba perfectly filled a need for a compact, comfortable and efficient micro-bus. Never before had there quite been such a thing. The VW bus was a truly revolutionary design, much more so than the Beetle, which was actually derivative if not downright imitative of other aerodynamic small cars then.
Growing up in the heart of the Alpine region (Innsbruck) during the fifties, the Samba was a familiar childhood sight, as swarms of them ferried German, British and American tourists to various sights. And all of them had this black-over-red paint scheme, which my Father called “burnt tomato soup.” The white-over-red scheme that replaced it in 1959 became “tomato cream soup” in his parlance. Here’s a smorgasbord of both soup varieties on Grossglockner, Austria’s highest-pass road. And how did they ever make it up there with eight (or more) tourists on board?
Slowly, of course. The German nickname for the Type 2 is “Bulli.” Even the earliest 25 hp (30 gross) buses were unstoppable, in their lower gears at least, according to this 1951 chart depicting the climbing ability of a fully-loaded Bus. 23% is steep, and with the 30 hp (36 gross) motor that came along a few years later, that first gear climbing ability went up to 24.5%. Fourth gear might have best been left off here, as 3.5% is laughable, as is the 80 kmh top speed (49 mph). But in 1951 Europe, it was a perfectly reasonable speed for a bus or truck.
In the late fifties, our family took summer vacations in the tiny Tirolean mountain hamlet of Ladis. Being without a car, my father arranged to have the University Hospital’s VW Kombi take us there. Here I am, posing in front of it during our 1959 trip with its driver, Herr Birkelbauer, on a rest stop along the way. We’re obviously discussing the finer points of Type 2s. That Kombi is a pre-1955 “barn door”, identifiable by the lack of the distinctive front roof overhang on later models.
I’ve even found another picture of that rest stop, wherein I submit proof of my father and older brother’s sadistic nature. And you wonder why I am the way I am?
One morning, in place of our usual hike we walked over to the Ladis Hotel, in front of which sat a “burnt tomato soup” Samba. We and some other tourists lined up to take a one day excursion over Alpine passes to St. Moritz in Switzerland and back. I was very excited indeed about finally having my first ride in a Samba as well as my first trip to a foreign land. According to Google maps, the most direct route is 108 km, and takes 1 hr 43 minutes. I can assure you that it took us significantly longer than that.
In my perfect memory, there were eight adults and several children on that trip. I soon squirmed out of my mother’s lap and hopped into the luggage area over the engine, which was mostly empty on this day trip. I can still see the scenery, moving by ever so slowly, practically counting every wildflower and cobblestone on the steepest passes.
We eventually got to St. Moritz, where I saw a number of ritzy cars I’d never seen back in poor old Austria. Scenery indeed!
Now, the Samba wasn’t used only in the Alps. As the best-trimmed VW bus, it also served in a variety of other roles, including ferrying passengers to this PAA airliner (bonus points for identifying it). The point is, in Europe nobody bought a Samba for personal transportation; it was a small commercial bus. A plumber might buy a Kombi if he couldn’t afford a real car for the family, but in the US, the Samba’s institutional role wouldn’t work so readily.
Here’s an American-market Samba in 1954. It was the most radical thing on American roads since Buckminster’s Dymaxion or the Scarab, defying every convention. Check out those giant front bumper over-riders: VW bumper over-riders on Beetles and buses were developed specifically for the US export market; something to do with Americans’ parallel parking technique, I assume. Or just a reaction to American car bumpers in the Dagmar era.
Yes, some VW buses were sold to institutions in the US (our church in Iowa City had one), but they tended to be the non-Samba variety. So VWoA had to market it differently: “full of sun, full of fun Station Wagon.” So where’s the wood-grain planking on the side?
The tone of the ads changed when VW’s ad agency was switched to Doyle Dane Bernbach, which rightfully addressed the challenge of selling the Samba to the better half; typically, men bought into the whole VW bus idea much more readily than women. And now, women all want to pilot a tall, three-row CUV.
The DDB ads tried to break through the “odd” image the bus had; in the end, it only reinforced it. Let’s say that these were more common in University town families than in those of typical heartland hamlets or suburbs. Or with those attending an opening of “Hamlet”.
But for some big families, it was a godsend, especially if God kept sending kids your way.
That family would have been well served by the 12-passenger version, which was only offered in South America.
The VW bus ended up having a big impact: The Big Three soon countered with their own compact vans, starting in 1961. The Corvair Greenbier was a clear attempt to build a better VW bus, but it turns out that folks rather preferred the original.
The VW Bus’ “odd” but eminently practical image soon became the most potent wheeled symbol of the counter culture.
And although a few Sambas became “hippie buses”, they weren’t particularly preferred: after all, it had too many windows to cover with Indian batik. However, I do remember at least one unforgettable ride in a Samba through the California redwoods, looking up at the towering giants through the immense sunroof. Ben Pon, you are a hero to a whole generation!
Let’s not get lost in that era or I’ll never come back. Remember that in the opening I told you about the Samba daily driver that disappeared just as I started shooting Curbside Classics in 2009? I assumed that maybe the owner had cashed in, given the run-up in Samba prices (a 1963 23-window Samba sold at auction for $217,800 a year ago). A bit over the (open) top, but it does show the huge public draw this icon has become. Indeed, they don’t make them like this anymore.
Actually, they stopped making the 23-window bus after the 1963 MY. The ’64’s got a larger rear hatch and window, which eliminated the characteristic (and beloved) corner windows, making them “21-window Sambas.” That makes the 23-window Samba even more desirable, as well as scarce. And of course, Sambas disappeared altogether with the new T2 generation of 1968.
The other night, after a quick bite at the Laughing Planet, I saw this new member of Eugene’s extensive VW bus family–and I quickly made it out to be anything but a restored toy. As I was shooting it, up walked Rich, the owner, and his teenage daughter. Incredibly, he had been the owner of that very Samba that used to ply our neighborhood. Rich loved that bus, which met its demise in a minor accident by flipping (very slowly) after a spin on black ice. Rich, who was driving alone, was unhurt. He said it happened as if in slow motion…”will it flip, or won’t it?” Yes, it will.
With a spine permanently curved from all those years spent hunched over his bus’s wheel, Rich found that he couldn’t be comfortable driving anything else. Eventually, he found this Samba (moldering away in someone’s yard), but only after looking for a long time; sadly, there just aren’t a lot of them sitting around anymore. And yes, he’s thrilled to be piloting it again. What’s more, his daughter also has the bus fever, although Mom isn’t too wild about that. Perhaps a DDB ad should have asked, “Do you have the right kind of mom for it?”
Obviously, it’s a work in progress, but one can still get just about anything for a bus. Currently, there’s a steady market in reproduction parts, but will that dry up when the last Samba has been restored?
Rich’s bus is a “walk through”, with individual front seats. Although some utility Transporters had walk-through front seats going back to the mid-fifties, that practical feature appears to show up in the micro-bus around 1959. Combined with a two-passenger middle seat, it suddenly made interior access available, should the need arise to change a diaper or mop up vomit on the go. One magazine test even suggested that ladies might have an easier time getting into the front seat of a bus (modestly) via the rear side door and through the walk-through.
Rich’s proudest component is the top-line, period-correct Blaupunkt “Köln” multi-band radio with automatic signal seeking. It cost $180 new ($1200 adjusted); probably not much more than an exchange motor. The rule of thumb back then was 60k miles on a new factory engine, 40 – 50k on a factory rebuild, and 5k miles on one rebuilt on the kitchen table by complete idiots. If that long.
In its little cubby out back, there’s a well-built “stock” 1600cc engine that Rich picked up from a fellow Volkswagonista. Originally, it would have held a 1500cc motor (optionally available in Europe starting in 1963, but immediately standard for US models). Its 50 hp (44 hp net) did give the bus a solid 65 mph top end cruising speed – on level ground, and without a headwind. That was a significant improvement over the 1200 cc motors.
But don’t laugh: In aA 1961 Car Life comparison of a VW bus with the new Corvair Greenbrier and Econoline , the 40 hp bus had an almost identically fast through the quarter mile as the 80 hp Corvair with its two-speed Powerglide. The fully-synchronized, slick-shifting VW transmission kept the little mill humming at full boil.
I know about that. I learned to drive a stick shift (car, not tractor) on a 1965 VW bus, on the grounds of the Maryland School for the Blind, when I was fifteen. This was shortly after my first illicit drives in the family ’65 Dodge Coronet, and I was eager to graduate to something a bit less automatic. An obliging new French teacher at Loyola, straight out of college, was the medium. He drove the most unusual VW bus ever: It was a regular white-over-green 11-window job, but with an aftermarket air conditioner on top of the roof at the very rear, fitted under a nicely faired-in panel, making it look for all the world like an old city bus. A commenter left this shot, and it’s exactly like the same.
Anyway, it often wouldn’t start for him after school, so I fiddled with the carb (held it wide open because he flooded it) to get it going. One evening he was driving some of us to the Maryland School for the Blind to perform our allotment of community service. Payback time: that evening, my social contribution was to not hit any of the blind students walking the campus roads with their sticks as I mastered the VW’s stick.
Pretty soon, I was the new designated chauffeur of the so-called “Smokemobile”, into which a number of us would pile in order to indulge our nicotine habit as we rode through the neighborhoods around Loyola between classes. As the bus labored up Chestnut Avenue, trails of smoke poured from the flip-out windows.
I ended up driving that bus on all sorts of trips, including a ski trip up to the mountains of Pennsylvania, in fresh snow no less. Nothing like a supple fifteen-year-old brain to rapidly master the various dynamics involved in hurtling a loaded bus through snow-covered winding back roads. Teach ’em young, even before they get a license.
Mysteriously, the facilitating teacher’s tenure at Loyola was cut short after only about four months. This coincided with the Smokemobile’s engine blowing up in a cloud of, well, smoke. But by then my tuition at Loyola had paid off, and I was a Type 2 ace. Rule One: The gas pedal is essentially an on-off switch; all or nothing. Rule Two: You shift up when the motor noise level stops increasing. Rule Three: No hard braking in turns. Rule Four: Don’t get caught.
From my earliest childhood encounters, the Samba instilled in me a deep longing to take folks for a ride in a bus, to show them new sights and create memorable experiences. Whether they were my fellow ninth-grade smokers and skiers, my passengers on a city bus, my girlfriend in my Dodge van, my family in the back of our Caravan, Stephanie and I in my Promaster van, or perhaps even you, through the ramblings on this page; it is what I was (and am) called to do. I’m happiest hunched over the wheel of a bus, box or keyboard.
The VW bus is a vehicle of exploration, both inner and outer. It has facilitated dreams of every sort. And created nightmares. Thanks to its weaknesses, we are stronger. Or at least wiser.
Our little trip is over, and we’re back to where we started. Well, not really, because we’re never quite the same after a real trip, one that has pushed the boundaries at least a wee bit. And a ride in a Samba will inevitably do that, one way or another. It may not be life-changing for everyone, but it was for me.
After that memorable long, slow trip over the Alpine passes as a child, I heard the howl of the Samba’s engine, fan, transmission and reduction gears in my head as I went to bed that night. And in one of life’s little symmetries, it’s all come back to me: my ears are hearing the Samba’s thirty horse engine conquering that pass once again today, 24/7. I’m told it’s the symptoms of tinnitus, but I prefer to call it tinnibus.
Postscript: I consider the VW Type 2 to arguably be the most revolutionary and influential vehicle of the post-war era, as it essentially defined the concept of the compact transporter/van/MPV. Needless to say, its influence was huge and lasting, and I consider the whole movement to tall, roomy, multi-row vehicles and even CUVs to have been largely inspired by its influence in redefining the concept of the automobile outside of the realm of genuine trucks.
Thanks to Tatra87’s superb look at the pioneers of the minivan/MPV genre, it’s clear that there were some antecedents and contemporaries in the Type 2’s space. But none of them were quite as practical, efficient, robust or otherwise appealing to become commercial successes, let alone be built in any significant numbers. So the Type 2 is safe, at least in my book, in forever redefining the passenger car as something other than one with a hood in the front and only two rows of seats.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1960 VW Bus – On The Bus
Curbside Classic: 1961 VW Transporter – A Rolling, Hard-Working, Living-History Mobile
Curbside Classic: 1963 Corvair Greenbrier – We Don’t Want A Better VW Bus
Vintage PR Shot: VW Bus – 12 Passenger Version
May 31, 2018
Dear Mr. Paul Niedermeyer,
As an occasional visitor of the Curbside Classic site and a thankful reader of many stories on it (without sending any reply so far), I just discovered that you recently (March 27, 2018) re-posted your article from June 26, 2012 on the Volkswagen Type 2 Samba Bus.
When I saw this re-post, I remembered reading your original Samba Story shortly after it had been published, and I wondered if you had been able since to find an answer to the question you had in 2012 concerning the origins of the “Samba” name.
Apparently you did not… since the re-post still contained the same question, in spite of two replies on the subject in which a British origin of the car’s name was suggested (or even stated as a fact).
If there exists any evidence for the source of the Samba name lying in the UK, I’ll be the first to admit it as a fact. But up to now I haven’t seen any proof or even read or heard about it. Therefore I remain doubtful on the origins of the VW Samba’s type designation being British. Even more so, since VW Type 2 export to the UK only began in 1954 (Type 1 export in 1953) in relatively small numbers, from which probably only a hand full were 23-windowed “DeLuxe Microbus” variation as the “Samba Bus” was officially designated by Volkswagenwerk AG in English-speaking countries. (In a later stage the term “station wagon” was introduced in the US and Canada; I don’t know how the car was [re]called in Australia and New Zealand.)
VW’s late official sales start in the UK would imply that in the early 1950s, Volkswagen as a brand and the Type 2 range in particular were relatively unknown to the British public. Volkswagen certainly did not have an image in that country strong enough to generate a popular nickname just for one very specific and rarely seen model variation.
Moreover, my doubts on the British origins of the “Samba” name are especially based on a very logical German explanation of were “Samba” comes from, I found many years ago in some original VW Type 2 documentation:
In fact “Samba” isn’t a name at all! … It’s an abbreviation.
SamBa stands for: “Sondersauführung mit Banken”, meaning: “Special (or DeLuxe) version/edition with sofas (seats)” – it is the official factory description for the Volkswagen Types 24 and 25 being the 7-, 8- or 9-seat microbuses with 23 windows, two colours, one sliding roof, some extra chrome and a lot of factory-fitted luxury extras and accessories, including a broadened dashboard (pre 1955 models) with a clock and (for some markets) a tube radio.
Mind you! In early post-war Germany, modern marketing techniques – such as giving well-sounded names to cars – were hardly known, let alone used. No one felt the urgency to use or even think of that kind of sales promotion. It simply wasn’t necessary, since the German and European markets, still recovering from their deep war wounds and in the middle of the first phase of post war reconstruction, were crying for cars, no matter if they wore a name, a number or just an incomprehensible product code.
At Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, in such an environment of time and circumstances, caught within the boundaries of Germany’s specific ‘Prussian-Teutonic’ national character of hard working seriousness, solidity, precision and modest functionality, supplemented with feelings of national shame and a damaged self-confidence, inflicted by the country’s recent history, probably not a single car salesman would have given it one thought to propose a commericially attractive sounding name for the new DeLuxe People Carrier, in particular not such a frivolous name inspired by Latin-American dance music. The simple fact that the vehicle offered no less than 23 windows, was already frivolous enough.
Given the circumstance that Germans are often controlled by a lack of humor, it is even questionable if the Wolfsburg commercial department’s staff immediately recognized the double meaning of “SamBa” after they had abbreviated their “Sonderauführung mit Banken”-description. They certainly did not make use of the word “Samba” officially as a name for the car from the moment it was introduced to the public during Germany’s first post war international motor show in 1951… not in Berlin anymore, but in Frankfurt am Main, of all places!
It took the seriously thinking, hard working Volkswagen sales and marketing people quite some time before they reluctantly began to unofficially use the Samba-word as the car’s name. Here we can see an interesting parallel with the term Beetle (Käfer in German) for the original Volkswagen (Type 1). That car was officially launched in 1938, became a world wide best seller from the early 1950’s and was cheerful called “Der Käfer” for the first time officially in the MY 1968 German (and Swiss and Austrian) sales brochures; in my native language the car became “De Kever”… Thirty years after it was announced as “Der KdF-Wagen”. Those Wolfburgers took their time!
Please allow me your reading time for one more remark and two questions concerning your Samba Story and the accompanying photos:
1. The reduction gears on the swing-axle ends did not come from the military Type 181 Kübelwagen, but from the (Porsche) Type 82 Kübelwagen; the Volkswagen 181 All Purpose Vehicle (“The Thing” in North America) had them too, but that car was introduced in August 1969, one year after the Samba Bus had left the European and North American scene!
2. What was wrong with the left hand side air intake louvres of Rich’s blue Samba Bus, you took your photos from? I can’t recognize what the black line and dot are.
3. Did you succeed in finding a picture of a VW Bus with such a giant aftermarket air conditioner on top of the roof at the very rear, fitted under a nicely faired-in panel, making it look for all the world like an old city bus? And if not, can you explain (or show) what kind of old city bus you have in mind when comparing it with a VW Bus equipped such an aftermarket device? ( I don’t believe you meant the Australian first-generation Typ 2’s which had a slightly higher roof combined with a differently designed system for air-intake to prevent their engines from “dust eating”.)
Finally: Thank you and your colleagues very much indeed for all those lovely and super- informative stories on CC-cars. I’m looking forward to many more of them!
Best regards,
Fokko Haanstra
Someren, The Netherlands
Hi Fokko,
Thank you for your comment. And your theory as to the origin of the word SAMBA makes a lot of sense. Being originally from Austria, I am familiar with the tendency to make very pragmatic abbreviations.
I sure would like to see something in print that confirms that, like a price list or some other factory document. The closest/earliest I’ve found at thesamba.com is a 1954 Dutch price list, which calls it the “SAMBA”. The use of all capital letters supports your theory.
So where did you get this from? I’ve Googled like mad, and can’t find anything else out there on the web that makes the same inference.
If I could find some confirmation, I’d love to run a post about how the Samba got its name, as the many web sites dedicated to the early Samba/Type 2 have nothing on that subject.
As to your other points, I made a typo with “Type 181” as the source of the reduction gears; it was of course the Type 82, and my link went to that vehicle. I’ve fixed that now.
I think there was some damage to his cooling intake; if I remember correctly, on of the louvers was missing. But that was a few years back, and I’m not quite sure.
I’ve never found a picture of another bus with that type of air conditioner. The unit sat on top of the roof at the rear, and had a cover. I’d have to draw it for you.
Regards,
Paul
Is this the roof AC you saw Paul? Found this on vintagebus.com under rare VW Buses and Bus Accessories.
That’s it exactly!! Even the exact same vintage bus and color. is it the same bus??
Thank you for refreshing the memory banks.
Back view.
Inside view.
Another inside view.
Another style.
Last image . No info on who the manufacturer was. Website linkhttp://vintagebus.com/rare.html
Feeling blue (ha!) about this bus again. I am now 56 and remember when first a passenger in that bus in’83 in the way to a party, as a 22 year old, doing the punk rock thing, with its owner Eugene F. Thinking, probably stoned, of what a lovely dashboard it had. Art Deco in my mind.. Nine months later he offered to sell it to me.. $350. Maybe it hadn’t moved since that night. The emergency brake was frozen/rusted. Took a 6” cheater bar to release it, on the street, in front of Eugene’s house on 17th and Hilyard. Drove it home 4 blocks in 1st gear. The shift rod coupling was out. Took me about a year to get that fixed. Research was slow, and, as a recent dropout from the U of O, and more interested in bass guitar, other priorities loomed. My pal Pat helped when he could. The van was in his driveway! We’d get stoned in the back under the open ragtop. Dream about rolling up to punky parties in it. John Muirs guide as well as Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Language” became my voices both. A year later I was in my second band (St. Huck) and all was ready to roll! My test drive from my house (The House of Shit, so named because the former tenant had raised rabbits and covered their turds with carpet remnants) near 13th and Jefferson ended 6 blocks later with a traffic stop and tickets for “no tags, registration, or insurance”. The van became my daily driver (who needs a car in Eugene? I drove it to Portland to carry fellow musicians gear mostly at 55mph, once in the rain with shoe-strings working the wipers from the vent windows) for three years and decided to sell it to Matthew (whom Rich bought it from) for $900, with the proviso that I got first dibs should he sell it. Matthew was unreachable (LSD), and a friend in the bus-world told me he had a cork board by his front door with 100 cards of people that wanted it. I realized it wasn’t coming back. My fondest wish still. Still playing music, but as a secret rockstar who still fetishizes that van and all of the 6 “splits” that I was lucky to find in 15 years. I still live here, play music, drive a ‘91 Buick Park Avenue, had a ‘70 Mercury Montego (The Artists Car) featured here, wish I had all of them back now so I could cruise and retire in style! Typical Eugene trip, right?
Yup! 🙂
Thanks for the backstory on this van.
So you’re the guy with the purplish-red Montego I shot in the Whit some years back?
Well now… I am feeling like a dupe, more than ever, about not realizing the value of most of the cars that I’ve been lucky to own, but never able to maintain. I look at that like my ability to afford health care… the first car (van) I owned was the ’65 van in question… let us see if we can find it… in its museum in Stuttgart, I believe?, sold for a bit more than I or Rich paid… um… I paid $350 for it in 1984, as I mentioned. The person I sold it to, M. Tettsner, had a giant board by his front door of folks that wanted it… I had first dibs, according to our agreement. To buy it back, that is. As a musician (that is how I found it, connections, etc), I had little money but a lot of motivation and a lot of connection to get it on the road. It only took me 3 years, and zero dollars, to get it going. Then the stories mentioned. I don’t want to cry too much. (I know the original owner, and his son, if that matters to anyone.)
I don’t want to cry too much… of course this was my favorite and most sentimental vehicle of my life. I did get it going after two years, and I did drive it up to several rock n’ roll parties here in the Euge, and transported bands up to the Satyricon, house parties, and other clubs, in PDX, on many occasions in it. 55 on I-5. Until the rust became an issue, and the lack of locking doors too… I had to run down Mt. Pisgah at full speed from halfway up, after a trusting moment, of seeing an early version of a homeless person try to test the doors (albeit, with some crappy bass gear inside) and take my stuff. Maybe he only wanted a place to be with old hard wood….
I’ve had a ’71 Polara ($200), a ’66 Newport with a 383, a ’70 Montego (mentioned here more than once), and the other five splits (I never paid more than $500 for any of them, this being Eugene, in the 80’s, when these vehicles were 20 years old or less), as well as a ’67
Caddy convertible, bought for my dad when I made the one big check from Universal Records that I received in 1999, to give to him restored at his retirement the very next year (never delivered to him, as the royalties were denied at the end of that year, and the Caddy needed too much work).
I regret never being able to hold a car that had issues, as I’ve always had issues making enough money to keep any of them. Imagine a $100,000 VW Van, and not having enough money to keep it… who would have thunk it in 1984? I wish I were one of those. I guess I have always been one of those, in reverse.
I think that I’ve been abused by car flippers. I wish that there were some “commupence” for their like. M. Tettsner was not one of those. He was like me, though he had a trust fund…
Now I have vintage music gear. And a few old (pre-1960) golf carts. Some moldy. What should I hold on to? Like most Americans, I have no ability to retire safely. I am 57. I don’t think my 1991 Buick will ever cut it. Maybe I should hold it, like all my old LP’s and books?
The last split I had was a ’67 walk-through, same color blue/white as my first, but with a 1600. Ran great for years, until it didn’t. Told by a customer of mine at the brew pub I worked at to “never sell it. It has all Porsche internals”, and true, it’d do a bit faster on I-5 (68mph, pretty rad for a split with no tranny mods), and really I had that van longer and more functional than any of the other splits that I had had… I wish I had it back. And all the others…
BTW, this is why I held on to the early plum version of the Montego, until I couldn’t (on my musician and waitperson salary) afford to keep it… Who knew? Like the poor persons before me, who could presage the value and have means to hold that value? The friend (?) that bought it (the Montego) from me has it under wraps (after its last CC write-up) and can put money into it that I couldn’t. And still can’t. More power to him. But I’ll always wonder and be jealous.
Another talk for another day, I suppose. Of course there are stories within these stories.
Thanks for re-posting this, really enjoyed it and all the comments.
Fokko identifying an origin for SAMBA is interesting and makes sense to me.
But he is wrong about British ignorance of VW. Wolfsburg was in the ‘British Zone’ of occupation and was put back into production by the engineers of the British Army. Granted the British and Americans had bombed it, but they had been making Kubelwagen and the V2 drones to bomb Britain.
I was born in Hamburg in 1957 to English parents, my father was a teacher in a school for children of British forces. There were lots of British forces in North Germany and the Beetle was the standard forces vehicle. The forces ordered VWs and the British firms sent vehicles to the US and the Empire/Commonwealth as ‘Export or die’.
My mother claimed I could recognise Beetles as soon as I could talk, pointing and saying taxicar.
My own T2 was a 73 Bay window Westy with a typ4 engine. I sold it to my brother’s next door neighbour in 2007 but it stopped working last year-2023. Hope they can get it going or find a buyer.
I find it interesting that when we look back on the vehicles most often described as “iconic” (Samba, Beetle, 2CV, 500, Isetta, Mini, ’32 Ford Roadster, Jeep CJ, etc.) they were designed with function first, style close to last. Iconic looks simply weren’t on the designer’s agenda for these purpose-built cars, shaped for sensibility and ease of manufacture. It’s a happy accident that they all looked so cool.
Those early print ads distorted the Samba’s appearance to made it look more voluptuous than it really was, and even that’s better than the cringecore “do you have the right type of wife for it?” adverts that followed. As time progresses you can see how the ad agencies eventually realized the Samba wasn’t going to make it as a typical suburban family runabout, but that it noneless did have a distinct market segment nearly all to itself.
In a nut shell ;
Form follows function and that’s a beautiful thing for some .
FWIW, for thirty years these did in fact make terrific if deadly suburban family haulers, work trucks, surfer vans, telephone delivery trucks (Rev. Scoon Yo !) .
They tended to out work and out last the other brands offerings .
-Nate
As for iconic: Model A, and most of all the Model T, the ultimate functional vehicle.
I wonder if I might have seen the legendary Smokemobile, as I lived a block off Chestnut and my school bus stop was at Chestnut and Trafalgar from Fall ’65 to Spring 68, right about your time there Paul!
I had only one experience driving a ’65 V-dub bus, one that belonged to a close friend who foolishly lent it to a bunch of us going for muncihes, undoubtedly high. So it was a good thing that the tired old bus wouldn’t top 40mph, even on flat Rt 140 in Westminster. It got us there, but slowly and trailing burning-oil smoke, a different kind of Smokemobile? Not a fun driving experience, but it got us there and back!
That was in the fall of 1968, so apparently shortly after you moved from there.