Beetle Stories
Email chain discussion on VW beetles over the last week.
Sorry to carry on about VWs but they really are part of family lore. In Queens NYC most people have to drive around aimlessly looking for a parking space. Few rental apartment buildings had garages. 1966 beetles get air pressure for the windshield wiper fluid from the spare tire in the trunk. There was a very clever crook in my neighborhood who specialized in stealing spare tires from VWs. He apparently had devised a screw driver with a bent end. He would apply wax to the device and use it to unhook the little vent window that is on each side of the windshield. Once he unhooked, he could reach in the window so he could open the glove compartment and pull down the latch that opened the front trunk to steal the spare but only after carefully unscrewing the valve that fed air pressure to the windshield washer! I couldn’t get too angry at the guy because he took such pains to avoid going damage. Over time he got two brand new spare tires. After the second tire theft I bought a cheap nearly bald tire to be a spare and he apparently didn’t want that because he didn’t take it after his 2nd heist! I had a Blaunpunkt (sp?) radio that he didn’t steal although they were often stolen back in the early 1970s.
Nathans. Massapequa, New York
Great stories, Steve!
Between graduating from high school and my first year away at college, I dated a girl in Palm Springs who would be going to Corvalis, OR, for college. I recall on the way back from PS to LA, there was a headwind. That little car could barely get to 55 mph, (the freeway speed limit). It did not overheat but just kept grinding away, “I think I can, I think I can” as we traversed the desert valley up the San Jacinto mountains and into east LA.
The car I bought in Germany had more power. I recall when traveling on the roads in Turkey (large stone blocks put in place by the Romans) going over each seam every two feet or so, it felt like going over railroad ties.
St. Paul would speak about his “thorn in the flesh.” I wonder if he had a bad back – all those miles on flat sandals. I mention him as in my travels from Greece to Asia Minor, I traced his footsteps (in a VW), visiting all the cities mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. They would not let me into Syria without posting a 100% tariff on my VW’s value, fearing I would sell it. They promised to give the money back when I exited the country. (I did not trust that; besides, I did not have the cash as I was traveling on $5/day. [It was doable in 1963].
Panama, Los Angeles, California.
I owned three of 'em.
1. 1964. After a six weeklong overland trip with college friends from The American University of Cairo (Egypt)... four weeks through Syria, Iraq, Iran by local bus and two weeks by train from Istanbul to Sofia, Warsaw, Moscow, and Leningrad, my friends and I took the train from Helsinki to Osnabruck, Germany to pick up, at the factory, a new, red beetle convertible purchased for me by my dad.
Over the next two weeks we drove the new beetle through Austria, Switzerland and France to deposit the car at Le Havre for shipment to NYC. The friends separated, never to see one another again.
I flew to NYC where I stayed with an LDS missionary Provo friend in LeFrak City for ten days. It was at the time of the NY World's Fair at Flushing Meadow. I'm nineteen at the time. I took the subway into Manhattan where, at my mother's urging, I went to Lord and Taylor to buy a suit. The menswear salesman asked me where I was from. "Utah," I replied. Salesman: "Utah! Utah! I've never met anyone from Utah!"
After ten days in NYC I picked up the VW at the port and drove it out to Utah. As a second-year college student at BYU I used the car for a year after which I went on my LDS mission to France for two and a half years. During my absence the car was used by my younger brother, Dee. When I returned from France in 1968, Dee had just started his LDS mission to Argentina, so the beetle reverted back to me. My Dad was worried that I might not have the upper hand with the girls, so he bought me a 1969 GTO. For the final year of me finishing college, the VW stayed in the garage or was driven by Mom or Dad from time to time.
In the fall of 1969, TIMDT and Mwah (sic) married (she was more impressed by my motorcycle, a Suzuki 200cc standard, than the GTO). We drove the beetle to Boston where I started the MBA program at Harvard Business School. Six months after our arrival in Boston, the beetle was stolen from the parking lot of our Waltham, MA apartment, never to be seen again.
2. With the insurance proceeds of the stolen car and some borrowed money, we purchased a new (1972), yellow beetle, this time not a convertible. We drove that car during the eighteen months of our stay in Boston and then gave it to brother Dee after he returned from his LDS mission to Argentina. We left the car with my mom and dad when we moved to Beirut, Lebanon in the fall of 1972. They kept the car for another three or four years and then sold it to family friends.
3. We spent the first six months of 1974 in Manila, Philippines attending Citibank's credit training center. We purchased a used (I don't remember the year of manufacture) lime green beetle which worked well for the period. From Manila we drove the beetle as far north as Bagio (160 miles) and as far south as far south as Lake Taal (50 miles). And, many points in and around Greater Manila.
The Bishop, Park City, Utah.
I've toyed with the idea of getting a late model VW convertible for my Florida home, but I know it wouldn't be the same, and now VW has discontinued the Beetle (again!). VW should bring back the Beetle for a third time - but this time include a plug-in hybrid EV. Guaranteed to be an instant success. I wonder if it is possible to have a 4 speed manual in a PHEV?
Nathan's. Massapequa, New York.
I bought mine in Wolfsburg, Gr., at the VW factory. Drove all through Europe, Italy, to Greece, Turkey and back through Yugoslavia to Amsterdam where it was taken to Houston for me to pick up for my first USAF post in NM. It had a gas gauge.
The very first one, a used car, on graduating from high school, for my job at Disneyland, was the one without a gasoline gauge. When it sputtered, you turned a lever by your right foot, which gave you one more gallon of gas to get to a station.
Once in the USAF, with a 2nd Lt. salary, I bought an MGB-GT, shift. (Hardtop.) On a trip from Albuquerque to Las Vegas, with my dad, it overheated, and I had to coast into Las Vegas the last mile or two. English cars were not made for desert driving. Panama, Los Angeles, California.
I miss my Beetles. Bought a 1966 Bug while stationed in the Army in Europe. Put nearly 100,000 miles on it in 30 months. Drove it up to Bremerhaven and shipped it back to NY. Linda and I used it through 4 years of college. Great little vehicle. When I got my job at Price Waterhouse, I took a loan for $3600 at Manny Hanny Bank and bought a brand new ‘73 Super Beetle. Their first model ever with factory air. I gave it to my secretary in 1985 when Citibank posted me to Tokyo. She drove it for years and then gave it to her daughter. I hope it is still “alive”!
Nathans, Massapequa, New York.
I got a speeding ticket based on an aircraft spotter alerting CA Highway Patrol. I was in a 1955 VW bug with the wind to my back.
In those days, there would be signs on the 101 along the coast: “Measured Mile Starts Here.” The pilot only needed a stopwatch, calculate the lapsed time, and radio a hidden patrol car.
I protested but to no avail: “Officer, a VW can’t go 85 mph!” Be safe!
Panama, Los Angeles, California.