It’s been in the back of my mind for quite a while now, that bucket list thing. Gotta have one more Volkswagen, my all-time favorite automobile with so many wonderful memories. It needs to be a really fine one though. Old age limits my working on them anymore and have significantly winnowed out what I can still do. Fishing and boating, my all time favorite activities, no longer are possible because of spinal surgery. I feel a pervasive sense of “do it now while you still can”. I guess that what is left to me is to just be able to drive and enjoy my old cars.
I’ve had a number of Volkswagen Beetles in my time, probably at least a dozen. Bought my first one, a 1967 sedan in 1969 after we first got married and were in the Navy. (Even though I was the one in the Navy, the Navy is all pervasive and becomes a collective “We” when we were in it.) I traded a 1966 Mustang fastback in on it. Why yes, I’d like to have either or both of them back right about now. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Those were the days—you didn’t look back—only forward to the next adventure. As I recall we traded for the VW because it was much more economical than the Mustang, and being newly married and broke……well, it just made sense. After all, gas was expensive at 32 cents per gallon. Thirty miles per gallon was a lot better than fifteen. We drove it for four years, racked up about 80,000 miles, then traded it on a newer VW after an accident.
You don’t see old Beetles on the road much anymore, not even in car shows. On a recent trip to Florida and back I counted three of them. One was an old bus pulling a small trailer through the mountains. The other two were standard beetles on the highways in northern Florida. Time was when they were as common as dandelions in the spring. I used to see one parked in a drive in Shalersville on Diagonal Road—don’t see it there anymore! Now, to see one you have to join a VW club, of which there are not many, if any, around Northeast Ohio. The closest ones seem to be in Pennsylvania or Columbus, quite a drive for me. I ran across a 1974 Super beetle by accident or chance last summer. While chatting with the hostess at a restaurant where we were having a Model “A” (Ford) dinner, she mentioned that she also had a classic car, then showed me pictures of her VW. Seems that her husband passed on recently and it was his baby. Now what to do with it? So, I went and looked at it. It was very nice looking, had a bit of rust on it, but I couldn’t start it. It was in a dark garage so I couldn’t see the underneath either–very important on an old VW. There was little or no gas in it. She was no gearhead, not the least bit understanding of automobiles. Putting gas in the car to her meant adding a quart of gas like you would do to your lawnmower. Adding a quart of gas to a fuel injection system is…counterproductive, futile. A second date to look at it fizzled, she had to work, so I took this as an omen from above, to pass on this one. Super beetle, fuel injection, atypical custom interior, some rust…..a greater power seemed to tell me to take a pass on this one.
Let’s talk about desirability, more specifically my ideas about which years of VWs I would prefer. Based upon my experiences, 1966 to 1970 Beetles are what I favor the most. These years are thought to be the culmination of 50 years of constantly improving technology on the original “ German People’s Car”. 1967 is widely considered to be the best car Volkswagen ever produced—12-volt, bigger engine, heaters that actually worked some of the time, very reliable, practically indestructible even to us shade tree mechanics. In 1971 due to pressure from the American market to constantly introduce “new and better”, they introduced the Super beetle which had a “new and improved” Mc Pherson strut independent front suspension. And they made lots of smaller changes to the original beetle concept, some of which were actually good and welcome-i.e., defroster motors. But, as those of us who owned them experienced, the 1971 and 72 Super beetles were fraught with front end problems. They quickly developed the shakes and I could never get the shimmies and shakes resolved by any VW shop. I finally sold that car even though it was a convertible and one of my all time favorites. From 45 to 60 miles per hour it shook like an aspen in the wind. Even now these two years of beetles are abundantly for sale on all the websites and usually at more reasonable prices, which is attractive to the unknowing. VW did make some 71 and 72 standard beetle sedans with the earlier traditional, tried and true, “solid” front suspension and those are definitely desirable if you can find one. I had a 1971 light blue one when they were new. It was a good car. But all the convertibles were Mc Pherson strutted Super beetles. Many years later I had a ’71 yellow Super beetle convertible. Gosh I loved that car, but it shook so badly, and no shop that I ever took it to was able to resolve it.
What about cars newer than 1974—or for that matter older than 1965? My preference in VWs is a span of five years from 66-70. Maybe it’s because this was my formative years with VW’s– the time period when I was driving those cars daily and working on them. Not surprisingly, this is what I kept coming back to with future cars because I was most familiar with them. For example, when it came time for my daughter to get a car, we got her a 1970 VW because I could keep it running and fix it. This indeed came in handy when she rear-ended someone and it took me all summer to replace the complete front end with parts from a donor car. Her memories of it are, cold, cold, cold! It would never heat up in the winter. She would have to stand by the wood stove to thaw out after driving it in the winter.
Yes, I have had early 60s VWs, usually as a second car. I drove them to work at Athens, Ohio in the 70s. They were considerably less powerful than my 67 VW. The smaller windows perhaps made them feel more cramped. They seemed a more primitive version of my 67. But I took them apart and put them back together just like the later ones. I just came to prefer the 66 and later cars. The cars newer than 1970 had features that I was not enthralled with and/or did not “fix” like my preferred cars. They got more complicated. Thus, I found myself having to go to repair shops with electronics problems. Certainly, the advent of fuel injection in 1974 sealed the deal for me. Problems with fuel injection guaranteed an expensive trip to the VW dealer or repair shop back then and more-so today. Give me a good old carburetor any day , and you can keep your newfangled electronics too.
What’s with convertibles? Convertible you say; I’ve had my share of them. There is nothing prettier than a VW convertible I will grant you that. But seriously, about the only times I have ever had the top down is for shows. It’s either too hot, or too cold to have the top down most of the time around here. Yes, I’d buy another one in a heartbeat.
