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Have you ever owned a VW Beetle?

Did you ever own a VW Beetle?

  • Yep, sure did.

    Votes: 199 73.7%
  • Nope

    Votes: 44 16.3%
  • I've got a New Beetle does that count?

    Votes: 7 2.6%
  • I had some other kind of aircooled boxer motor like a Porsche or a Bus

    Votes: 20 7.4%

  • Total voters
    270
My first car was a Red '66 Bug. My older brother was next to inherit this car for commuting downtown to college. His girlfriend crashed it into a telephone pole while learning to drive,so the story goes....
Next was a dark green '68 Bug,which I used as a "guinea pig" to learn bodywork on. I sold that car back n forth between family members,(brother and sister,brother-in-law,etc.) and friends at least 4-6 times. When they would screw it up bad,engine,brakes, or body,I'd buy it back and fix it and drive it.
Last time it was sold to a friend who moved to Arkansas in 1981.
Next was a '76 VW Rabbit,I traded a Jeep for. I again sold it to a family member,my Dad. I bought my first "Touring Motorcycle" with the money,a 1981 Moto Guzzi G-5 1000. Dad broke the cam in the Rabbit,I got it back and repaired it. Kept it for a year or two and sold it to someone I don't remember.
Now I currently own a '98 Golf,#1 son drives it more than I now. So, now the hunt is on to find a VW TDI.
 
1970 Beetle

One of the greatest cars I ever owned. Number 1 son posing next to it just after we bought it in the winter of 1970 in Michigan.
 

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>The heaters were indeed bad.

True, but the fan ended all that. The difference is unbelievable. At some point Porsches all came with them and if I lived in a cold climate I wouldn't drive anything else. Idle the cold car for 2-3 minutes and the heat exchangers are piping hot and blowing out hair-dryer-hot air.
The only thing that ever came close was the BMW 2002 that I installed a circulating AC water heater when I lived in Denver and lived two miles from work. In the winter the car never warmed up and fouled plug every other week. With the water heater, you started the car and it was already warm, even on the coldest winter mornings.

I think Spider started a trend. How many of us have PICTURES with their bugs or busses? I'll have to dig, but I'm sure I have doozy somewhere. Somewhere in a box I have the original, in german, factory brochure of our Combi.
 
Other airheads

Never had a VW but had a Corvair and a Greenbriar van. Same type of heater as the VW. Air passes over exhaust manifold and is routed in to cab. A bad valve cover gasket would allow oil to leak on to manifold, making for a very smokey drive.
One night we picked up a hitch hiker and for kicks, we opened up the heat vent. He rode with us about two blocks and begged to be let out. We obliged, shut the vent and proceeded to laugh like hell the rest of the night.
A good buddy was a veedub man. We always had a good time driving all night on a bucks worth of gas.
A former work partner had a 30 mile commute in a VW. In the winter, he'd burn a hibachi in the morning warm to keep warm.
I had almost forgotten what no heater was like. Temps. been in the single digits every morning for the last 2 weeks here in Michigan. I love my Tacoma and it's wonderful heat.
 
My first VW was a 1967 Single Cab Pickup, followed by a '63 sunroof sedan with traffic signs for floors. Current 4 wheeled vehicle is a Westy Vanagon with a 2.2l subaru motor in place of the waterleaker.

My wifes drives the Jetta

Steve
 
Everyone's talking about the "lack of heat" these little cars had.
I remember "oh so well", to literally having to scrape the Frost off the inside of the windshield from your breath freezing up.
:help
 
My first car was a 1966 VW bug. I purchased it in 1972 with 189,000 miles on it and sold it in 1975 with 275,000 miles on it. When I bought it , it had an engine tranplant /rebuild at about 175,000 miles.

My girlfriend at the time called it "mooky Blue" Kinda of a faded dark blue.

I purchased that car after comuting to High School on my 1971 Honda CL 350 in the winter of 71 and 72.

Back then I allways wanted a BMW 2002 Tii.
 
I never owned one but I learned to drive a stick in one!

A buddy of mine and I were driving down the road when he
pulls over and asks "do you know how to drive a stick?" of
course, I said no. And from that day until I bought my truck,
I drove manual transmission cars.

ian

P.S. It was a bright blue '67 with an ass-kickin' stereo in it
 
My first ever car in 1971 was a 1962 beetle,black.I bought really cool white leather bucket seats for it.I lived in Winnipeg-it had no gas heater.I had it for about 3 years!!I was determined to keep it running and developed a fierce protective loyalty to it.Gold plated that sucker by the time i traded .
 
Corvair memories

Someone mentioned a Corvair a couple of posts back. When I was 7 my mom and i moved out to Phoenix AZ from Michigan. She bought a white Corvair Monza with a blue interior.
During the trip a gas station guy had some fun at our expense. He told my mom that we were going to cross a lot of desert and sold her a heavy canvas water bag to tote water for the radiator in. Mom didn't know from air cooled and hey - I was only 7!
My grandparents had one of the early "turtle top" VW camper vans. (Highly unusual for my Grandpa from Detroit who was a Buick man and worked in the Auto industry to buy a German vehicle in the late 60's.)
They used to come out to AZ camping in their turtle top. It was a great little set up with a stove and sink - heaven for this boy.

Gotta say this is one reason I enjoy this forum so much. The comments of others trigger memories that make me smile - thanks for letting me rattle on.....
 
I had a '71 beetle - green outside, black in (frickin' hot in summer). My parents never told me about changing oil - never changed it in something like two years (I then sold it). Damn thing didn't care. I'm now somewhat anal about changing my oil:D
 
Acrually, the heaters in Beetles were quite good if kept in adjustment. There was a lot of difference in the way American service practices were as opposed to European standards. Typically, if the engine came out of a beetle for a clutch job or something, the mechanic didn't even hook up the heater cables. Or, if they did, they never adjusted them. Any cable will stretch, and eventually, when the heater was put full on, the cables didn't completely actuate the flap that would divert the air into the interior. Of course, if the heater channels rusted through, alot of the heated air blew outside, but that's a different matter. I always got the ones that were already rusted, so the first thing I did was to plug up the holes so the hear would come inside, then crawl under the car and jam the flaps full on for the winter.

One of the recommended procedures in Europe (my friend's grandfather owned a dealership in Switzerland) was: every spring, you'd bring the car to the dealership and the whole interior was removed right down to the floorpan and the car would be aired out with the doors open for a couple of days. All of my beetles rusted from the inside out insofar as the floorpans went.
 
1969 powder puff blue Karman Ghia Convertible - had a 12 volt hairdryer to defrost the windows.
Also a non discript type 3 wagon
Old VeeDubs is da best VeeDubs.
 
What no most of the above option?

'69 with a sun roof, 68 convertable, a bus - don't remember the year, one of them P cars, my ex took our tricked out 98 and trashed it when we split.
 
Acrually, the heaters in Beetles were quite good if kept in adjustment.

As long as you were moving! The engine fan was all that moved the air if you were idling. Consequently it didn't work so well.
Porsche, OTOH, added an electri fan that actuated automatically when the heater boxes were opened up to "full". I could use my 911 as a sauna if Iwanted to, about 3 min. after the engine fired up!:)
 
67 Bug

Dark Blue

Had the 1500cc engine, 12v electrics. Put on an extractor exhaust and new jets in the carbs and it was quick for a bug.

Drove it cross country when I was 19 and traded it for a Yamaha in San Diego.
 
My first car was a '66 Bug and my brother had a '65. When he went to college, I had both. :)

It had the BIG 1300 cc, 50 HP engine. But only got high 20's mpg. Top speed, if you dared, about 75 mph. Only weighed about 1,700 lbs. Mine was light blue with a black interior. Ice scraper used as a windshield "defroster" in the winter.

As a comparison my current car is a 2006 VW Jetta TDI. 1.9 liter engine with a rated output of 100 HP/177 ft. lbs. of torque. Weighs 3,200 lbs. Averages about 43 mpg.

Things sure have changed in the last forty years. :wave
 
All in the family

I had a '58 and then a '68 bug. I don't want to talk about how many times I rebuilt engines, had wheels fall off, no brakes, etc. I can't believe I lived through all of it.

I remember getting a speeding ticket once and successfully fighting it by pointing out to the judge there was no way my VW could go that fast. Of course, he didn't know I had tricked it out by then.

My maternal grandmother had bugs and wagons and fastbacks (every model except the vans/transporters) from the 1950s to the 1980s. We called her "Grandma with the Volkswagon" to differentiate her from our paternal grandmother. She even signed all of our birthday and Christmas cards with this name.

My sister had a '70 bug, I think, it's when they made an automatic, she had it and it sucked. My mother had one when I was two and she was pregnant with my sister, and I remember we were hit while in it. I also remember playing in it while it was in the driveway, releasing the parking brake, and rolling out the driveway and across the street to the neighbor's driveway. That was fun! The parents were scared, that made it more fun!!

The last one my mother had was the Super model, 1976 maybe? The last one Grandma-with-the-VW had was an old red square wagon, parked at her curb so long the thing was hardly red anymore.

Speaking of "thing," we passed one last week and we reminiscing; my boss in the 1980s had one he drove to work every day.
 
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