Lucien's Happy Place

I've probably mentioned this before, but in high school I had a 1968 1500 Beetle. If I had the chance at another like it, I'd jump on it in a minute if it were in good shape. That car was a blast to drive and I made a lot of wild and funny memories in that car.

My only two VW anecdotes.

In 1972 on my way out of the Army I borrowed a friend's "Bus" like the one pictured, for those that don't know what a Type 2 is.

We removed the removable interior seats, strapped a baby stroller down inside and me, my wife and 1 yo son took off from Ft Knox, KY for Ft Rucker, Al to gather some stuff left behind. We filled up the inside and then got two cheap luggage racks and two "Foot Lockers", filled those up strapped them on the roof and returned back to Ft. Knox. It was the longest, slowest drive I've ever been on. On a whim I drove it over the truck scales at Ft Knox before unloading it. After emptying the bus, I took it to a VW dealership and had it inspected and serviced before returning it to my friend because of a curious new clicking sound at slow speeds. The vehicle was mostly in good shape. The right rear wheel had an issue. The cotter pin in the castellated nut that kept the wheel on the axle had sheared off and was in the hubcap, and the nut was slightly loose. The mechanic said within a few more miles the wheel would've fallen off. As it was, no damage was done, and the repair was made. He was curious why the cotter pin had sheared. I told him where I had been with it and how much it weighted when I got back to Ft Knox. He basically told me I was one lucky dumbass, and the bus was only about a ton overloaded!

My wife and I "Detailed" the bus before giving it back. I told my friend I'd had it "Serviced" and checked out at the dealership. He was happy that I was happy with our trade of cars for the week, and he really liked my Volvo 245 wagon. I may have forgotten to tell him about the wheel though.

My other anecdote involves a bright red 72 VW Super Beetle Semi-Automatic. That I owned.

I was involved with a CB Radio Club back then. We did a lot of things with the local police and sheriff and provided checkpoints for "Fun Runs" in the county. Me being me, and wanting the best reception/transmission capabilities, got a friend and a carpenter's chalk line and found the geographical center of the bug and mounted a 9' fiberglass whip antenna in the middle of the roof. Upside of idea was very good CB range. Downside was the whip antenna clanged going under underpasses and trees and power lines. So, I replaced the 9' whip with a black 36" "Fire Stick" antenna. The CB Club changed my CB Name to "Candied Apple".

Since we're talking VWs, I'll throw in a little of my history. I dropped out of grad school in 1971 and moved from Urbana, Illinois, to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in September. Up to that point I had never owned a car - I'd always gotten around on a bicycle. And I didn't have any savings, so I found an apartment a couple of miles from work and biked to work. I'm still pretty sure that was the wettest autumn I experienced in the fifteen years I lived there. My plan was to maximize savings until I had enough for a down payment on my first car, but the weather finally did me in and I borrowed a few hundred dollars from my parents to make up the down payment on a used '69 Beetle. Learned to drive a stick shift driving it home from the dealer. Stopped at a stop sign on an up hill and wasn't sure I was ever going to make it through the intersection.

That car nearly put me off the idea of motor vehicles. First the engine developed an odd ringing note, which turned out to be a loose head. Not cheap. Maybe a year later it ate its engine - engine seized as I was accelerating through an intersection. I managed to get my foot on the clutch pedal fast enough to coast through the intersection and get to the side of the road. Turned out a valve broke and the broken shaft got poked through the cylinder wall on the upstroke. Needed the engine replaced. It was pretty reliable after that, but it was never the same after I rolled it over in a blizzard on my way back to Minnesota on Christmas Day from visiting my folks back in Illinois. I finally gave up on it when the cop stopped next to me at an intersection got my attention and asked if I knew I had a bent wheel. Apparently the shop that did the post-rollover repairs didn't notice that. But it lasted me long enough that I could afford to replace it - with a VW Dasher, which served me quite well until one of the steering linkages rusted out.

I have to say, if you're going to be in a rollover accident, Wisconsin in a blizzard may be one of the better places to do it. The highway patrol officer who showed up said that from the pattern in the snow he could tell I had rolled completely over twice. Ended up right way up. I went off the left side of northbound I-90 into a valley, so the driver's side of the roof took most of the force - that side was driven down two or three inches. The windshield popped out and was lying intact in the snow. The window in the driver's door was driven down a few inches. But the driver's door still opened, and there was no broken glass anywhere. I had bruises on the tops of my thighs where my legs had bumped against the steering wheel, but the seat belt did its job, and those were my only injuries.

I was wrong. I do have one more anecdote.

I really liked the bus and wanted to get one. My then wife didn't like them at all because of the Ft Knox experience. One day in late 74 I found a gem of a used very low mileage bus for sale and took it for a test drive. Of course, I took it to the apartments we lived in to get the wife to go for a ride. I noticed something interesting as I went over the "Speed Bump" into the parking area. I made a big deal of how this one was newer and had more power than the one we had used before. I may have made a big deal out of pointing out how we sat above and slightly ahead of the front wheels as we approached the bus. As we were slowly leaving the parking lot, I told my wife (Who was extremely gullible.) that because of where we were sitting and because nothing was in the back that the back tires weren't touching the ground. It was very obvious when the front wheels went over the "Speed Bump". But when the back wheels went over the "Speed Bump" you didn't feel anything. The wife actually cranked the door window down and stuck her head and shoulders out of the window to see if the wheels were actually off the ground!

Oh, and Dave way to make me feel old. I was 23 in 72.