Aaaaah! SOB! The End of the Old Bug

NICE!

Those things are UG-LEE!

Don't worry, you can buy one used for peanuts. They're as much in demand as a bag of SARS.

Does this refer only to the old-style classic Beetle?

(rear-engine, air-cooled, floats really well in a puddle, ... )

(skates really well across standing water; is given to occasional moments of flight in a stiff side wind...)

I loved my VW L! I loved it mor ethan any car before, or since...waaaaaaah!

Well, boo-*******-hoo Toots!


Slappy, long time no see!!!

Man, I learned how to spin my first 720 in one of those!
They are so much fun in the snow... <fades into wavy reminiscing>

The nicest thing was that if they actually managed to get stuck in the mud or snow, you can just grab the bumper, and lift them out by main force . . . that coupled with a dangerous unreliabilty at anything over ten miles an hour and a gentle breeze made them more fun than russian roulette with a five rounds in a six-shooter . . .

CodeBorg has it wrapped up here, the Beetle's sole utility was in cuttin' doughnuts in the snow in a big, empty parking lot . . .

Friend of mine in high school had a bug we'd take out "four wheeling." Damn thing always survived.

Then the brakes failed and he went head on with a Cadillac at 40 mph. Had to have his nose rebuilt twice. In all fairness, though, that could have happened in anything...

BBB - is it the new Beetle they're stopping or were they still making the old one down Mexico way. If so, it's strange I never saw a new one growing up in central California in the '80s.

Probably the new one...the bugs and Jettas are primarily manufactured in Mexico. Can't beat the labor rates!

Can't say I feel bad seeing the new one go. Remember looking in the classifieds a year after the thing was released and seeing this long, long list of the things. Didn't look closely enough to see if people were all getting rid of them or if they'd never made it off the dealers' lots before the next model came out.

Official word from Volkswagen:

"They're wicked gay-ass."

The old VW Beetle
Patio Dog, one of my best friends owned a blue Karmann Ghia, VW. It's resale value rose each year as it aged. My last ride in it was when we made the trip from the San Francisco Bay Area to Death Valley in March, when we encountered rain and snow in the high altitudes, and sand and heat in the low desert during our trip.

Amazing cars, those VWs.

-----BumbleBeeBoogie

Noted automobile historian James M. Flamming offers the ultimate book on the Volkswagen and the love affair it fostered with generations of American auto owners. 16 pages in full color and more than 250 pages of text give readers the inside story on the VW, from the prewar days of Hitler's Germany to the vehicles enshrined in the American counterculture of the '60s to the models poised to roll off today's assembly lines.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0873414195/102-7265856-4500134?vi=glance

Damn that would be a great drive. Getting home sick, and missing unemployment...

hamburger has almost always driven VW's, til he went crazy and bought 'murican. I loved the first beetle which lasted for 13 or 14 years - we did a lot of good travelling around eastern north american in it. That was a wonderful car. A bit unreliable in terms of the heating system, but a car you could love. There were some other VW's, the next lovable one was the Passat. Like driving a sofa around town. Very plush. Very unbeetlelike. But lovable in its own heated-leather-seats way.

i believe there is only ONE REAL BEETLE(the old rear-engined beetle - called "kaefer" in german). the new one is really a fake, because it's a vw-golf with a different body - what a phony thing to do! i understand it's the old(mexican) beetle that's being discontinued. well, it has had a good run! R.I.P. ! hbg

we had our first beetle from 1960 - 1969(ebeth took her first spin in it in the late 60's on the parking lot of fort henry - she was at the wheel and on brake, clutch and gas-pedal, i did the shifting - what a crazy thing to do; if i'd see someone doing it today i would probably call the cops - shame on me!); the second one lasted from 1969 to 1978; it had seatbelts! , high-back buckets! , an auxiliary gas heater(that would turn the inside into a furnace - if it had made up it's mind to work, which it usually did not), a rear-window defroster(somewhat ahead of many other cars), and a REAL gasgauge(the old one came with a wooden stick that you poked into the gastank to see how much gas was left !!!). setanta is right, four guys could just lift it up; which was helpfull when i ran the beetle over a tree-stump in a camping ground in northern ontario and got stuck! also had good traction on hilly/icy roads by driving it BACKWARDS up the hills. CRAAAAZY ! well, i guess we are still alive to talk about it . hbg

just to reassure you all - i did finally learn how to drive standard without someone else to do the shifting

lots of good memories of those old beetles. driving backwards up an icy hill is definitely an interesting family story.

When the battery goes bad, one person can push start it by themself.
(Either forward or backward!)
Pfah! How many American cars can do that?


Family story says I used to be a "difficult" baby, but when I wouldn't respond to anything else they'd pop me in the far-back of the Beetle (the space just behind the back seat) and drive around the block a few times. Something about that motor just made me hum and hum, and fall right asleep, happy as a clam.

Of course when I grew up, that was the only car I ever fell asleep in while driving! Woke up going 40mph across a muddy field ... hoo-boy, now I know my limits (and get somebody else to drive while I curl up in back).

omigawd, CodeBorg is me! I am CodeBorg!