Catching The "Bug"

It's been said that the old Volkswagen Beetle is "the one bug they've never found a cure for."

Those of you you have been reading my blogs, may recall the one from the archives "The Spirit of Eddie", where my first real "experience" with a Volkswagen Beetle was not a real positive one!

For decades, I'd always felt like MOST people do, that Volkswagens were chiefly for school teachers, nerds and old hippies. From the time I started driving in the mid 60's, right up through the mid 90's, the average "Bazookaman" car was a musclecar with a big block V-8 in it....an Olds 88, an Impala, Ford Torino or Mustang and maybe a big Buick Wildcat on the side............cars like THAT......

Well, up through the fire season of '94, my Boise "commute car" was a full sized '67 Mercury Monterey with a big block "390" in it. I also had a 53 Mercury and a '77 Lincoln I would drive on occasion. I loved big cars. Learned to drive in big cars, and still own a couple of them today.

But there ARE trade-offs........if you want power and comfort, you'll pay for it at the pumps, and while I was making good money with the BLM, I couldn't see giving any more of it to the "Arabs" than I HAD to.

The "homely" little VW Beetle had seemingly been around forever, and although I had poked fun at them for YEARS, it didn't change the fact that there always seemed to be a LOT of them still on the road! (Even TODAY, there must be at least 25 or so of them right here in Mountain Home---not counting MY five).

Like most people, I didn't really know too much about the old Beetles, except that they all pretty much looked alike, and they were REALLY GOOD ON GAS...........and as a daily commuter, THAT particular aspect really appealed to me!

They were also fairly cheap at the time. You could pick up a pretty good "daily driver" for around $750.00 or so (today, a good "daily driver" will cost you around 2 grand, but it's still a great deal).

Before I looked for one, I had a long chat with Ted Gump (J.T.'s Automotive down on Canyon Creek Road), who has since become a good friend of mine over the years. Ted is a fine mechanic who can pretty much fix anything, but he is BEST known around town as the "bug man." There is no one in Mountain Home with an old air-cooled Beetle, Bus or Karmann Ghia, who DOESN'T know Ted. He is also the only person I know who can look at any old Bug on the street and tell you for sure, what year it is! (Sometimes, I think that guy knows more about Bugs than VOLKSWAGEN does!)

Anyway........he guided me along on what to look for, but the main thing he told me, was that the KEY to being able to DRIVE one "forever", was knowing HOW to drive one in the first place!

I was a bit confused at first when he said that.........I know how to drive a stickshift.....been doing it for YEARS, and even TODAY, I'd much rather drive something with a clutch in it, than an automatic. But just because you can drive something with a 4-speed in it, doesn't mean you can drive a VW and keep it healthy. You can burn a motor up in a thousand miles or less if you don't know what you're doing.

The old Beetle engines are AIR-cooled.....meaning, there is no radiator-----no water to circulate through the block keeping the engine temperature down. When Hitler first summoned Ferdinand Porsche to the initial meeting of building the Volkswagen (which means "people's car"), he insisted on an air-cooled engine, because the average German home did NOT have a garage, and an air-cooled engine wasn't as prone to "freezing up" in the cold German winters, as a water-cooled engine is. Made good sense.

The engine mounted in the rear over the drive wheels provides excellent traction as well. I have found my bugs to handle a little better on icy roads, than my big cars do.

But here is the CRITICAL thing you have to remember if you ever BUY one--------the engine mounted in the BACK does not get the natural flow of cooling air that a front-mounted engine gets as you drive down the road, and with NO WATER running through that engine block, things can get hot pretty fast.

The "air-cooled" function, amounts to an enclosed shrouded fan that almost resembles a "hamster's wheel" in a cage. This finned wheel runs off the back of the generator (you can't see it inside that big shroud, but it's there), so..........as the engine's running and the generator is spinning, so is that "hamster's wheel" as I call it. It blows air down across the cylinders, and that's the SOLE source of engine cooling for these little cars. So it's VITAL to keep your RPM's UP when you're driving an old VW............herein lies the KEY to "longivity."

They make it "easy" for you by putting little red "hashmarks" around the speedometer that tell you when to shift UP or shift DOWN. After you've owned one for awhile, you don't even need to look------you can tell when to shift by the sound of the engine alone.

EXAMPLE.........you take off in first, and generally shift to 2nd somewhere around 12-15 mph. You don't shift to 3rd until you get up into the 30-32 mph range. So, around town, where the speed limits are mostly 25, I seldom ever take one any further than 2nd gear. As you approach 25-30, the engine sounds like it's running a bit too fast, and your natural inclination is to shift to 3rd. So you DO.......but WHEN you do, the rpm's drop off a little of course, and the motor isn't "winding up so fast" and you feel good about it. But with the motor not "winding so fast", that "hamster wheel" isn't spinning so fast either, and it isn't blowing that cooling air down on the cyliners as much as it should, and your temperature rises.

VW engines were designed to run a little on the "high side", so that the hamster wheel keeps blowing the air your cylinders need. It's your only source of cooling, so more attentive you are to that, the more years and decades you're going to be driving that car between engine rebuilds.

Along those lines, you also need to be attentive to occasional glances at the instrument panel, (which you should always do ANYWAY, no matter WHAT you're driving). The instrument circle in an old bug is simple but small.........especially the little "OIL" and "GEN" lights near the bottom. On a sunshiny day, you might not notice either one of them if you weren't looking for them. Should you ever break a fanbelt in an air-cooled bug, you probably won't hear it back there when it breaks, but that light will come on.........as it would in ANY car, because when a fanbelt breaks, the generator stops turning.............but in a BUG......when the generator/alternator stops turning, so does that "HAMSTER WHEEL!"

In a water-cooled car, your fan would stop, but there is still water in your block & radiator and even if you aren't watching your gauges, you'll soon know that you're overheating. You'll smell the antifreeze and start seeing the steam.

In a rear-engined air-cooled, you can't SEE what your engine might be doing, so if that generator light comes on, and you didn't see it, there won't BE any early-warning smell of anti-freeze nor any steam from a radiator you DON'T HAVE!

Driving a bug seemed like a lot of "hassle" at first------ya gotta remember THIS, and be mindful of THAT.......but after a few hundred "miles in the saddle," it all becomes second-nature. After 16 years now of driving them, I don't even THINK about it anymore. I just check the oil, climb in it and go.

Because they're so handy and economical, I drive the bugs more than I drive anything else! They break occasionally, like any OTHER 40 or 50 year-old car does, but parts are cheap and plentiful. Last year, I drove my '73 all the way to Washington D.C. and back. You definitely do not have all the comforts of a Cadillac, but the 40 miles per gallon DOES take some of the sting out of it.

The old VW Beetles aren't "God's gift to the American highway", but they're a LOT BETTER car than people think they are, and that's a fact!

They've become somewhat of a classic "cult car" too. You're going down the road and pass another one going the other way, and you both wave at each other. Some of the OLDER ones are worth a few coins, especially the "split window bugs and the "Oval window bugs" from the earlier days.

The ones that have REALLY come on, are the old buses! Back in the 60's when I was in High School in San Francisco, every 3rd or 4th "hippie" you saw, had an old VW BUS, complete with curtains and plastered with flower decals and peace signs. You could buy 'em all day for $300 to 400.........

Today?..........a restored bus (especially the 21 and 23-window buses) can fetch anywhere from 20 to 45 GRAND!

Who'd have ever thought?............

Of course, I can also remember when a dealer couldn't GIVE an Edsel away.-----------------try to buy one NOW!

But.....as one of the early day "mockers and shunners", I TOO have become a fan of that homely little "no respect" Volkswagen. They have endured the ravages of time and mileage...........I mean, WHAT OTHER CAR, at ANY PRICE, can you buy today.........and still expect to be driving it FIFTY YEARS from now?

My daily drivers are a yellow 73 and a dark blue 54. we also have a 68 that we restored into a "Herbie" that you may have seen in past AFAD Parades, a 66 "Baja Bug", and a beautiful green 62 convertible that we restored for Donna a year or so back. Five in all (in addition to our big American cars).

Some auto historians say that the success of the Volkswagen, is simply a tribute to German engineering, others say it was the "KISS principle" (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

WHATEVER it was........all I know is that there was a time in my life, when I could not even IMAGINE having a VOLKSWAGEN in my driveway.

Today, I can't imagine NOT having one. (or FIVE!).