MY FIRST VW BEETLE
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Around 1966 that I spotted this beat-up, piss green, 1958 VW Beetle sitting in an open field on Catawba Avenue in Newfield. It was just up the road from the old farmhouse that I grew up in. The sign in the front window read.
FOR SALE
$75.00
The mud-caked car had obviously been run through the dirt roads and backwoods of the rural NJ. The roof and fenders looked like it had been whacked a zillion times with a Ball Peen hammer. My first thoughts that it either failed to negotiate several turns or just for the hell of it, the occupants were purposely making it a cheap rollover amusement ride.
It didn't take much negotiating to get it for $50.00, which I was convinced on ride home that I paid $40 too
much.
But it turned out to be the perfect car for recently divorced father who was just handed a judgment to pay $90 a week child support payments from a $135 paycheck. Even in the late sixties, it was hard to live on $35 a week. The PV544 Volvo that I was driving was killing me with numerous and expensive replacement parts. The 60-mile trip to the Absecon Volvo dealer was almost a weekly wallet-emptying ritual.
That old VW yielded good mileage, almost nothing broke and what did I could fix easily. Tune-ups parts were available everywhere and, very inexpensive compared to the Volvo.
I bought it in summer so who needed a heater? In the winter it was another story- Parka, gloves and a blanket were standard fares. Having a 6-volt system meant that I had candles for headlights and a starter that barely cranked fast enough to ignite the plugs, but somehow it always did. I soon came to realize what a bulletproof car this was. I change the oil every 3000 miles, checked the valve adjustment every oil change, didn't beat it to death and the grateful car just kept going and going. It even seemed to run better with age.
As for going on dates, that car was a death knoll. If I wanted to make an impression I would borrow Rosie's, my cousin's girl-soon to be second wife, dark green Pontiac GTO. Now if my date lived close to home, I would take my aunts Angie?' 8-miles to a gallon, 427 Chevy. I often asked myself, what kind Chevrolet salesman would sell my spinster aunt, a stripped down, two-door, tire burning (thinly disguised) drag car?
I sold the Volvo at a profit and with two clandestine part-time jobs; I had to consider a better car. I even had enough spare money to start a Dune Buggy project. My time with the green VW was well spent, it had served me well ? but the truth was that old green 36 horsepower VW was: cold, slow, especially compared to my previous 88 horsepower Volvo, and it was such an eyesore, even pigeons avoided crapping on it.
It was time to let it go.
I sold it for $100 and bought a pristine 1959 Sunroof VW one owner Beetle ? which to this day I still own.
So that was my first air-cooled VW, the start of a love affair or a curse? And since then, I have owned some ten air-cooled VW?s including five Beetles, several buses, one pickup, and a delivery van. But I'll never forget how that ugly, little piss green Beetle that served me so well when I needed it most and ? she never let me down.