General humor

[Canard]

 

[GAD]

 

[Teleguy61]

No heat, not much brakes.
Learned to drive in one.
Great cars.

 

[geoguy]

They were actually pretty good in snow, with the motor over the driving wheels.

Unless the white stuff was too deep, of course.

 

[GAD]

 

[Canard]

No heat, not much brakes.
Learned to drive in one.
Great cars.

The olive drab 1959 Beetle that I learned to drive on and later sold on to the girlfriend of a friend was only retired from road service 5 years ago.

 

[Canard]

They were actually pretty good in snow, with the motor over the driving wheels.

Unless the white stuff was too deep, of course.

Yes. There was one year in Victoria BC when the mayor sold of all the city's snow removal equipment because none of it had been used in 14 years. Predictably, the city had its largest snow fall since the 1910s that year. The city was paralysed. I drove a Beetle around on summer tires except for where the snow was too deep. But then I grew up driving in the snow.

My uncle had a 57 or 58 Beetle that had been his drive to the pulp mill for work car. The corrosive chemicals pumped out (sulphur-dioxide?) by the mill eventually ate away his fenders and floor pan. So he cut back the fenders, fibre-gummed galvanised sheet metal floor boards into the floor pan, installed wheel adaptors for oversized rims, and thus turned the little beast into an early dune-buggy prototype. It would go every where that my father's 1960 Land Rover would go except through creek and river fords that were too deep. It was also a lot easier to get unstuck--no winch required--two men could lift it free generally.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

 

[Rocky]

Closed thread with links to other threads. I see no reason for such a thread to have replies.

They were actually pretty good in snow, with the motor over the driving wheels.

Unless the white stuff was too deep, of course.

No synchromesh either. Well, sorta.

The nice thing about a bug is if the rear wheels got bogged down in the slush, you could grab the rear bumper, lift, and move it over a couple of inches, and try again.

 

[Teleguy61]

They were actually pretty good in snow, with the motor over the driving wheels.

Unless the white stuff was too deep, of course.

Good weight distribution--it was easy to put it into a controlled skid.
My brother and I both practiced clutchless down and up shifting.
May have rounded of some corners on the gears.
Dad was not pleased....

 

[davismanLV]

Yeah, those Volkwagen Bugs were seriously great. My dad bought one in 1966 for $1999.98, so under $2K! And he drove it forever. After 250,000 miles he had the engine rebuilt and had the upholstery redone and kept going. When he sold it about 30 years later, he go $6K for it. Imagine? Next door neighbor John just got a '68 red one that he's fixing up for his dad. Those are great cars!!

 

[GAD]

I’ve had him in my class multiple times.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

If Stephen King had written Lassie.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

 

[Prince of Darkness]

 

[GAD]

 

[Cougar]

No heat, not much brakes.
Learned to drive in one.
Great cars.

I had a 1600 in East Africa. Drove all over the place -- Rift Valley, game parks, Mombasa, Malindi.... Good in mud -- a necessity. Mine was British racing green.

Also had a copy of How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive For the Compleat Idiot -- also a necessity.

 

[JerryR]

Looked interesting, until I realized it was talking about the UK city, not the bathtub

 

[Prince of Darkness]

 

[Prince of Darkness]