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Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:27 am

I am only 21, but I still recall the arm swinging out under hard braking. My Dad used to brake/gas/brake/gas and swerve left to right when driving down the road, it was great fun up until the day I left my lunch all over the back of the van.
My moms first car was a white '69 ( I think) bug with red interior, which she then passed on to her brother, who drove it till the car gave up and died.
I won't have any second thoughts about driving my bug around with my kids (when I have them).

Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:26 am

My 64 is my daily driver so the kids have no choice! They love the car so it's no big deal. It has only front belts- no back seat belts. Arizona seat belt law states rear passengers are not required to wear seat belts if they are big enough to be out of a car seat.
I'm sure any proper "Moms club" from suburbia would want me thrown in jail or at least revoke my "father of the year" status if they read this. For what it's worth, it's only my own kids I put back there- anyone else's kid rides shotgun and gets the belt.
Not much of a law breaker- if I lived in a state that required it, I'd put them in the rear too. 5 kids ages 27 all the way down to 11 have been able to escape death so far.

Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:44 am

Russ Wolfe wrote: Kids today are too well protected.
I am in my 60's, and growing up, we got scars from being hit in the head by a swing. We played in the dirt. We did not live in a sterile environment.
We did not have every other kid has asthma and allergies. We rarely got sick, and humanity continued to increase the population.
Same here. So I let the kids drive the car when they turned 16. Now I have a few more and my "problem" is that they want to drive them all the time when they come to visit. Eventually I'll make sure they each have one. That's the excuse I give my wife whenever she asks why I have so many cars. :wink:

Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:48 am

I always let my kids ride without seatbelts in my Deluxe Microbus, oval-window bug and Double Cab when I had them, they were pre-1968 so they didn't have to have seatbelts under Oregon law, and the worst injury they got was skinned knees or bumps on the head when I had to stop hard. They even rode behind the back seat in bugs, in the area between the back seat and engine in Ghias and in the cargo areas of Buses, Squarebacks and the Quantum. I did NOT let them ride in the bed of the Double Cab, though, due to the folding bed walls. Riding in truck beds meant non-VW truck beds, and never on the highway or in the rain. Nowadays I'd get my butt thrown in jail and the kids taken away by Child Protective Services if I did such a thing. :|

Reactions to my current VWs are pretty good among the young ones, kids love my Fraser Nash replica (often calling it "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" despite having next to no resemblance), and I've been known to take kids for rides in it on occasion, and they think my Bradley GT's pretty nice too; they're often fascinated by the Plexiglas gullwing doors and Zodiac vinyl interior. My bug is sometimes referred to as Herbie, and I've had little girls come up to it wanting to pat the hood or even give it a hug. :)

The younger ones don't pay much attention to the Ghia and next to none regarding the Quantum, Vanagon and Scirocco, but teenagers tend to think the Ghia is a Porsche and not know what in the heck the Quantum and Scirocco are. :roll:

OG

Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:04 am

Back in '67, folded down the back seat of my '66 beetle, covered the area with a comforter, put my one-year-old daughter back there and left Chicago and came back to Chicago by driving completely around Lake Michigan. Did it twice.

A few years later, had 2 more boys, so we bought a new '71 bus, took the middle seat out, covered the floor with a foam pad and comforter and that's where the kids rode. All 5 of us are still alive and healthy today.

Thu Apr 01, 2010 1:19 pm

My wife and I are expecting our first child in Ang, and after reading this it is settled. We will be bringing him home from the Hospital in our bus. If only just to piss ppl off!