How did everyone get into vw's ?

[blackchop65]

i have owned and driven more cars than i can even begin to count. but the very first vw i owned was a gift. a 1969 vw bug! it was a 90% restored bug. later i sold it for no good reason i can think of now. that old 69 bug has been my top #1 car i have owned. and have been hooked ever since on the vws. i have owned several vws since my 1st one. 2 '67 bugs, a 76 westy, a '65 bug,and now have a 74 westy, which since ive grown a bit older and a bit wiser am real reluctant to ever let go of it. i do plan to get yet another beetle soon. there is NOTHING like a VW!!!
driving one is like just simply being with your best friend.
once hooked-always hooked.
sold my last bug ,my 65 stocker,to a 1st time car owner- a 17 year old that has that vw fever also..hated to let it go, but hey! got another hooked lol so its all well worth it.

[Dubbed]

I was 15 and looking for a car that was cheap and easy to work on. well... take a guess at what I found. Yep a bug 74 to be exact. It was missing half of the floorpan. $300 later it was mine. I didn't have any idea what I was getting myself into. I met a couple of other Bug owners in the Silverdale/Bremerton area and the came the Volks show at Brem Int. raceway and I was hooked. Now I still have the 74 (soon to be a Baha) and I'm working on a Cal-look 69 sunroof with a 1915 for now. I'm thinking about looking for a westfalia but we'll see.

[KamperKitJay]

I was forced at gunpoint!!!

[4 banger]

got my 1st bug in 1965 - use it as a hunting rig - would sleep in it on - just pull the seats out - put them by the camp fire -unfold some plywood i made up - toss in the sleeping bags - used the tent as a cook tent - hauld out many a deer on the top rack - i guess someone would call the cops if they saw that today - we keep all our food killin behind closed doors now -my current bug is #4 for me - t
www.picturetrail.com/tommyhudson

[vwdank]

faith

[vwdank]

damn! i meant fate, I guess I just always had faith

[rockerarm]

During my senior year in high school, here in SoCal, the new auto shop instructor was a former VW dealer tech. Up to this point my interest was American V8 cars. Many of the industrial arts instructors owned air-cooled VW's and I was approached by this new instructor and asked if I wanted to work on these real cars or just the junk in the shop with all the other students. My initial response was WTF? Work on VW's? Well he, Mr Russ Parkinson, convinced me to further my hands on with cars and I was soon performing basics such as oil changes, valve adjustments, axle boots on swing axle cars, spark plug and point replacement. Upon graduation Mr Parkinson suggested that I apply to one of the local VW dealers as a lube tech. And starting the day after high school graduation I began my VW employment at Russ Thor VW in Torrance, Calif. The rest is history, as the saying goes. Bill.

[far rider]

I bought my first bug new in 67. A zenith blue sunroof. This was at a time when all my buddies had GTOs, chevrolet 396, etc. I think subconsciously I was influenced by the Doyle, Dane ads and the quality that VWs promised. Plus I was in college and gas, even at 25 cents a gallon was a consideration. No one in my family had a VW. I liked their simplicity, the fact that they seldom changed and they were well made. Had lots of fun in that little VW. Dated my wife, ski trips and it served us well through 2 kids. It was great.
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67 zenith blue sunroof

Contentment; when what you have is what you want.

[cyclehobby]

My dad was a plumber and when he'd visit customer's homes, he'd always look in their garages hoping to find an old Model A or something they'd sell him cheap. I was 15 at the time and he came across an old 56 Beetle in an old lady's garage. I gave him $50 I had saved and he bought the car for me figuring he and I could work on it until I got my license (at 17 here in NJ).

At the time, I can't say I was a VW fan because I was simply just interested in having a pretty cool car to work on and eventually drive around. But, VW's seemed to hook me.

Dad and I did the motor, painted the car, put new seats in it (from the junk yard) and installed cheap chrome Chevy wheels with adapters. I got my license in it and drove it for a year until a lady in a Plymouth station wagon tee boned me and totaled the Bug.

Still addicted to VW's, I got a 69 Karmann Ghia and my dad picked up a 68 Bus, then a 66 KG convertible. Since then, I've had a Jetta, a New Beetle and a GTI - and now my 67 Bug. Can't stop liking VW's. I just won't...
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1967 Beetle
Northern NJ

[79SuperVert]

I read my first post in this thread just now and realized it didn't make any sense. I must have been intoxicated with the newness of a bug when I wrote that post.

But in fact, my first lessons in stickshift driving, back in the 70's, were in a Squareback. After that it around 2001 that I had started to think about getting a four-seater convertible that I could drive my two young daughters around in and make some memories, but the only such vehicle available at the time was the New Beetle, which was far too expensive.

I started looking at used 4 seater verts and saw that I could get a Beetle for around $7K. After having been in the WTC during 9-11 and being given up for dead by my wife, she was more predisposed afterwards to let me indulge in some frivolous expenditures, and so she helped me to buy my first Beetle in 2002. I've owned three different bugs since then.
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Central Jersey VW Society

Wanted: Art Collins VW (Savannah, Georgia) items - license plate surrounds and other items. Also ivory "AM", "FM" and "SW" buttons for a US Blaupunkt Frankfurt.

[Dr OnHolliday]

My dad was a sportscar guy, and he bought a brand new 1960 Porsche Continental. He drove in a couple of ralleys, and put an Isky cam in it. Later he rebuilt the engine after a blowup. He was kind of a snob about VWs tho...

Fast forward to mid-to-late '60s, I had a friend who's German-American family had nothing but VWs...2 bugs, a square back and bus - all at the same time. And we did a lot of trips and local driving. Friend rolls one of the bugs (dreaded tuck-under plus concrete crossgutter) so he built a model T themed fiberglass buggy of it and I had a verry minor part in it.

Anyway, although various guys had vws, I didn't get into them (didn't realize prrformance potential and was into street rods). That was my loss. 3 years ago I got a baja that didn't run and now I'm hooked...although I'm no purist (hot rodder still).
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1965 Type 1 sunroof Baja / about 70k miles on self-rebuilt '74 1600 and counting / SP heads and aftermarket valve keepers / non-doghouse shroud with external cooler and filter / 1.5 qt extended sump / Weber 32/36 DFAV progressive carb / 009 dist with Pertronix / 1.25 ratio rockers and ball adjusters / 1.5" stainless steel J-pipes and carbon steel baja exhaust

[Westy Steve]

Me? I bought the car below for $100 from the classifieds back in the early 1980's. That's the only picture I have of it, and it was really just the corner of a photograph of some landscaping my Dad was doing at the time. The car was a '60 model with a 6 volt system, a 36 HP engine, and the worst amateur baja rear-end hack job you ever saw. The car had to be parked on a hill all the time because I didn't have the sense to clean up the rusty wiring, but the engine. Oh the engine! It ran like a top. It would not die! I know I got sand in the oil on a few occasions from some of my offroad hijinks, and I remember cratering the bonnet when I smashed a fence that I didn't see that was blocking a road late at night (my lights were aimed too low and the brakes had to be pumped). Kinda lucky that car didn't kill me, but it was fun, and it always worked. Later, I sold it off for the same price, $100, when I joined the Naval Reserves. When I came back home, I bought a Chevy Blazer, but still wanted another bug, so I bought a mint '62 ragtop that I financed from the bank for a very high price of $2,200.00. After that, I've pretty much always had a VW.

Steve
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Have nice 914, want nice Bug

[Funky187]

I was 15, we were cruising up to silver lake to go do some off-roading at the dunes. We had a loaded down SUV and a trailer full of fun. Somewhere on interstate 55 we were cruising along when my dad hit my shoulder and said "Check this out!" He pulls into the passing lane, I look up from the gameboy that my face was buried in, and there was a convoy of about 10 buses and vanagons. I loved the look on each drivers face. It was kind of like "Don't mind us". Every one was just enjoying the ride, windows down, elbows hanging out, wind in their hair. I still to this day have a distinct image of a guy with his dog riding shotgun in a brown bus. I looked to my dad and said, "I want one". He chuckled and told me a few stories of friends that had them when he was growing up. I wound up saving up and purchasing my first one about a year later, and my second one about 2 years later. Now I'm the one cruising around with out a care in the world!
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1969 Campmobile TinTop
Stock remanufactured 1600 SP

[daisy71]

A while back when I was probably about 9 years old I was driving with my grandparents and in a guys driveway I saw 2 beetles a red one and a blue one. I remember saying to them one day I'm gonna have one just like that. Well a few years pass and I see for sale a red super beetle that was in a accident and was only usable for the engine and some other parts, I bought a roller beetle a day or two before I saw that one, well since I needed an engine me and my father went to check it out and it was the one I seen all them years ago. The engine and rear fender is now on my 71 super beetle. I called it smush beetle
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71 Super beetle

[mpls_ham]

My old man spent a few years in Germany with the Army in the early sixties and came back with an affinity for VW's. He always had a beetle project in the garage as long as I can remember. Had one myself until my mid 20's and then it took back stage to other things. I'm back in the game 25 years later. I bet that this tale is very common.
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1970 Westfalia - Evangeline

1973 Beetle Convertable

[Mango]

My Bus found me in my time of transportation need. I was in college and needed transportation and had very little $$. I was in the local city park watching a friends kids and literally thinking I need a car. It did not matter what car as long as it was cheap. Then it circled around the park entrance and stopped in front of me for about two minutes and drove off, just in time for me to scribble the number from the for sale on the window. I went home (no cell phones at that time) and called the guy, got a ride to his house just out side the town limits and purchased it for $995. I had $1050 in my account. 1974 VW Bus transporter. My wife and I started dating in it, took lots of trips and tons of memories.

[mark tucker]

I get in through the door
I was dionosed with cancer.got AFU by tomany moron DR's filling thier pockets&buying new cars/homes on the water.... so I had to lighten up on what I could work on. Im a machinist&racer.big ci v8 high hp cars.Ive still got all my stuff and look at it every dam day. including a new unfinished professionally built all round tube double funny car cage chassie, new body, new chassis,new wheels loads of new stuff, multiple engines,cnc ported aluminum dart heads, tunnel ramstoomuch to think about..I cant finish it.over $50,000.00 in parts.just sitting there in the fully heated &cooled shop with little room for my vw stuff. It all needs to go.just keep the vw stuff.

[rbwdriven]

mum and dad were trying to figure out insurance for me on mum's mbg.

After a phone call to the insurance man. Er you are going to have a car for youself.

How much money do you have saved. $200.

Dad said I'll match it.

Neighbor said I know where a lady has a bug for sale for $400 been sitting a while.

Sitting in a parking deck in downtown Atlanta.

covered in pollen and missing drivers window.

So $400 later I have a new to me 68 vw bug. I put about 4k into it the first year. Empi wheels etc.

Sold it before I went to college since I was going across the state and mum and dad did not want me driving the bug.

[grandpa pete]

I went to a local ( St. Pete Fl. ) car show with my Model A Ford .
The ford had a magnetic sign on it " WANTED T $ A " .
Model T and A parts wanted for restoration projects ...
A lady asked me what else did I restore ?
I told her I would work on anything I could get cheep.
She asked me " How do I get rid of a Karman Ghia "

The short story version is ; I ended up with a drivable rusty 68 ghia convertible with a title for $100 .
After a year sold the Ghia ; bought 74 SB vert .
eventually sold the Model A and bought a 69 bus .
Traded the bus for a nice 63 three fold rag ( Purple Car ) . 63 owners wife was pregnant ; no room for baby in 63
Sold the SB vert to start the sedan delivery Type6 project I am now finishing up .
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63 two fold rag
66 sedan delivery Type 6

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=569619&highlight=sedan+delivery

[Woody419]

For me it was a trip from California to Ohio....then, back. We camped at night , and drove during the day. ... time to make some new ones