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VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day
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Greezy Joe
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hate go against the grain here but down South in Alabama, Florida and Georgia, if you had a splitty or a Bay you where at least Percieved as a hippie back in the late 60's and up until 75 or even later. Might have been the Peace Signs painted on them. I got out of the Army in 73 and had a 65 splitty, got a 70 camper and later had a 66 camper with pop top. Never mind I grew my hair to my Ass and played in a Rock band Laughing Shocked Traveled out to Colorado in the 70 with 3 other hippies and had a great adventure all over the States. Showed up in Sedalia Ms to a Pop Festival in 74-75 and there where 100's of hippies in Buses of all years, many bugs and Ghias too.
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uRabbit
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 10:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd like to think any cool vehicle could be a hippie vehicle.

Bring the peace and love, man! Smile
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widehatch
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The "hippie bus" is nothing more that a media created image. The more Hollywood and the media portray VW buses as the preferred vehicle for hippies then society is going to see it that way. Like is was said previously. Vws were new cars then and used vws were plentiful. Hippies were/are cheap so they drove whatever they could afford. Not all hippies drove vws. Some did but that's because they were modern cars then. Watch the movie woodstock. When the camera pans over all the parked cars there are a few buses. Most the cars there were big American cars. You see more bays painted like hippie buses because 1 they are more common nowadays and 2 people are idiots and don't know any better. Just like the super beetle Herbies. I cringe everytime I see a hippie painted bus or someone makes a lame hippie comment about mine.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

widehatch wrote:
The "hippie bus" is nothing more that a media created image. The more Hollywood and the media portray VW buses as the preferred vehicle for hippies then society is going to see it that way. Like is was said previously. Vws were new cars then and used vws were plentiful. Hippies were/are cheap so they drove whatever they could afford. Not all hippies drove vws. Some did but that's because they were modern cars then. Watch the movie woodstock. When the camera pans over all the parked cars there are a few buses. Most the cars there were big American cars. You see more bays painted like hippie buses because 1 they are more common nowadays and 2 people are idiots and don't know any better. Just like the super beetle Herbies. I cringe everytime I see a hippie painted bus or someone makes a lame hippie comment about mine.


Saying all VW buses are hippie mobiles is like saying every school bus is full of Merry Pranksters.

It's all media bullshit.
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VWAdam
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

People also equate anyone who was young in the 60s and pre-disco 70s as "hippie"
I'm a big Led Zeppelin fan and I had someone ask me why I listened to that "hippie music" I don't think Zeppelin is hippie music.
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bugnut68
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What I find laughable is when VW bus guys get pissy when you call their bus a 'van.' Laughing

Actually, anybody that takes anything or any type of vehicle in the VW world/scene that super hardcore seriously is worthy of laughter and ridicule.
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ach60 Premium Member
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

I bought this bus in fall of 77, it needed a valve job.
The Doctor I bought it from had had the case replaced, and before that had the shift forks replaced.
He had been using it on his hobby farm in the country, but it really didn't work out for him.
The valve job, which cost $300 at a VW dealer,
and I fixed the rotted rocker panels, and repainted it Tan over brown.
My Sister who was working at the Chicago Board of Trade took one look at it, and wrote me a check for it.
She and her Rugby Buddies drove it NOLA for Mardi Gras.
I was glad to see it go, it ran like crap compared to a fuel injected Squareback in the background.
So in '77 a 4 owner early '70 bus had been owned by the original owner, what ever he did,
then a Doctor, then a High School Car Flipper, and then a Yuppy, but no Hippy.
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Cozmic Charley
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When jerry Garcia died, VW ran an ad of a bus shedding a tear. Don't think they did just for the hell of it
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cozmic Charley wrote:
When jerry Garcia died, VW ran an ad of a bus shedding a tear. Don't think they did just for the hell of it


I've got that shirt, it's a cool shirt.
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WestyMan1971
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't speak on the 60s, but I was a part of the neo-hippie jam band scene that grew out of the deadheads in the late 90s. I had dreadlocks back then and spent a good amount of time "on tour" and at festivals. I've seen a lot of people here comment on "trustafarians", and while they certainly do exist, I find them to be the exception rather than the rule. Most of the people I knew then (myself included) paid their way by selling food and/or other "items" at shows. Most were genuine and sincere about their way of life, not spoiled rich kids (we scoffed at trust funders).
Now, I'm in my 30s and though I still hold some of those ideals and listen to some of the music, my philosophies and tastes have evolved. I no longer consider myself to be any kind of hippie and I'm even a little irked when someone calls me out as such.

That said, the years I spent on that scene were the only ones that I didn't have a running VW (had a few parts cars). I really can only remember one person in the scene who had a bus. VWs were simply too much money and maintenance, not to mention they were a target for police in certain parts of America. We drove whatever was cheap and would handle the mileage. I spent a summer driving an old Cutlass one way across the country, and riding back the other way in the covered bed of a Toyota pickup.
Though I love my VWs and always have, I've never associated them with being a hippie. The stigma has always bothered me, especially now that those days are behind me.

EDIT: Hippie girls in sun dresses are still hot though! Laughing
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L378
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 8:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

widehatch wrote:
The "hippie bus" is nothing more that a media created image. The more Hollywood and the media portray VW buses as the preferred vehicle for hippies then society is going to see it that way. Like is was said previously. Vws were new cars then and used vws were plentiful. Hippies were/are cheap so they drove whatever they could afford. Not all hippies drove vws. Some did but that's because they were modern cars then. Watch the movie woodstock. When the camera pans over all the parked cars there are a few buses. Most the cars there were big American cars. You see more bays painted like hippie buses because 1 they are more common nowadays and 2 people are idiots and don't know any better. Just like the super beetle Herbies. I cringe everytime I see a hippie painted bus or someone makes a lame hippie comment about mine.


I concur with the media creation and that includes not just the press, but film & TV which just blew out of proportion the entire idea. Sure some so called hippies, or those living the live had buses and the lifestyle/culture played on well into the late 70s (and as noted to this day) so of course there were some that drove bays. Film example - Kevin Costner's character in Field of Dreams a self described former hippie road trip to find the James Earl Jones JD Salinger character-what's he take on the road trip? A bay (likely used for filming purposes rather than a split, but a bay). By 1978 the first bays were 10 years old and more than affordable and were likely on their 2nd or 3rd owner. As for the very early post referring to Sean Penn's Jeff Spicoli - wrong cultural stereotype - his character was a surfer.

Let me also just add, that the so-called peak of this all occured 35-45 years ago which on how you look at it is 1.5 or 2 generations ago and there just is a mythologizing/romanticizing about it. Can't really say about back in the day as I'm just a few years too young for that.
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colbythompson
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 7:23 am    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

Just read through this thread, thought it was pretty interesting though obviously a few years old now!

I think there's a new age or "hippies" out and about today who are makin the vw bus and vanagon wildly popular right now. People who are considered Vanlifers, myself soon to be included. People looking to bow out of the "system" and live more with less, like the tiny house movement but more
Mobile. Look at Hasta Alaska, Wheresmyofficenow, Idle Theory Bus, And many many more. It's actually such a movemen BBC is contacting/reaching out via Instagram to find vandwellers to interview in a documentary they're creating about it. 80s vanagons are usually the go to vehicle, but maybe 1/5 of that community goes for the old 70s bus. And rather than trustafarians opting in, those folks tend to go for Sprinter vans for their high ceiling. The people looking at VWs take pride in their old vehicles and learning how to take care of them and work on them themselves.

Last bit, this new nomad movement usually has a digital connection, that being you live and work on the road, usually made possible by gigs that can be done on your laptop in a cafe (web design, graphic design, some freelance video stuff, blogging, etc) while others are intentionally opting into migratory farming work and other low paying gigs to reconnect with nature and use our bodies for a change rather than sit in front of a screen all day.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 12:38 pm    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

You damn hippie! Laughing
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 7:24 am    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

I spotted this in this morning's local newspaper article about legalized marijuana here in Canada.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

djkeev wrote:
In the same vein..... why do people paint NEW Beetles to look like Herbie??

It is what it is. The Hippies lingered for longer than you think. I lived in Ashland in Southern Oregon in the 70's and the hills around Grants Pass and the entire Rogue Valley were full of Hippie holdouts. They'd come down and go to BiMart, get auto parts and basic supplies. Heck, I sold an early 60's Chevy Straight Job Box truck to Hippies in 1978 that I had driven out from Miami Fla.
Their plan was to put in a wood stove, some beds and use it for lodging where they worked, many planted trees for BLM and the Forest Service back then.

Stereotypes develop, they are hard to change in spite of all the "political correctness" we have in the world today, Stereo types of particular ethnic peoples continue to exist. If I say the term "Piney's" to anyone in NJ, a stereotype springs to mind. It's just part of our society.

Dave


Why does anyone paint anything like Herbie? Rolling Eyes

A lot of parking lots up till '95 had a tone of Buses in them.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

crofty wrote:

Why does anyone paint anything like Herbie? Rolling Eyes



Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 12:23 pm    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

If you can remember what it was like back in the day, then you didn't have a hippy bus...
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 2:52 pm    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

bvolks wrote:
I spotted this in this morning's local newspaper article about legalized marijuana here in Canada.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


We came too close to getting busted smoking hash oil in a Vancouver BC park at night in the 1980's. Mountie raps on the door of my camper shell. I swing open the door & a big cloud of smoke escapes into his face. "What is that smell!" My brother in law says "we burnt the coffee". He shakes his head and says "I really want to see all you your identification!". He looks at them & says "this park is closed for the winter". "Be gone from here bright & early in the morning". He was cool! We went down Hiway 1 to my parents place in Missoula for Christmas. Cool
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 6:37 pm    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

cough,cough,cough...Whut?

They were cheap and easy to come by and repair. The iconic identification endures as a symbol for a less complicated life, full of adventure. I started driving a Bus in 1983 ( my 64 Kombi ) which was seen as a great hunting/fishing vehicle ( I used to ice fish out of it right on the lake ) at the time in rural Colorado.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 10:13 pm    Post subject: Re: VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day Reply with quote

There was a wide range of counterculture movements, that ended up being associated with "hippie", tho many don't have a lot in common otherwise.
I think of The Whole earth catalog, the Muir manual, even the guy on wood-right show on PBS....tho not sure why Laughing he had the pedal powered lathe!!
The idea that an individual, or at least a much smaller group of people, could be far more self sufficient..... to a small degree or an extreme degree.

I personally don't understand why people don't get it.
If you were looking for a practical van-like vehicle in that time period, that was efficient, and you could maintain yourself.......of course it's VW bus.

To the....layperson, at least it would seem like a good choice by reputation. The truth is.....maybe another matter, but hindsight is 20/20

The funny thing is I don't think anything has changed. A LOT of the forum is about trying to do it yourself, and it sure isn't working any better now than it did then Razz
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