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Altema
Samba Member
Joined: June 20, 2010
Posts: 2904
Location: Lower Michigan
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 Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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| FAS wrote: |
| after going thru a couple karmann ghias and several bugs in the late 70's-early 80's,we just got a 73 vert for my wifes summer ride.luvin the response on the road.put a pict on facebook and everyone in their 50's has a ghia story.Back then,we would drive them NY to Fla like nothing. even NY to calif ,then shipped to Hawaii for the winter ,sell it there and pay for college.Had a kid come over to visit ,27 years old,said it looked like a cross between a james bond car and a car he never knew existed.cool stuff!Ghias! |
That's the neat thing: The older folks have a story and love them, and the younger ones who have never seen one still love 'em. I was at a bank cashing a check, and the teller is looking at me, then suddenly smiles and says "You're the Ghia guy!" He cashed the check without looking at my ID, while telling me about a '73 he had that his father used spray foam to fill in the rust holes. Then at the city recreation center, a family comes out and all five children of different ages are walking by staring at the car with their mouths hanging open.  |
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e&m_ghia
Samba Member
Joined: April 04, 2011
Posts: 418
Location: NoVA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Altema wrote: |
| FAS wrote: |
| after going thru a couple karmann ghias and several bugs in the late 70's-early 80's,we just got a 73 vert for my wifes summer ride.luvin the response on the road.put a pict on facebook and everyone in their 50's has a ghia story.Back then,we would drive them NY to Fla like nothing. even NY to calif ,then shipped to Hawaii for the winter ,sell it there and pay for college.Had a kid come over to visit ,27 years old,said it looked like a cross between a james bond car and a car he never knew existed.cool stuff!Ghias! |
That's the neat thing: The older folks have a story and love them, and the younger ones who have never seen one still love 'em. I was at a bank cashing a check, and the teller is looking at me, then suddenly smiles and says "You're the Ghia guy!" He cashed the check without looking at my ID, while telling me about a '73 he had that his father used spray foam to fill in the rust holes. Then at the city recreation center, a family comes out and all five children of different ages are walking by staring at the car with their mouths hanging open. |
Don't know about the younger ones not knowing much about them... Our son's summer swim team coaches, at least a couple of them, knew all about the Ghia. Even more surprisingly, they all knew how to drive a standard... (Not that they got the chance to drive ours. We don't know where red-line is on our engine yet, ourselves...)
It's the older generation we wonder about. Such as the older woman who came up to E at a big local car show, and exclaimed "I used to have a Corvair just like that one!"... |
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Altema
Samba Member
Joined: June 20, 2010
Posts: 2904
Location: Lower Michigan
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| Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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| e&m_ghia wrote: |
| Don't know about the younger ones not knowing much about them... Our son's summer swim team coaches, at least a couple of them, knew all about the Ghia. Even more surprisingly, they all knew how to drive a standard... (Not that they got the chance to drive ours. We don't know where red-line is on our engine yet, ourselves...) |
I'm very surprised they all knew how to drive a standard. No one in my immediate family can, and there has been unsuccessful attempts to teach my wife. My first car was an automatic, but three following cars were standard. I learned in a Ferrari 308. I really don't want to teach the kids yet, as there is a car shortage at the house presently, and I prefer to keep the Ghia intact!
| e&m_ghia wrote: |
| It's the older generation we wonder about. Such as the older woman who came up to E at a big local car show, and exclaimed "I used to have a Corvair just like that one!"... |
Mistaking a type 34 for a Corvair from the rear, maybe, but a type 14? Argg!  |
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c21darrel
Samba Member
Joined: January 22, 2009
Posts: 8211
Location: San Dimas
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| Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:57 am Post subject: |
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| I took a good friend to a Honda dealer the other day. He was buying a new hotrod standard shift Civic, just doing a quick test drive and then the paperwork. The dealer got in the car to back it up so my friend could do the test ride. Dealer got out of the car sheepishly and told my buddy to go ahead and back the car out. Dealer did not know how to drive a stick shift. WTF. |
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spectre6000
Samba Member
Joined: April 19, 2009
Posts: 2014
Location: Broomfield, CO
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| Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Altema wrote: |
| ...Unsuccessful attempts to teach my wife. My first car was an automatic, but three following cars were standard. |
I taught my wife to drive stick in my '62 bus. IMHO, a well worn stockish VW engine/transmission combo is very forgiving (the low power and gearing means it's not going to grab and jerk), and opinion or no it's easy and inexpensive to repair if something gets pear shaped. I can change the clutch on my VWs (especially a bus) in about an hour and for under $100. Try that in the above mentioned hot Civic.
_________________
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-'58 German Market Deluxe Beetle (in progress)
-'84 M1009 CUCV
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"Buy the best, cry once." -Gene Berg
"A cheap man will always buy the cheapest thing available, and then buys another one hoping for a better result, and then spends the rest of his life in misery complaining about it. A thrifty man will buy a good part once and never think about it again." -RockCrusher
"Don't feed the Shitty Parts Monster!" -Me |
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Harleyelf
Samba Member
Joined: April 23, 2009
Posts: 1572
Location: Appleton, WI
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| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 9:20 am Post subject: |
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Everywhere I take my '69 convertible kids recognize it as the "Stuart Mouse Car".
Slightly older kids have all seen "Kill Bill".
My first TV memory of a Ghia was Max Smart after he lost the Sunbeam Tiger. |
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Altema
Samba Member
Joined: June 20, 2010
Posts: 2904
Location: Lower Michigan
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| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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| spectre6000 wrote: |
| Altema wrote: |
| ...Unsuccessful attempts to teach my wife. My first car was an automatic, but three following cars were standard. |
I taught my wife to drive stick in my '62 bus. IMHO, a well worn stockish VW engine/transmission combo is very forgiving (the low power and gearing means it's not going to grab and jerk), and opinion or no it's easy and inexpensive to repair if something gets pear shaped. I can change the clutch on my VWs (especially a bus) in about an hour and for under $100. Try that in the above mentioned hot Civic. |
The VW is definetly the easiest to repair or replace. The trans in the car was bought for $175 and installed in a few hours by one person with hand tools and a floor jack. Yeah, that's never gonna happen with the Honda! She does love the Ghia though, and indicated that she'd like to try again. |
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Altema
Samba Member
Joined: June 20, 2010
Posts: 2904
Location: Lower Michigan
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| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Harleyelf wrote: |
Everywhere I take my '69 convertible kids recognize it as the "Stuart Mouse Car".
Slightly older kids have all seen "Kill Bill".
My first TV memory of a Ghia was Max Smart after he lost the Sunbeam Tiger. |
Hmmm, I only saw the first one with the red convertible that they called "the roadster"... is that the one?
They pay homage to all three Maxwell Smart cars in the last movie. He takes the Sunbeam Tiger and it breaks down, then he stops an Opel GT which gets rear-ended, then he ends up driving the Karmann Ghia to his destination. It would have been nice if the TV series used the car more, and a hopped up Ghia would have been very cool. However, he had the Ghia because the show was sponsored by VW at the time, and VW has always avoided doing things that would push the Ghia towards Porsche territory. It's all political, lol. |
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Altema
Samba Member
Joined: June 20, 2010
Posts: 2904
Location: Lower Michigan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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| I was eating lunch in a restaurant today, when two guys came in talking about the Ghia in the parking lot. They were debating whether it was a Porsche, a Karmann Ghia, or a Volkswagen... |
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Rome
Samba Member
Joined: June 02, 2004
Posts: 9640
Location: Pearl River, NY
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| Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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| They pay homage to all three Maxwell Smart cars in the last movie. |
While I do remember those 3 cars from the episodes, I was surprised to recently see the original Maxwell Smart car from the pilot episode-
Link
This Ferrari would've probably cost more than the price of all 3 of his later cars combined at the time, even if it was only a few years old when the episode was filmed. Then again, the "used car" market was really different back then so that you could maybe buy one like this for the price of the Tiger and the Ghia... And the current value probably goes well into 7 figures!
Looking up images of "1960's Ferrari roadsters", it appears to be a 1960 250GT Cabriolet, such as this one-
http://www.classiccarweekly.net/wp-content/uploads...Farina.jpg
And if vintage Ferraris "look alike" to us non-Ferrari guys, this model is not the same one appearing in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"- which was a replica of the 250 GT California, from what I've read. |
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Jeromerino
Samba Member
Joined: February 28, 2013
Posts: 209
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Altema wrote: |
| They were debating whether it was a Porsche, a Karmann Ghia, or a Volkswagen... |
D) All of the above
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1964 Karmann Ghia Coupe
1971 Beetle Sedan |
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