My 1955 Oval

[styroman]

In about 1974 I was a derrickman in the steam fields of Northern California, a past life at the Geysers. I didn't live on the Geyserville side of the mountain, but on the other side in the little mountain community of Pine Grove, where I lived in a small cabin with my first wife and two daughters.

Well, I came across a clean, yellow 1955 oval window bug with a bad engine, and I bought it. I needed a vehicle to go the six miles over the mountain on logging roads no matter the weather. So I pulled that engine and overhauled it in the middle of the cabin floor. First time I'd ever worked on one, but I was a pretty good mechanic. After reinstalling it I put a pair of turning break handles in, mounted up a pair of Formula Desert Dog tires on 15x8s for the rear, and installed a baja kit.

It looked real good, and it ran good, so I began driving it to work. There was one stretch of flooded meadow I'd have to cross, a place where many a 4WD had foundered, and where that buggy would turn into a paddle-boat. Riding on its belly, ruddering with its narrow front tires, and paddling with the big 'L' shaped lugs of the Formula Desert Dog tires, it would navigate the bog like a mud puppy.

It was not too common to have a baja bug where I lived, so I got a lot of attention with it. People came with offers, and I turned them down.

I do not remember if it was the second or third day after I began driving the Oval to work over the mountain, but this one day I parked it off the end of the drilling rig catwalk, where I could admire it, and fiddle with it when on a break.

About half way through the shift, the floor hands tied onto another length of drill pipe on the catwalk, and hoisted it up the ramp where it would stick up onto the floor well enough to pick it up with elevators so it could be added to the drill-string.

As is often the case with drilling rigs, there was drilling mud everywhere, and it was slippery. There was so much mud that day that the joint of drill pipe they just angled up onto the drilling floor from the catwalk, began to slide back off the lip of the floor. The floor hands tried to grab it but there was no holding onto it. That joint of pipe began to pick up speed, and once the upper end of it had cleared the lip of the floor and started down the ramp, it accelerated like it was shot out of a cannon, off the end of the catwalk and into my baja bug; penetrating just above the windshield, and coming to a stop in the back seat.

End of Story!
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My Trike Project: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666742

[catahoula lou]

But, did you fix it back up?

Best,
Thom
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1 great wife
2 Catahoula Leopard Dogs (Mahogany Star and Spartan) - RIP Lucy, Braveheart, & Dusty!
1 1959 mango green Ragtop Bug (the "Mango")
1 1958 pantina red Lowlight Ghia (the "Chili Pepper")

Still looking for:
(1) My Dad's 1955 356 (he raced it amateur-class at Riverside and other courses during 1950s),
(2) My parent's black 1955 hardtop bug (CA license plate FWC 201 or FWG 201), and
(3) My parent's agave green 1957 ragtop bug (CA license plate LFK 734).

[styroman]