VW Bus Reputation Back in the Day

[whc03grady]

I suppose this question is for those who were there.

The Hippie/VW Bus connection has long mystified me, especially as it applies to Bay Window buses. Granted, I'm 38 years old but growing up in the shadow of the Baby Boomers means I've learned quite a bit about American culture of the 1960s and 1970s, albeit incidentally. I mean, I've seen Forrest Gump and all.

Anyway, my impression is that the hippie era was pretty much toast by the late 1960s and definitely by the early 1970s. Altamont, Manson, cocaine, and all that. One of my other sources of historical knowledge of 1960s Americana, "American Pie" basically states as much.

So how is it that Bay Window buses get this reputation as hippie mobiles anyway? They were NEW CARS, and kind of expensive ones at that, during the absolute tail end of the hippie era.

Did people in, say, 1977 think of a 1973 VW bus as a hippie-mobile? Or were they (as I suspect) more Yuppie-mobiles, maybe loosely on par with a modern Volvo or something?

Just wondering.
_________________
1974 Westfalia "Ludwig"
1971 Squareback "Gertie"
Read about their adventures

[Zelten]

I don't think most people who consider a bay window as a hippie mobile really care about historical facts. I got this just this weekend when I told some people that I was fixing up my 78 Westy. The first things out of their mouths were hippie and pot. I told them that when my bus was made no hippie could have afforded it, but that doesn't matter. I really don't care. It is what it is and there will be no changing the stigma that our buses carry even if they weren't even made during that era. I like to call my bus a European touring machine whenever it's called a hippie car.
_________________
1978 Delux Campmobile
03 Jetta TDI
15 Q7 TDI

[whc03grady]

[nerfer]

I don't think most people make a distinction between splits and bay windows (or westphalias vs. 23 windows). To them a bus is a bus is a bus. By 1978 the early 60 buses were certainly affordable.
_________________
A '68 fastback owner, and maybe a driver

[drscope]

It may be hard to believe now, but many of the hippie era busses were very cheap. Half the cost of a Chevy, Ford or Mopar van of the same era.

Not many people wanted a 36 or 40 horse power bus. They had trouble doing over 50mph and usually ate a valve somewhere around the 40,000 mile mark.

The American vans of the same era would easily do the speed limit on the interstate and had no trouble keeping up with traffic. They also didn't fail nearly as much.

So for someone who was short on cash, it was pretty easy to pick up a running, driving bus for $100 or less. I think I paid $25 for my running, driving 60 camper bus in 1975 and drove that thing (slowly) for about a year and a half until it swallowed a valve and trashed the engine.

And none of them were in a hurry to get anywhere fast, so the VW bus just made a good way to go.
_________________
Mother Nature is a Mean Evil Bitch!

[63Ragtop NZ]

I blame "Fast times" and Sean Penn.


_________________
If you can't join them, beat them!

[63Ragtop NZ]

seriously though the good doctor prolly nailed it.

found this under google http://islandbreath.blogspot.co.nz/2009/08/woodstock-forgotten.html


_________________
If you can't join them, beat them!

[djkeev]

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
_________________
Stop Dead Photo Links how to post photos

Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

Vanagon
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

Beetle
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=482968&highlight=74+super+vert

[GB2S]

Living in the middle of the country along the interstate, I can't count the number of VW buses that didn't make if across the county, and ended up in a few junk yards around here, Could have gotten a 57 deluxe with a bad tranny cheap in the early 80's. Believe it or not Nobody wanted it. LOL
My wife and kids use to love to point out all the abandoned buses when we traveled.
By the way a Bay window is NOT a hippie bus

Geoff
_________________
1963 Ragtop

[doc1369]

[Mr Mike]

Interesting thread here. For what ever its worth, I'm in complete
agreement with DRSCOPE, NERFER, and particularly DJKEEV.

I'm in my mid 70's, gonna be 74 this year. Stationed in San Diego with the Navy from November '63 through June '67 before transferring to
Washington state. Purchased my first VW, a bug, new in 1966. Still own and drive it along with others including a '63 15 window,
all these years later.
Anyway, never heard the term HIPPIE Bus in all those years.
In the sixty's VW's of all types were as common as fleas on a dog.
You couldn't believe how many were on the road unless you were there to see them. Amazing!

As DJ KEEV points out, in the 70's and 80's, when the hippies began to
spread out to collectives and communes and farms, etc and raise kids
and so forth, you began to hear the term. And not all that often, even then. ( My experience.)
Also as has been pointed out, hippies drove what they could afford and
keep on the road not always buses. But many today don't care or know
and apply the term quite loosely. I still don't hear it all that often.
Just my two cents. And for what its worth, I most certainly agree
with the earlier statement above:
A "fat chick" ( aka bay window) is no way, a hippie bus.

[Tram]

Real hippies were around until the early 80s. Disco began the decline, but there were lots of long- haired sandal freaks that were hardcore hangers-on. Like any other movement, it didn't suddenly start one day and stop the next. There are still real hippies around. It all depends on if you're living the lifestyle, or just the caricature.

Remember the C.W. McCall line from Convoy? "And seven long- haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus". That was mid- late '70s. By that time, hippies had become "Jesus freaks". "Hippie" is actually a bastardization of the term "hipster", which has been around at least as long as the Bop era of jazz in the mid to late '40s. Before that, it was "Bohemians". "Beatniks" was what our parents called us in the '60s and '70s with our long hair and jeans. It's all a variation of the same thing.
_________________
Немає виправдання для війни! Я з Україною.

[ho-dad]

My uber-right wing Orange County uncle drove a bug for many years and his equally right leaning son drove a bay. They'd probably punch you if you dared calling them hippies
_________________
'69 SingleCab
'67 Plymouth Satellite
'62 SuperStock Dodge (I wish...)

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

[Mike Fisher]

You can't drive around Eugene today without seeing old hippies driving beater bay windows!
_________________
https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[Dave24]

[nerfer]

[whc03grady]

So I guess, long story shortish, Bay Windows weren't perceived as hippie mobiles until maybe the early, mid-1980s when used/beaten ones became affordable to those still more or less following the hippie ethos of fifteen years previous. Before that, when hippiedom was in full flower, older Splitties were in fact occasionally pressed into service as gen-yoo-ine hippie transportation due to their low cost and perhaps also ease of maintenance.

So who drove Bay Windows when they were new?
_________________
1974 Westfalia "Ludwig"
1971 Squareback "Gertie"
Read about their adventures

[Opossum]

[jensend]

I think you have to consider that the term Hippie is associated with a stereotype about people first and about VW busses secondarily. I am a mainstream middle class person who taught High School English for nearly forty years and lived and worked in suburban New jersey. Since I didn't/don't have a crew cut and have owned a number of ACVWs (including a Bay Window Bus) many people have referred to me as being a Hippie. It's absurd, but the lines were very narrowly and arbitrarily drawn in the 60's and have become even more hazy as time and first hand experience has passed from currency. People just want to generalize to make things fit their concept of the world.

[whc03grady]