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“My Love Bug led (a) parade of children around the neighborhood (during a Halloween parade in Mahopac, N.Y., on Oct. 31, 1971). ... The headlights had eyelashes and eyeballs. The children loved it.”

— Beverly Rice

“When I was a kid, we lived in Chattanooga and my aunt lived in Whitwell. She and my cousins would come over on days during the summer and pick us up to go swimming at Chester Frost Park in her little orange Bug. ... My cousins were older than me, so they and my little brother got to sit in the back seat, and I got to sit in the cargo area between the back seat and the back glass. For a kid of 8 years old, that was awesome. Also, my uncle had a late-’60s model Bug that he drove back and fourth to work. When we would go over to their house on the weekend, he would let my cousins get out in the cow pasture to learn how to drive, and we would all spend hours riding around the fields.

— Mark Lofty

“On March 23, 1963, I went for my driving test in my Bug, obviously a huge event for a 16-year-boy. In the early (VW) models, there wasn’t a gas gauge but rather a lever down by the floor. When you ran out of gas, one simply flipped the lever and you would have one gallon left (about 40 miles). Well, during my actual driver’s test, the engine died! Talk about sweaty palms! Fortunately, I hit my blinker and coasted to the curb, flipped the lever and restarted the engine. I passed with flying colors, and the tester even complimented my driving to my dad.

— George D. Arthur, Hixson

“My first car was a cherry red 1966 Volkswagen Beetle. I shared it with my dad. My dad hired my drivers ed instructor to teach me to drive a straight shift. In high school, I was usually the driver when my group of girlfriends went out, and once I fit about seven girls into that car. I would take up a collection to refill the gas tank, which cost about $3 since gas was about 30 cents a gallon then. My girlfriends called (the car) The Cherry Bomb.

“When my dad decided to get a new car, he sold me the Beetle for $500, well under what it was worth. I was a junior in college. I taught my roommate to drive a straight shift so she could use the car if she wanted. There were a few hills in Bloomington, Ind., and she drove way out of her way to get home until she got comfortable.

One winter vacation, we took a road trip from Bloomington to St. Louis. At that time on a Beetle, the heat and the defrost were the same thing. The heat/defrost didn’t work very well on my side, the driver’s side, so I had to crank it way up and supplement the window defrost with heat from the palm of my hand. I had a blanket over my legs. My roommate, however, had her coat and gloves off, and was fanning herself because of the extreme heat.

“(When) I bought a new car in 1974 and traded in the ‘Bug,’ I cried.

— Marcy Meldahl, Knoxville

“One summer while we were on vacation in Daytona Beach, my husband and son bought a Karmann Ghia, which we had to tow home. They restored the car, and my son drove it during his last year at Berry College. We then parked it in the garage until the day of his wedding when he insisted that the car be the vehicle that he and his wife drove away from the wedding reception. Today that car is parked in the garage, and my husband’s truck parks outside! When my son graduated from (the University of Georgia) with his master’s, we told him we would buy him a new car, and the only car he wanted was a VW diesel five-speed Bug, and that was in 2001, and he still drives that car today. My personal story is I learned to drive on a 1966 VW. My dear father patiently sat in the passenger’s seat while I learned that clutch and gear combination.

— Vicki Trapp, Chattanooga

VW MEMORIES: The Times Free Press invites you to share your VW memories.

Write to Features Editor Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com. Send photos, too, if you have them.

Dear Mark,

You may not want to publish my personal account of my ’74 “Love Bug Edition” (remember the lime green model with the blacked-out “chrome” parts? Mine even had hounds-tooth checkered seats!). Anyway, here goes:

In September 1980, my bug and I had an unfortunate chance encounter with an angel-dust-impaired-fugitive-from-the-law who was driving a stolen Z-28 equipped with hood up (yep, no typo), headlights turned off (it was around 8:00PM) and traveling at a very high rate of speed (a LONG story precedes the moment when he and I met up). Anyway, “Demon-drug driver” rammed my “doodle-bug” in the rear; immediately killing the little air-cooled engine. We were traveling in a heavily residential straightaway so there was nowhere to go. I tried zigzagging back and forth aggressively to get away from him but we were “hooked” together so I tried downshifting and hard braking until both transaxle and brakes gave completely away. I held on for the inevitable—all the while praying very hard. I hit a telephone pole and flipped so many times, the view outside was like those change-of-scenes in the old Batman TV series (I know you’ll remember). The cops told me that I was traveling 90+ MPH when I hit the pole (I believed them). FORTUNATELY (in those pre-air bag days), I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt (that habit would come later). Where I was sitting behind the wheel, was a huge concave bulge where the little car careened into the pole. They said if I’d been wearing my ‘belt, I’d have been mashed. The initial collision tore away the front left wheel, suspension, fender, and most of the hood. By some miracle I lived and incredibly “only” had cuts, contusions and soft tissue damage to my left leg, giving it a bumpy appearance even today: but I’m alive to write this story.

Probably everyone over 40 either owned one of these little cars, or had a family member who did. They were virtually indestructible and even a certain telephone pole would likely agree with me—my bug tore a pretty big chuck out of that creosote monolith. I do have less violent, happier stories as well but I’ll never forget this one.

Thanks, much.

Mark Burgess

PS- I as well as the rest of our region am thrilled about VW coming to Chattanooga. The Scenic City was finally the bride!

Dear Mr Kennedy

Attached is my favorite VW story of almost 50 years ago. Also attached is a photo of my husbands 1959 Volkswagen taken on our wedding day in 1962. I hope you will find this true story about us and this wonderful car enjoyable

Joanne Brownlee

My dad recently passed away, but I fondly think back to 1969 when he escorted me to purchase a new VW bug. At 20 I did not have established credit so he had to co-sign on the purchase. The previous Christmas my brother had been given a used VW bug with a vinyl accordion type sun roof…I wanted to better him by getting NEW VW bug! My Dad and I met the salesman Claude Hyde and looked at several cars…Claude left us alone in his office and my Dad whispered, “Now Pris when Claude comes back you be quiet and let me do the talking…I think I can get a better price.” I whispered back, “Daddy, you talk all you want, but I am walking out of here with the pretty green bug in the showroom.” My payment was $59.55 per month. The bug was one of their brand new ones with an “automatic” transmission…of course I knew nothing of cars so it wasn’t long before I came back needing a new transmission…no one told me to check the fluid in the car. I loved the car so much I would spend my whole lunch hour driving around town…in fact I spent almost all my free time in the bug.

My brother and I had numerous escapades in our bugs, but my most serious moment was returning to Chattanooga from Nashville. I had been visiting my boyfriend and his family…I got so emotional during our farewells that I failed to release the handbrake on the car. As I was coming over Monteagle I noticed cloudy air coming from the rear between the front seats…for a moment I though it was just air particles then I realized it was smoke! Yikes! I headed for the next exit and thankfully the guys in the service station saw me coming and threw a big 4 by 4 under the front of my bug to help stop it. Needless to say my Dad was not happy when he got my phone call to be rescued. I remember coming inbound through the McCallie tunnels one cold, snowy morning…I spun on the ice and my car went completely around…the neat thing was it did it all in one lane…so cool!

The tradition continued with my oldest daughter Elizabeth. In 1997 we gave her a 25 year old, perfectly re-stored VW super beetle. This was to be her transportation to UTC, work and home, but just like with me her social life impacted her car. She didn’t understand why we got upset when she and her friends took the bug on a trip through the mountains to Washington D.C or when she let her boyfriend paint her VW and we had to have it re-done professionally or when she drove it through the front of a convenience store and the cashier explained that it was not a “drive thru.” After graduation and marriage Elizabeth brought a brand new VW bug and since having a child she has moved on to a Volkswagen SUV and her husband’s races a Volkswagen R32 concept car.

As I look forward to retirement I am considering another Volkswagen. My son-in-law tells me that are the best designed and built vehicles, but I just remember how much fun they are to drive!

Priscilla Simmons

I am attaching a photo of my late 1960s VW bug. This was taken on Oct. 31, 1971 during the Halloween Parade in Mahopac, NY. My Love Bug led the parade of children around the neighborhood. You can't see it, but the headlights had eye lashes and eye balls. The children loved it.

Beverly Rice

I read your challenge and it got me thinking of child hood memories about my aunts vw bug. When I was a kid we lived in Chattanooga and my Aunt lived in Whitwell. Her and my Cousins would come over on days during the summer and pick us up to go swimming at chester frost Park( Hamilton County Park) in her little Orange Bug. The funny thing that I will always remember is My cousins were older then my so them and my little brother got to sit in the back seat and I got to sit in the cargo area between the back seat and the back glass for a Kid of 8 years old that was awesome.Also My uncle had a late 60 model bug that he drove back and fourth to work when we would go over to their house on the weekend he would let my cousins get out in the cow pasture to learn how to drive and we would all spend hours riding around the feilds with my cousins that was also so cool. Well that is my V.W Bug memories

Mark Lofty

In response to the article recently in the paper, I would like to share with you some memories I have from the late 60s & early 70s with my 2 VW Square Backs. Do you remember those? I have found that not many remember them. They were like a miniature station wagon. They had a front and back seat and room in the back of the wagon where various items could be carried accessed by a rear door that swung upward . The back seat could also be folded down to increase space in the back.

My first one came directly from Germany by boat via the port of New Orleans. It was a ’68 European model with a white top and maroon body. It had straight transmission and a wonderful German radio including a short wave band. It also had parking lights on the side doors which would come turned on after dark. I could carry my musical equipment, groceries, my wife & 2 small children with ease on 40 mpg all over the place. And talk about parking, I could ‘pull in’ just about anywhere with ease. Another thing I use to do was let my children sit on my lap, one at a time of course, and I would drive around the neighborhood and let them ‘steer’ although I always had my hands ‘right there’. They loved it.

The only problem I had was that my wife couldn’t drive straight transmission. A few years later, we had our own VW dealership here . It was located on Lee Highway approximately across the road from where Rib-&-Loin Bar-BQ is now. Also, VW had come out with an automatic transmission model by then so I traded my 68 for a YELLOW Square Back model that everyone could drive. I kept that model for a long time. I was Supervisor of Music for the Chattanooga Public School, directing a church choir, playing in the symphony , etc. and I put 1000s of miles on it going from school to school / concerts/ rehearsals/ meetings/ my office, etc. not to mention family business. My wife could drive it now and I taught BOTH my children how to drive it way before they were able to get their licenses. I would let them drive around the neighborhood or home from church on Sunday evenings but I was always in the car beside them. I will always cherish those days with my wife, children and my VW Square Backs. Thank You, VW.

Jay M.Craven

Boomers, Beetles and Franco American Spaghetti

Do you ever run across things that spark fond memories of your growing up years? VW coming to Chattanooga has done that for me. I am a boomer. I learned to drive on a VW Beetle. I popped that clutch so many times that I have a permanent kink in my neck. I still refuse to wear dangly earrings because of the whiplash effect they had on me as I was learning the foot action of shifting gears. Inspite of whiplash and kinks, I also remember the extreme sense of pride that came with being one of the very few, elite females who had mastered the art of driving a stick shift beetle!

The first beetle we had was “Arctic White”. I used to think it was the color of the car. I have just now realized that it really referred to the color your feet turned while driving a beetle in the winter months, in below zero temperatures, in the city of Chicago! Beetles were never known for their heaters. But, living in Chicago in the winter reveals about the same mental aptitude as buying a car without much of a heater and wearing mini skirts sitting on very cold vinyl seats!!!! On the flip side, my Beetle never got stuck in the snow. In the days before 4 wheel drive vehicles, my Beetle could easily conquer those snowy roads and get me and everyone else anywhere we wanted to go.

“Arctic White” was also of the vintage that did not have a gas gauge on the dash. I don’t know if that was considered an “extra” or if some German engineer just forgot to put one in. You may ask, how in the world did you keep from running out of gas? Well, I guess we didn’t. Those cars had a 1 gallon spare gas tank that could be released by flipping a lever near your gas pedal. So, in the middle of an intersection, when the car refused to make that final leap across two lanes of oncoming traffic, you needed to have the ability to multitask at a moment’s notice. SRFG! That stands for Stall, Reach the lever, Flip turn, and Gun it!!! Some might think that driving that way could be considered dangerous. But, this was the era when drivers were drivers! We had no fluffy luxury cars! We had no air conditioning, no heat, no power steering, no power locks...actually, we had no power! So, danger really wasn’t an issue.

My joy as a teenager peaked on a weekend when my parents took a trip to see my uncle in Wisconsin. The car they were driving threw a rod (whatever that means). They broke from their “don’t borrow money” philosophy and came home with a brand new 1968 black beetle. I was elated! Black was a dream car! It had a sun roof AND a radio!!! I think this one even had a fuel gauge so it must have been a pre-Eddie Bauer deluxe edition. Well, the Black Dynasty was very short lived. Black was totaled by my older brother when an unoccupied, parked car pulled out in front of him on a nearby suburban street 10 minutes after his 11:30 curfew. My brother still has Black’s epitaph engraved in the scar across his forehead. I believe it says something like, “this scar is a constant reminder of the 24 car payments that still had to be made after the demise of Black beetle that only survived the first two payments, p.s. watch out for parked cars that leap out from curbs.” Fortunately, Black had checked the organ donor box on it’s tag and it’s engine was transplanted into Red.

Red was a beetle which had a pretty good body because it never went anywhere. The engine had running issues which I personally can relate to. My dad set up shop in the garage and began the tedious task of engine transplantation. The months went by and my desire to bond on the road with Red was almost more than I could deal with. My brother had moved on to college and I was next in line to be the designated teenage driver.

Red and I had a great times together. It took $3 to fill up the gas tank and we could drive for 300+ miles. Red could fit into parking spots or just spots that one else dared to venture. Red could make turns on a dime. Actually, there were times when Red was picked up and turned by groups of teens without consent, I might add. Red and I went off to college together but in time it was replaced by Blue.

I thought my first teaching job required a new blue Datson B210. After getting married and making the discovery that car payments didn’t fit into our nonexistent budget, Blue was sold off and reliable, loyal Red Beetle happily returned to me. By this time, my younger brother had had the honor of being Red’s not so careful caretaker and the car had acquired some issues with leaking gas. After a small fire in the engine and few new wires and hoses, he was back to his old self. At one point, a leaky brake line caused a little rusting inside. Red started to resemble Fred Flintstone’s cars where you could actually see and reach the street from the inside of the car. Poverty can be the inspiration for creativity. My husband built a little platform inside and remounted the driver’s seat and Red was back in business. In time, Rusty Red was released from duty and went home to be with Dad.

The arrival of a baby in our family inspired thoughts of a car with air conditioning. Old habits die hard and I believe that may have been during the stretch that beetles became extinct. We instead bought a VW Rabbit which was named the “Bunny car” by our 4 year old neighbor (because of the rabbit decal on the side). Bunny carried us through two children, that is until the dark day I took a sick child to the doc and failed to notice the flashing temperature gauge and the smoke coming out of the engine. Bunny went the way that most bunnies go and we went the way most families go....MINI VAN.

I always loved my beetles. They always served me well. When the VW Beetle made it’s come back, I was very anxious to drive one but also fearful that it wouldn’t live up to my high expectations. I was afraid it would be like Franco American Spaghetti. FA spaghetti was my absolute favorite lunch as a child. As an adult, I was under the impression that canned spaghetti could only be purchased if one had children to eat it. The day finally came when I could present FA spaghetti on a special plate to my ravenous children with hopes that there would be a few leftover bites for me to relive my childhood ecstasy. Needless to say, one bite was more than enough for me!

The new, improved VW’s did not shatter my hopes and dreams. I now drive an 8 year old, stick shift silver Jetta. It was not chosen to match the color of my hair, which, by the way, is getting closer to being a match. Silver has a sun roof, radio, CD player, HEAT, AC, cloth seats and even power locks. It is no hardship to drive my jetta. It is so fun and perky that I got a speeding ticket the first week I had it. Diesel is expensive now but since Silver gets 55 mpg, it’s ok. My daughter gave up her hopes of inheriting Silver. She bought a black one and moved to Florida a few years ago She has great faith in it’s AC. My 16 year old son has just spent the last hour and a half cleaning my jetta. He still has high hopes and expectations of Silver becoming his designated teenager transporter. We’ll have to see if we can get that grade point average up a notch or two before we get conned into that one. But, I guess if it’s cool enough for him, I might just have to start looking for another one!!!

You might think that VW stands for Volks Wagon. VW owners know what it really means.... Valiant Wondercar!

Bonnie Blomberg

Buying a Bug

In 1966, I had “dropped out” of college and was working the evening shift on construction of I-75 at Berea, Kentucky. The roundtrip from the trailer park in Lexington was about 90 miles. My 1951 Chevy burned almost as much oil as gas and wouldn’t hold up.

A VW Bug would be perfect; I wanted one and knew what it would cost. My hometown banker in western Kentucky was willing to loan me the money, up to $2,000. Volkswagen had a reputation for quality and the Bug was in very high demand. It was common knowledge that dealers sold the popular little car only at “sticker price.” I traveled to the dealer near my hometown, checkbook in hand, and chose a “sea blue” Deluxe with no extras. The salesman offered whitewall tires. “No thanks,” I said, “blackwalls.” He offered an AM radio—a $74 option. “No.” I had checked at Sears and could buy one that fit in-dash for $28.

The salesman calculated the total cost, including all fees, taxes, licensing, and told me it would be $1817.63. But, I wanted to be the only guy around to buy an “all the rage” Bug for less than sticker price. Surely, $17.63 was more important to me than to the dealer. I had recently gathered all my empty soft drink bottles to redeem for enough money to buy lunch. “I’ll write a check for $1800 and drive it away” I said. “It’s $1817.63” he said. “Surely you won’t lose this sale over $17” I said. He was politely adamant. I was downright stubborn.

Together with my friend, who had come along to drive the ’51 Chevy home, I left. I wanted that new Bug very badly, but I wasn’t going to budge. Several hours later, the salesman called. If I wished to return, he would accept $1800. Later that day, I drove away in my new 1966 Volkswagen Bug—what a wonderful car!

Stephen Warren

Sir,

I had a love affair with VW buses and campers for many years. My first one was a 69 van. I stripped the inside to bare metal and built a bed and storage compartments for camping and picnicking. My second one was a red camper with a pop-up top, and an ice box for which we had to purchase a bag of ice every day, and a tiny sink. All together I owned four of them, with each succesive bus becoming a little more comfortable. My wife and I (and sometimes just I) drove the campers to places as far away as Key West, Florida, across the border into Mexico, and across the Rocky Mountains. We drove the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Natchez Trace Parkway, and the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado. We camped in cold weather using electric blankets, in canyon winds, on beaches with sand fleas and blowing sand and with only cold-water only showers.

Once we camped on the North Shore of Lake Ponchatrain, and next morning we loaded up and started to drive across the 25 mile bridge to New Orleans, when the attendant at the toll booth glanced at the top of the bus and asked us if were were going to cross the bridge like that--we had left the pop-top up! We were stuck in a mountain campground in a driving rain for 3 days and nights once, but we were young and just took in in stride that we were living in a metal box about 5 feet by 12 feet and left for the beach and warm weather. Another time we broke down on the interstate and I flagged a pick-up truck and got him to tow us to the next exit, where there was a service station. On a western trip we broke down again on the interstate and I hitched a ride to the next exit, then hitched a ride back to the camper with a van load of college girls from the University of Colorado going on spring break. My wife was startled and amused to see me emerge from that van accompanied by a chorus of “Bye, Mr. Maddux, have a good trip!”. One time the starter would not kick-in and my wife (all 108 lbs. of her) actually pushed the bus enough to get it started. I then learned that I could get the camper started by crawling under it and hitting the starter with a hammer while my wife turned the key. We had to do that every time we stopped and shut the engine off. I could tell many more stories about our years traveling in VW campers.

I am attaching three pictures taken at Cades Cove in the Smoky Mts. National Park. I was brave enough to take that road.

I hope you enjoy my memories of our adventurous trips.

Lanier and Patsy Maddux

Chattanooga

Mark,

Our family owned three Volkswagen Beetles, beginning with a bright red one in 1964 that my dad drove to work each day. My mom had a station wagon at the time, but when we planned a family trip in the summer of ’65 to visit the cousins on John’s Island, outside Charleston, SC and then drive up into North Carolina, go to Maggie Valley, over the Smokies to Gatlinburg, and then home, my dad had the great idea that we would take the Volkswagen. The only problem with this was that there were six of us. My brother, Mike, was twelve, I was ten, Tina was seven, and Lee Ann was five- none of us babies. The really great (?) idea that Daddy had was that Tina and Lee Ann would ride in the luggage section behind the back seat, the “way back” as we called it. Anyone who has owned a Volkswagen can picture that small area. He thought it would be hilarious every time we stopped at a gas station for people to watch all of us pile out, and sure enough, we got plenty of laughs, comments, and looks of disbelief. It was definitely the attention grabber he was looking for! These days, I'm sure child protective services would have given him plenty of attention, apprehending us as we pulled out of the first gas station.

Until she lost her memory, our Aunt Alma on John’s Island talked about that trip every time we saw her, how the kids just kept coming out of the back of the Volkswagen. As I recall, Tina and Lee Ann were good sports and never complained about being compressed into small balls for hours on end, because another thing about Daddy and trips was that bathroom breaks were few and far between. I’m sure that trip is not at all related to the fact that they break into a sweat every time they have to go for an MRI or a closet door is shut behind them or that they wake up screaming in the middle of the night- oh, I’ve gone too far now sharing family secrets!

After the red one traveled many more miles, my dad bought a royal blue Volkswagen Beetle. By that time, a trip for six was out of the question. Tina later took it over after Daddy was finished with it. When it came time for me to get my first car while I was in college, there was only one choice-a Navy blue Volkswagen Beetle.

Ever so often, I’ll see an old Beetle for sale and I begin to dream of a family road trip to John’s Island, Maggie Valley, and Gatlinburg with my husband and three children, now 21, 16, and 13. I’m sure the thirteen-year-old will fit in the “way back”.

Lynn LaRoche Whittenburg

My VW memory dates back to 1972. I had just graduated from UT Knoxville. It was June and I did not have a job so I thought I should take a vacation before I really started the job serch. I was driving a red 1964 VW Beetle. My UT roommate was from Atlanta. We decided to take a couple of week and go to Florida. It was also the opening season of Walt Disney in Orlanda. We had gotten hold of some comp Hotel passes in Orland and Ft Lauderdale.

I was living in Kingsport, Tn at the time with my parents. Go up early one morning and drove to pick up Ron at his family home in Atlanta. We drove all day and stopped at the Georgia/ Florida line for gas. The VW would not start. Since it an manual shift. We just pushed it off and kept going. Hopeing that this was an isolated moment when the VW would not start we felt sure that the next time we stopped it would start, well it did not start and you guessed it we pushed it off again. Since the Beetle was a very light car we would open each side door, push the VW enough to get it moving , pop the clutch and we were off. Since we had very little money, we knew that we could push the car off and decided not to take it in for repairs. At that time most shops would not work on the "Foreign Cars" and would have had to go to a VW Dealership.

After a couple of days pushing the VW off we started looking for parking spots with a small slope to park the VW. Since Florida is pretty level, sloped parking was few and far between.At the Hotels we would park in the garage to "Roll off the Car" and at some restaurants we found sloped parking.

To make a long story short, we spent a week in Florida, pushing off the VW and then headed home. At Ron's home in Atlanta they had a sloped driveway and make the trip home a little easier.

Upon my return to Kingsport, I took the VW in for service and found that it was only one wire that had come loose and was keeping the starter from engaging. Maybe back then it cost $20 to get it fixed. So we spent seven days in Florida pushing off our red 1964 VW when all we had to do was connect one wire to get it to start.

Also the only speeding ticket I have even gotten was in the same 1964 VW riding on Maryville Hwy in Knoxville. I was in a 50 zone and was caught for doing 57.

So the old 1964 VW brings back may memories. Bought the car used for $900 1966 or 1967 and severl years later sold the VW for $500.

Mike Myers

Mark,

As newlyweds living in Nashville, we bought a new 1964 mint green VW Beetle shortly after it was introduced to the U.S. market. This car had absolutely no "bells or whistles" as it had no air conditioner, no power windows, no power seats and no power door locks, but it did have a manually-dial-operated radio. The motor was installed in the rear of the car and did not have a radiator. Without a radiator, the heater would only provide heat if the car was moving. The car salesman failed to inform us of this "much-needed tidbit of information", and as the cold-weather season began, our excitement of owning a new car quickly turned to gloom. I worked in downtown Nashville and lived 20 miles from my workplace. On those cold winter mornings in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I quickly learned to wear my long winter coat and gloves to offset the fact that I was receiving very little outpu t from the heater. I shivered all the way to work in the mornings and again on my drive home in the late winter afternoons. To make matters worse, for some unknown reason that even an expert mechanic could never diagnose or repair, the VW would not start during the winter unless we left a light bulb burning during the night inside of the engine. And before I could start my drive home, I had to borrow the portable heater from the parking lot attendant and let it rest inside of the engine until it was warm enough to finally start. We drove that car for 7 long years before we could afford to trade it in, making that one of the happiest days of our life. It got great gas mileage and handled well in the snow, but it was the most exasperating vehicle we have ever owned. The moral to this story: We were the unhappy and unfortunate owners of a genuine VW Bettle "lemon".

Barbara Reasoner

I've always had a place in my heart...if not my driveway... for a Beetle. I remember looking at them and calling 'Punch Bug' as my family traveled. As I grew up, married and had a family it just wasn't meant to be that I would own one of the little cars that caught my eye all those years ago.

After working as an LPN for many years I chose to return to school to obtain a Registered Nurse status. One day my husband and I drove to Shallowford Road to 'just look' at what cars were out there to tempt people. It was a good way to get away from the books for a brief time and give my brain a rest. After looking at the 'Big Boy's Toys' he suggested we drive over to the VW place and see what they had on the lot. Buying a car was the last thing on my mind. It was May and I was scheduled to graduate in June.

There on the lot were Beetles lined up like puppies in the window! Each one begging to be taken home and loved. Each one seemed to have its own personality. Then I saw it. A little Mellow Yellow convertible turbo. Husband said, 'Would you like to drive it?' Salesperson who had up to this point been standing in the background sprang forward and said, 'Would you like to drive it?' I had never been behind the wheel of a convertible. Salesperson dropped the top, I got behind the wheel and off we went. I was in love. After a few miles we decided to change places and allow my husband to drive. We went around some curves and up and down some hills. I looked over at him. He was in love. My first thought was, 'Oh no....I think I have just bought a car!'

That was in 2004. In June I obtained that much desired college degree. After the ceremony we hopped in my little Beetle, dropped the top and drove away with the wind blowing through my hair. I now had three things I had dreamed of since being a little girl: A devoted husband, a college degree AND a VW Beetle. You just have to be happy driving a VW convertible!

Carolyn Wooten, RN

My first car was a gift from my father. The summer after I graduated from high school, he surprised me with a used 1957 VW bug, for which he paid $500. It was a novelty in my small Iowa town, and I had to take it to Rockford, Illinois, for service. It had no gas gauge.

I was 17 and gas cost 35 cents a gallon. Even so, I coasted into countless gas stations, despite the lever which could be switched to access a small reserve tank. It would develop vapor locks in the summer heat, which could be overcome only by coasting down a hill in neutral until the engine started. When I left for college, the car was adopted by my mother and was the first of three bugs she would own.

When I began my first real job as a young adult, the first car I bought with my own money was a used 1969 Karmann Ghia--robin's egg blue with a completely useless defrost system. But that car had the traction of a small tank. I was often one of the few employees who managed to get to work in a snowstorm.

My husband and I drove it to Colorado for a ski trip, where we installed chains and drove without incident through the Rocky Mountains--often the only vehicle on the road. I drove that car until it had nothing left to give and cried as I watched the tow truck drag it down the street to the scrap yard.

(I have old photos of both cars.)

Mary Beth Clark

I loved my '68 bug! In the 80's, I'd drive from Nashville to North Carolina to canoe every other weekend. One weekend my co-workers and I headed over and I was ridiculed by my supervisor for driving my 220,000 mile bug with the red canoe on it. I still remember passing her and new Volvo, broken down along the side of the road as I headed home. My bug never let me down. It also had the unique ability to produce heat, but only in the summer. Small price to pay. As a child on Long Island, our family friends had a bug and every time we passed another on the road, both would honk. That special bond of VW owners.

Mike Dougher

My name is Ellen Geeslin and I own my first car-a 1973 Volkswagen bug. When the article came out in the paper the other day, wanting vw stories, my best friend called and said "You've got to send him your bug stories". So...here I am. I am not sure exactly what you want, but we've been together since December 22, 1972. She was a birthday gift from my grandparents, and we have had lots of adventures together ever since.

My wife,accompanied by five adolescent children, had driven the family's early l970's VW bus from Crossett, Ark. to Cross City, Fla., a 600 plus miles trip.

She , near panic, phoned from Cross City to report that the fuel pump had failed. The lone VW mechanic in this small town had stated that the rear engine had to be removed in order to repair or replace the fuel pump. The cost was in the hundreds and I joined her in near panic.

Having owned a VW bus for several years I found it necessary to do repairs myself occasionaly. I had established a network of other VW owners/mechanics that I could consult with. We all appeared to enjoy sharing stories of short-cut repairs and quick fixes. Many regular mechanics knew much about the smaller Bug but very little about the Bus.

The concensus of what I learned from the network was that the fuel pump could be replaced without removing the engine. Three bolts secured the pump. Only two bolts could be re-installed without removing the engine. Apply a little Loctite to secure these two bolts would assure safety. An alternate plan would be to install an electric fuel pump.

I purchased a original VW fuel pump, one electric fuel pump, and boarded a Greyhound bus headed for Cross City, Fla.

Without removing the engine, at the chagrin of the local mechanic, I replaced the fuel pump and drove the 600 plus miles back home with no further breakdown. As we entered Arkkansas on a cold night we were met with a snow storm but the Bus, aided with rear engine weight, was not deterred. The Bus, like the Bug, was heated with hot forced air from the engine. On a cold day extra clothing or blankets came in handy.

The return trip home was not without anecdotal incident. At one stop for gas (wish I had it now) the attendant, seeing his first VW bus, loaded with 5 kids, two adults,two dogs and several blankets, inquisitively and amusingly asked, "Are you folks with the circus"?

Toy Heape

Mark,

I have enjoyed reading all of the VW news lately, particularly the story in the Friday paper. I am sure you have already been covered up with stories and I hadn't planned to write to add my own fuel to the fire, but so many have encouraged me to that I will.

When I was growing up, our Chattanooga family had two of the old VW split-windshield micro buses (a 1960 23-window and a 1964 with a 40HP engine!) that served us up until about 1970. It was the second one of those on which I learned how to drive and took my driving test out in Tiftonia. I can remember going with my father down to Southland VW on South Broad Street for service and then to Lee Highway when they moved out near us in Brainerd. The stories I could tell!

Now I am currently driving my own 6th and 7th VWs.

I bought my first one back in 1978, a 1979 VW Rabbit Diesel C. It only had 48HP, and you had to drive it aggressively to merge into high-speed traffic, but it got 45mpg around town and 60mpg on the highway, even with the air conditioning on- and it handled like a dream. I put over 100,000 miles on it over the next nine years and even had an opportunity to drive it again several years after I sold it.

My second VW was a 1967 Campmobile (last year of the split-windshield) that already had over 100,000 miles on it when I bought it. I did a complete restoration on it and we took it camping numerous times, but used it mostly for commuting to work. It had a 53HP engine and was a lot of fun to drive and was not too uncomfortable in the hot summer (as long as you were moving) but could be really cold in the winter. I wish I still had it.

My next VW was a 1980 Vanagon (the first year of the new boxy style).

It was pretty used when I got and in retrospect, it was a lemon. I had a "love-hate" relationship with it. It had tremendous space utilization and was way more powerful (80HP) than my previous one. It was smoother, more comfortable, had great fit and finish and had much better amenities than my Campmobile, but it was always breaking down and the (air-cooled engine) heater was complicated and never worked well. I was persuaded to trade it in on a 1985 Vanagon.

The 1985 Vanagon had a more powerful and water-cooled engine, but still the same flat-four as the earlier Bug engine. It was better in every respect and I would have kept it, if it hadn't been under some sort of a lease which did not allow the previous owner to try to keep it.

My fifth VW was a 1985 VW GTI. Although two years old when I bought it, it was much more powerful than the Rabbit Diesel I had just had and was a typically great-handling car. It was the first US-made VW I owned, but a lady "bought it" one afternoon at a downtown intersection.

My sixth VW was bought to replace the totaled GTI. Although I thought about getting a new Mustang, the folks at Hicks VW made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I bought a beautiful new Red 1989 GTI (that looked

remarkably like the one I had just lost), with a 123HP 16-valve engine.

It was tight, smooth, solid-feeling, very powerful and handled like a real sports car. It was one of the last U.S.-built VWs, technically a late-run 1988 (built in June) but sold new as a 1989. It has been my

primary transportation ever since and now has over 250,000 miles on it, still with the same engine, transmission and even clutch and hasn't been wrecked or re-painted, so it is pretty original and still looks great.

It gets 30mpg around town and up to 35mpg on the road and even now feels solid and powerful and good-handling. I don't know how long it will last, but I have been fortunate to have had a series of great independent mechanics (David Johntson, Rick Sipe and Gary Dunn at Johntson-Sipe, Jim Lockhart and now Rick McCashin at AG Imports) who have helped me keep it in tip-top shape.

My seventh VW was also bought new, a 1990 VW Vanagon, in Atlanta (since there was no Chattanooga dealer at the time). It is German-made and is also a water-cooled flat-four and even though it is the only automatic VW I have ever had, it has tremendous low-end torque and 92HP.

Relatively powerful and more smooth and refined than any previous one it has been a pleasure to own. It was our primary family transportation until last fall. It has served shared duty, since last fall, owing to the fact that it has 350,000 miles on it and deserves a slower pace of life. Our family has been on vacation trips to KY, AL, GA, FL, SC and VA, including many trips to the beach in St. Augustine, Savannah and Charleston. It has toted kids to school and a blizzard of daily errand-running. The engine was replaced at 200,000 miles by the legendary local VW bus guru Harry Guinn down in Fort Oglethorpe (can you remember the old "Lazy J VW"?). It is still solid and tight and responsive and I still really love to drive it. It only gets about 18mpg in the city but can get 22mpg on the road, even fully-loaded with the AC going full-blast.

Well, I did not plan for this to be such a long email, but I have had these cars for a long time. There is an enormous amount more I could tell, since I still have the records and have always monitored annual and per/mile expenses annually.

When production begins, I am sure I will be interested in getting myself another U.S.-made VW, especially one made right here in Chattanooga. In the meantime, I am one of those folks who was "VW, when VW wasn't cool".

Thanks for doing articles on local VW cars. Let me know if you want any more information.

Terry D. Reynolds

I owned a Volkswagen Beetle for about four weeks back in 1975. It was given to me because it had some engine problems and was in a sad state of repair. I sold it for $100. I wish I had it back. Several years later, while a member of the Tennessee Air National Guard, I drove a VW from Knoxville to Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. The car was owned by one of the Guard members who was scheduled to drive one of the military trucks but wanted his beloved Beetle with him in Florida during the 30 days we were scheduled for the deployment.

The car was a pleasure to drive but the engine would stop running every time I came to a stop sign or red light. It would start up again and I would be on my way. Somewhere near Jacksonville, FL, while getting gas, I mentioned this to a mechanic.

When we looked in the trunk, we could see that the carburetor was hanging on with only one bolt. The carburetor was separated from the motor by about one-fourth of of an inch. Tightening the bolt and adding another was all it took to get the VW back to running normally.

The "bug" had to be tough in order to have missing parts and a dangling carburetor and still run at Interstate speeds.

Max Holland

Mark, I love the idea of the VW stories, here's one for you.

It's 1980 and my new husband Ron and I are headed west—destination Yellowstone National Park in a used (very used) VW camper bus. The stick shift is loose as a goose and finding second gear involves some simultaneous cursing and praying.

My two new teenaged stepchildren, Alan and Leanne are piled into the bus and we're pulling two dirt bikes on a small trailer and the bus is way over weight.

Near South Pittsburg, TN, the bus breaks down. We consult the ubiquitous "How to Fix Your VW" manual. We unhook the dirt bikes to make runs to the auto parts store, fix the bus, get back on the road headed for the next breakdown, approximately two hundred miles away

In Yellowstone National Park the VW gives it's last gasp. Did you know the closest Volkswagen dealership to Yellowstone is over one hundred miles away in Bozeman, Montana? Did you know you could be TOWED over 100 miles and it would cost well over $250 unbudgeted-into-the-vacation dollars?

But did you know it is also one of the most beautiful drives to Bozeman through Paradise Valley, Montana?

It is, of course, Friday afternoon as we head to Bozeman, crammed into the wrecker. This bus ONLY breaks down on Friday afternoons. We pull into the dealership lot and they offer us free camping for the weekend since they are closing until Monday.

We are disoriented at first. We never planned to go to Montana and here we are in a fenced lot surrounded by Beetles and camper vans. We take the dirt bikes off the trailer and head up into the mountains. We discover groundhogs sunning in windows of abandoned mine camps, ghost towns, fresh mountain air and a trip totally unplanned. Our campground is totally private and uninhabited and FREE.

I learned to never mind the detours in life...they can be some of the best roads travelled.

Sue Lowery

My mother's name was Jetta and she was born in Joy, Illinois in 1900! I live in Ducktown, Tn. and I am driving a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta in her memory. Think they named the car after her? I'm joking.

Great article about VW, most of us do have some stories about our VW'S.

I have a picture about our first new bug in 1969 with my wife standing in front of it, I would love to share this picture and story.

What do I need to do ?

Thank You

Jim Shipley

My Father purchased a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle when I was 5 years old. I could barely see out the window as he drove me to Kindergarten. That same car took our family of four all the way up the east coast from Georgia to Maine. It survived my highschool years and was given to me as a graduation present.At 14 years old and stiill giving us no problems, that faithful "Bug" took me from Atlanta to Athens during my University of Georgia years. I finally sold that car in 1988,but still have sweet memories of simpler times in my faithful ole "Bug".

Miriam Boyd

Mr. Kennedy,

First of all, thank you for your Life Stories each week. I really enjoy reading your stories! Enjoy your kids because they grow up so quick.

My first car was a 1956 Volkswagen Beetle, purchased way back in 1966, when I turned 16 years old. I paid $600 of my hard earned Red Food Store bag boy money. Lots of great memories from that 1st car. It wasn’t in great shape. I remember I had to put a pencil in a hole in the driver’s side door to hold up the window because the handle was broken. Of course no air conditioning and very little heat from the old Beetles too. I think the heat came from the engine, so it was a very cold car to drive in Winter. My Beetle also had a good size hole in the passenger side floorboard and I could see the ground through it!

When I heard Chattanooga won the Volkswagen factory I wanted to immediately go to the Volkswagen dealer and buy a new VW. I haven’t bought one yet, but I plan to very soon. Trading in my BMW for a VW will make me feel like I contributed something to the HUGE impact that VW will have on Chattanooga and my children & grandchildren.

Thank you,

Pat Hagan

On March 23, 1963 I went for my driving test in my brige" bug". Obviously a huge event for a 16 year boy. In the early models, there wasn't a gas gauge but rather a lever down by the floor. When you ran out of gas, one simply flipped the lever and you would have one gallon left (about 40 miles!!). Well, during my actual driver's test the engine died!! Talk about sweaty palms!! Fortuneatly, I hit my blinker and coasted to the curb, flipped the lever and restarted the engine. I passed with flying colors and the tester even complimented my driving to my Dad, especially under the circumstances!!

George D. Arthur

I was on your website for another purpose, but I couldn’t resist this invitation.

My first car was a cherry red 1966 (?) Volkswagen Beetle. I shared it with my dad. My dad hired my drivers’ ed instructor to teach me to drive a straight shift (my instructor’s name was Mr. WHEELER, by the way). In high school I was usually the driver when my group of girlfriends went out, and once I fit about 7 girls into that car. I would take up a collection to refill the gas tank, which cost about $3 total since gas was about 30 cents a gallon then. My girlfriends called it The Cherry Bomb.

When my dad decided to get a new car, he sold me the Beetle for $500, well under what it was worth. I was a junior in college. I taught my roommate to drive a straight shift so she could use the car if she wanted. There were a few hills in Bloomington, Indiana, and she drove way out of her way to get home until she got comfortable (of course, gas was so cheap that wasn’t a problem then).

One winter vacation we took a road trip from Bloomington to St. Louis. At that time on a Beetle, the heat and the defrost were the same thing. The heat/defrost didn’t work very well on my side, the driver’s side, so I had to crank it way up and supplement the window defrost with heat from the palm of my hand. I had a blanket over my legs (not a lot of shifting on the highway). My roommate, however, had her coat and gloves off, and was fanning herself because of the extreme heat.

I bought a new car in 1974 and traded in the bug. I cried.

Marcy Meldahl, Knoxville

Hi Mark,

One summer while we were on vacation in Daytona Beach, my husband and son bought a Karman Ghia, which we had to tow home. They restored the car and my son drove it during his last year at Berry College, we then parked it in the garage until the day of his wedding when he insisted that the car be the vehicle that he and his wife drove away from the wedding reception. Today that car is parked in the garage and my husbands truck parks outside! When my son graduated from UGA with his masters, we told him we would buy him a new car, and the only car he wanted was a VW diesel 5 speed bug, and that was in

2001, and he still drives that car today.

My personal story is I learned to drive on a 1966 VW. My dear father patiently sat in the passengers seat while I learned that clutch and gear combination.

Thank you,

Vicki Trapp

The year was 1960 and I had just graduated from Remus high school, a small farming community of about 900 in central Michigan. It was at that time I met my future husband, who was attending Michigan State University and had a brand new 1959 brownish red VW bug. He was quite dapper with his blonde bogie hair cut, tan skin from working in the small local oil fields for the summer, and his brand new shinny car!

Now this VW was quite the car. It did not have a gas gauge. Instead you ran it until it was out of gas, and then there was a lever on the floor that you turned to get one more gallon of gas to run on until you found a gas station. (You had about an additional 40 miles before you would run out of gas). My future husband taught me a trick real early in our relationship, because if you would partially move that lever on the floor, the car would sputter and stop as if you were out of gas. He kept trying to trick me when we were on the back roads. In addition the heater / window defroster was only the hot air that came from the manifold- but who needed a fancy actual heater with a fan when you were in love!

This car was also great in the Michigan snow and traveled well over the stubble in famer corn fields. It was on one such occasion that we went „parking‰ in a farmer‚s field off of a gravel road. We were in the back seat and the windows were steaming up when I had the eerie feeling that someone was watching us through the window. Could it be the sheriff, no he never comes to our small town I thought, or could it be my father, no he knew his German Lutheran daughter would never go „parking‰! But I just knew someone was watching us so I wiped off the steamy window and there it was, with its big brown eyes, a beautiful brown jersey milk cow! I wonder what she was thinking.

It was three years later, with close to 200,000 miles on the car, twin daughters and a son on the way that we had to part with this magnificent beautiful bug.

Danke Shoen Volkswagen for this memory and many others!

Joanne Brownlee

I don't know if my story merits printing but my wife thought so, so here it is:

During the early '70s a few American GIs decided to build several oval dirt race tracks in Germany. Two I was intimately involved with were Friendship Raceway in Berlin, Germany and the Marne Speedway in Kitzingen, Germany.

The most plentiful vehicles at the time were VW Beetles. We cut the nose and rear engine lids off, gutted the interiors, chopped the fenders, added steel bar bumpers/roll cages and replaced the 1300 CC engines with the larger twin carburetor 1500 CC engines from the VW Fastback. The modifications have to be seen to be believed (I have pictures). The German people had never seen this type of racing and were soon joining us with their own cars. It made for great German-American relations.

We loved the VW because the engine and transmission were so easy to work on. Many Friday nights (before race day) would find several of us sitting around a torn down engine on a tarp in the kitchen floor of our quarters. These engines were so easy to pull and replace (with a few modifications) that we could pull and replace engines between races.

I owned several VW Beetles during my three tours in Germany and loved each and every one of them.

Jem Dickinson, SFC, USA, Ret

Hi Mark, When living in Aurora, CO (suburb of Denver) in 1970, we ordered and received a brand new green VW "Bug" AND a brand new maroon VW "Bus". Oh how we loved them. My husband drove the "Bug" to work in Denver, through deep, heavy snow and never, not even once, did he get stuck or have to call in because he wasn't able to make it through the snow. Our eldest son took his driver license test on the "Bug".

I kept the "Bus" at home and did my shopping, drove the boys to ball games, etc., and in the dead of winter, drove them around on their newspaper route. Talk about cold!!!!! No heater in either vehicle and the back hatch door was always open for the boys to throw the newspapers onto their customer's lawns. We also towed a pop-up camper with our VW Bus and went to several different campgrounds in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The bus did beautifully with that little pop-up camper behind it. We had some great times with both VW vehicles and they never failed us. Wish we still had them today!!!! We are now in our 70's, are grandparents of five grandchildren and have one dear little great-grandson. Hope this is of interest to you.

Nancy & Paul Sniegon, Cleveland, TN

“I Have a Passion for Bugs.”

My passion for VWs goes back about forty-eight years. My preacher husband had just graduated from college and decided to teach school one year before going to seminary.

His reasoning behind this decision was that he could continue serving the four rural churches on our charge and also teach school in order to save money to buy a new Volkswagen before going to seminary.

He knew their reputation of being a well-built car plus the ability to render wonderful gas mileage while still being affordable.

We bought the brand new VW and paid cash for it. My husband purchased the car while he was still teaching school. The students were so fascinated by the VW that they couldn’t keep their hands off of it. One day at lunch, for a joke, some of the boys moved by hand and muscel the bug putting it crossways in its parking space between two other cars. As soon as the school term was over, we packed the VW with every article of clothing that we owned plus all of the household items that we would need until the rest of our belongings arrived by train two weeks later.

The Volkswagen was dependable transportation for us during those seminary days taking us through snow storms and icy roads from Atlanta, GA to Wytheville, VA. We seemed to be able to go where others feared to tread.

After seminary we owned three other VWs. We enjoyed our Beetles so much that we didn’t consider another car. We just changed colors. The first was gray, then green, black and the last was red. Those Volkswagens either led or followed the hearse in many funeral processions across the next twenty-three years. Once a parishioner approached my husband about maybe getting a more prestigious looking car for funerals. My husband continued driving his VW unapologetically.

It wasn’t until after our fourth child was born that we gave up our VW. We didn’t actually give it up, but turned it over to our teenage son. We had it repainted in a new coat of bright red paint and our son thought it was the grandest car in the world. Not long after the new paint job, our son was taking a co-worker home from work when he stopped at a stop sign. The car back fired and caught on fire. He ran into a convenient store but, unfortunately, before he could get back to the car with a fire extinguisher or call the fire department, the little red bug was cremated. The bug was gone but not forgotten.

We will forever love and cherish its memory.

Chris Bowles, Hixson

I wanted to share my VW history with you and the readers.

I am currently on my 5th VW Beetle. I got my first one when I was 15 and learning how to drive. My Dad was forever trading cars with men he worked with at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Gadsden, AL and was adamant that I learn to drive a "straight shift". Before I graduatated from high school, I had driven a brown, red (customized "Baha" style) and green beetle. Needless to say, I mastered the stick shift. I drove other cars for a few years, but after college I HAD to get back in a bug. This was when I bought my first convertible bug, a nice '72 purplish-blue with a white top.

When I moved to Chattanooga 20 years ago, this was what I was driving. I ended up selling before my daugher was born and I still see it around town.

When my daugher turned 16, she was awarded my Izuzu Trooper and Momma got the new car: a 2005 Red Beetle Convertible. Of course, it is a 5-speed. I cried when I left VW of Chattanooga! It has a customized tag RAGTPDY (i.e. Rag Top Day) for one of my favorite Jimmy Buffett tunes.

I am very excited that VW is coming to Chattanooga. I don't think I will ever drive anything else unless I get too old to shift and climb in and out of it!

Thanks,

Rhonda Campbell

This is in response to your call for VW stories. Mine is a story of a search for America in 1976 – our nation’s bicentennial – in a 1964 VW Bus.

My husband and I began planning our trip west in 1974. We saved my entire salary for one year, living entirely on his and saving every penny. In February, I enrolled in a Volkswagen maintenance course. I had absolutely no experience with car engines, but even I could see that our busses’ engine (its third by the way) looked more like a lawnmower ‘s than a car, and I was determined to know it thoroughly. I learned the basics and also armed myself with the book that became our survival guide for the next year - How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive…The Manual for the Compleat Idiot by John Muir. Fortified with just enough auto-mechanic-know-how to be dangerous , a very few thousand dollars, and a firm belief in the kindness of strangers, we prepared to leave the East Tennessee of our youth – perhaps never to return. We sold everything we had – stereo, TV, furniture, wedding presents, family heirlooms. Family & friends looked on in respectful disbelief. They loved us and hoped we had a plan. We did! We were young. We were hippies. But we had Triple AAA!

We left Knoxville, TN on May 15, 1976 in our green and white 1964 VW bus custom equipped (by us) with a double bed frame and mattress, homemade curtains, a clumsily mounted 8-track player on the dashboard, and a red-white-and-blue bicentennial quilt made especially for our trip by my husband’s favorite aunt. Parents and friends helped us pack the essentials – the Coleman stove, cooking pots & utensils, 2 plates, cups, spoons, forks, etc., winter clothes, 2 lawn chairs, a guitar, a storehouse of beans and rice, some books and 8-track tapes. That was about all we could carry. When they asked about our return, we replied in all honesty – we had no idea, but we would keep in touch. They waved us a tearful goodbye, and as we rolled out of the driveway they looked at each other and said, “they won’t make it to Memphis.”

We made it to Memphis and beyond. In fact, we lived in that bus for a full year and the adventures are to o numerous to describe here. We headed west on I-40, avoiding cities because their attractions were too expensive and campgrounds too urban (KOA? never!) We proceeded at our own pace across the country – 50 miles one day, 200 the next. At night we bedded down in national forest campgrounds or on what we called “Elm Street USA” , meaning we would look for a nice, gentrified neighborhood in the heart of a lovely small town, pull to the curb, close the curtains and sleep – rising early to look for the good breakfast place, hoping to avoid any suspicion our vehicle (and his long hair) might have created. The farther west we moved, the less conspicuous we felt. The West, it seemed, was full of adventurers and fellow travelers! We picked up hitchhikers and shared our campsite and food. Some of them took us home with them and treated us like royalty. We made friends at campgrounds in June and visited them in their homes as we traveled through their towns in January. And in all that time, we never encountered anyone who threatened us or did us any harm. There were many problems in America in 1976, but I maintained a purposeful distance from them. I passed my days looking with wonder out the windshield of our 1964 VW bus and reading Triple AAA Travel Guides. I was 24 years old.

Along the way we also read three books aloud – Centennial by James Michener, “Divine Right’s Trip” in the Whole Earth Catalog (we named our VW bus “Urge” after DR’s bus) and one chapter a day from our survival guide - How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. We monitored “Urge’s” every dial and sputter. He was our home! After even the shortest uphill climb, we would move to the shoulder, open the engine cover and give him a rest. Why not? We were in no hurry and our immediate and future agenda was just to keep on keeping on. Twice that year we successfully tuned him up and even set his valves using the compleat idiot’s manual – an enormous feat for a couple of liberal arts majors!

After settling for a few months in Eugene, Oregon, we decided to make the trip home for Christmas. “Urge” had never actually produced any heat for passengers (did any ‘64 VW busses have heat?), but somehow we survived the trip over the Continental Divide in the freezing cold and deep snow. The end came quickly though, one hour west of Albuquerque. “Urge” threw a rod, cracking the crankcase. The tow truck took us to the local United Methodist Church which my father, a United Methodist minister, had told me to call if we had any problems on our trip. The Methodists shook their heads and said they’d never let their kids do such a thing – but they helped us pack up all of our worldly possessions, sell the car for the tires ($150) and took us to the airport for the flight back to east Tennessee.

It was an ignominious end to a great adventure, but I have absolutely no regrets. Neither the car or the marriage survived, but nothing I’ve done since has been quite as grand – and I’ve never stopped wanting another Volkswagen bus.

Ellen Naff Kimball

As I listened to Mayor Claude Ramsey reminisce about coming to Chattanooga in the 1970's in a Volkswagen Beetle, it reminded me of my own family's same route. In 1973, my husband and I got into a baby blue "Super Beetle" that cost $3000,00 (weighed 3000 lbs.- a dollar per pound- had factory air, and a pretty good heater) and drove to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to become students at Tennessee Temple University. As we drove through the ridge-cut about 11:00 pm, and we looked down into the lights of Chattanooga, I thought it was the most beautiful city I had ever seen.

We named the car "Oliver." We brought our only child home from the hospital in that car. When he was a toddler, he used to scratch Ollie's ears (the little rubber tubing around the stick shift) and laugh. We had a friend who had a little yellow super beetle named Guinnevere. We teased about parking them side by side to see if they would mate and give us baby super beetles! We literally drove the tires off that car, and I think I saw tears in my husband's eyes when we finally sold him.

One other thing I remember about Volkswagen Beetles was that while we were students at Temple, some young men got the bright idea of placing a "Bug" inside the administration building directly outside Dr. Lee Roberson's office. They also put Mickey Mouse ears and tail on the clock on the prayer tower. I don't remember what happened to those young men, but I suspect most of them are preachers and missionaries somewhere today retelling some of their youthful adventures.

I am really excited about Volkswagen coming to this area, because my hold family are teachers, and I hope the plant will encourage the city fathers to take a strong look at public education in Chattanooga and do whatever it takes to make the schools better and help the teachers!

Dr. Pat Taylor

In the early 60's my family owned one of the few VW bugs around. Iremember that if we met another on the road we would honk and wave.

We had a Nimod camper and our VW towed it all over the country. I can remember my Dad worrying if it would make it up Chilhowee Mountain. It was a gravel road with no place to turn around. We made it and found even more hard to reach places all in our little bug.

In the 70's we had a VW Thing. I loved the bright orange color and once again we had one of the few on the roads.

Karen Crumley

In the fall of 1958, while stationed with the US Army at Field Station Bad Aibling, Bavaria, West Germany, I bought a used 1950 Volkswagen. It had a slide back sun roof and no heater or gas gauge.

But what it did have was turn signals that were arms that came out of the pillars behind the front side windows. There was a lever on the steering column and you simply moved the lever to the left or right. when you were preparing to turn.

The arms were mechanical so it took a small effort to move the lever. After completing the turn you moved the lever back to the middle position and the arm came down with a “clunk”.

The plastic portion of the arm was orange in color and I think illuminated so the cars behind could see that you were going to turn. The American GI’s slang called these turn signals “mox nix” sticks which means “makes no difference" sticks, because many people, both German and Americans sometimes, moved the lever the wrong way hence “mox nix” or “macht nichts”.

The Bug made many a trip, on the Autobahn, to Salzburg Austria when we went between work assignments.

John Hufschmid

One January winter morning during 1973 I had to call into the office and tell my crew at Humphries and Associates Architects that I couldn’t make it in due to a heavy snow and ice storm in Chattanooga and especially heavy on Signal Mountain, Tennessee.

The young man I was speaking to was Dan Lee and he said without hesitation, “I’ll come get you”. I said “I wouldn’t ask you to do that as it’s too dangerous as there’s four wheeled vehicles stuck in ditches and other cars just stopped by ice in the middle of the road according to the Signal Mountain police”. He said “Don’t worry as I can make it so sit tight”. About forty minutes later I heard a car horn out front and when I looked it was Dan in his white Volkswagen beetle. I couldn’t believe it.

He told me on the way back down the mountain that the VW’s engine and transmission helps put weight over the rear wheels and aids in traction. He proved that when he took me home that evening by weaving around all the stuck cars in the road. The Volkswagen just slowly climbed the mountain.

Dan came and got me for several days until the main road was cleared. It wasn’t long after that I purchased my first VW and I ended up owning two of them and just worn them out. It’s easy to find Americans with a VW story, but it’s much harder to find someone who does not.

Ray Cherry

I acquired a used navy-blue VW Fox sedan while living in MI in the late 80s – my first manual transmission car and first non-American made car.

All in all, I enjoyed driving the little machine, zipping around in downtown Detroit. But I was annoyed with the digital clock that was extremely inconsistent in displaying the correct time.

The joke was on me when I finally figured out that it operated on “military time” and only appeared “correct” before noon?! Who knew that 14:36 was really 2:36 p.m.?

Jean Wenn Luce

In the mid to late 60's the Dalton, Georgia Little Theatre produced a play , Send Me No Flowers. To advertise the production we entered the holiday parade with a VW Beetle which we had covered with chicken wire and then stuffed each section with Kleenex tissues in several colors which gave the effect of quite a garden. It took 5 or 6 of us all day to complete the task and we were thankful the rain held off.

W.Dendy

I have a VW story of a lifetime of ownership which might be of interest to you.

Starting in 1957 my mother, a widow with 6 children, purchased the first VW bus sold in Chattanooga.

In between 1957 and now, I have owned 2 Karmann Ghias, 1 square back VW station wagon, 4 standard beetles, 3 super beetles and 4 VW Beetle Drag racers.

One of these Beetles, called Thunder Bug, was the track champion at Branierd Optimist Drag Strip for the year 1978 in modified eliminator, which was the fastest class at the track and it won more money in 1978 than any other car at that track. Red Harris, who I believe still writes the weekly drag strip results for your paper, will remember this car well.

Currently I have a 69 custom roadster convertible bug and a 71 Beetle.

I have pictures of most of these cars including my mother's 57 bus.

Peter Duffy

Dear Mr. Kennedy,

I LOVE your column. I should have written a fan letter long before this. But now I have more of a focus for writing (not that writing a letter of appreciation can not be a focus in an of itself).

My VW memories involve the 1974 Karmann Ghia that was my first car after graduating from college in 1975. It was the last year that the Karmann Ghia was made. I still own it but it has been stored for a number of years on the family farm in MN. I now live in Chattanooga.

Some of my memories...

In the winter it was a good idea to carry an ice scraper close at hand and if not the ice scraper then a credit card worked. The defroster was dependent upon the air blown from a warmed up motor and the winters in MN and Brandon, Manitoba (where I moved after attending graduate school) could get pretty cold. Therefore the motor did not necessarily get warm if you were doing "city" driving (the cities I lived in were 50-70,000 in population and on the prairies so arranged with very consistent north-south and east west streets that made the word commute a bit of a misnomer). The temperature inside the car did not warm either until the motor warmed up so I guess there was some sort of internal weather pattern going on inside of the car that caused the inside of the windshield to frost over as well. So, you would drive down snow packed streets, crouched low enough to see out the pork chop size defrosted area at the very bottom of the windshield, steering with one hand and scraping the inside of the windshield , driver's side window and passenger side window. Since it was a stick shift one hand had to do double function when it came time to change gears. This multi tasking also included driving safely. Blizzards really compounded the visibility portion of this activity. I often opted to walk to work.

The biosphere of the Karmann Ghia caused me to spend my first Christmas away from home. I had moved to Canada to work after graduate school. It was a seven hour drive from where I lived in Brandon, MB to my family who lived near Fargo, ND. A few years after moving to Brandon we had a record breaking cold December. Freezing temperatures there are more dangerous than all the black widow and brown recluse spiders with a few poisonous snakes thrown in that the south has to offer. At its coldest the weather forecasters will warn how fast exposed flesh will freeze in terms of seconds.

Since the Karmann Ghia was not the warmest of cars I did not dare set out across the mostly prairie countryside I drove for 7 hours to get home when the day time temperatures never got above minus twenty degrees-and that was without the windchill factor thrown in. As Christmas got closer and closer it became apparent that I should not attempt the drive. So, I spent my first Christmas away from home.

Soon after Christmas in Canada I determined that it was time to retire the Karmann Ghia. When it came down to enjoying the status of driving such an unusual vehicle and not being able to do what I wanted to do I decided that I was not going to let my vehicle determine how I lived my life. But instead of selling it I retired it to the family farm and there it is today. It still runs and has less than 100,000 miles on it. I sometimes think it needs to come live in the south where it could spend winters tooling around town frost free. And now that the VW plant is coming-wouldn't it be like old home week?

One of the other memories is the simplicity of the controls. You can barely use a plural word for the few knobs that existed. There was a little button that worked a rear window defroster, the two buttons on the radio and...I don't exactly recall now how the vents worked-glorified manual operation of some sort; I think a couple of small levers located next to the hand break. Do cranks to roll down the windows count as controls? and the gadget that let you open the tiny rear side windows in sort of a vent fashion?

There was the summer I was driving home, this time from southern MN to the family farm in the west central portion of MN. As I passed a farmer mowing his front lawn I recall hearing a pop and seeing a blurred mass pass before my field of vision. I think I let out a squawk of sorts then finally realized that my driver's side window had broken. Obviously the mower had thrown a rock as I passed parallel to him. When I drove back to report this to the farmer he denied than any such thing could have happened. He felt that the pressure from inside the car must have built up and the window had simply exploded. Debating has never been my strong suit and call me a wimp but I really did not feel like I was going to get anywhere with this guy. So I drove on, thankful that it was not cold.

As I drove on that afternoon I mentally argued with Mr. Greenjeans. If I had been driving with so much pressure in the Karmann Ghia biosphere my brains would surely have been scrambled...I could not have possibly driven...and if the pressure was internal why did the glass explode into the car. Obviously this guy is not a writer on CSI.

If this farmer had known anything about my dear Karmann Ghia he would have known that it was impossible for there to be pressure inside the car. The largest fault this car had next to its defrost system was the gasket that sealed the closed window when against the door frame...only on the driver's side. The gasket failed the first summer in the heat. It would fall out of the door frame like a dead snake once you rolled the window down or left the window rolled down. So, once again, a great deal of coordination was required at times. If whatever adhesive I had attempted to use failed and it was really hot outside I needed to drive and hold the gasket in place with one hand and steer with the other. The winter was my friend for this structural defect-the gasket stayed frozen in place.

The only other exploit that I recall at the moment is the time I was loading my car to move off for summer school. I was living in a house on top of a small hill. Across the street and down another small hill was a large open hay field-except for the ancient piece of farm equipment that stood near the edge not far from the house I lived in. For some reason I needed to move the car down the driveway just a few feet and was too lazy to go inside and get the keys. So, I thought that it being such a light car I would just set my shoulder to the front and give it a little shove. Since I was packing the car both doors were wide open. I reached in to release the hand break then got behind it, sat on the bumper and gave a little push. It moved easily and kept on moving. It went down the driveway like a large green bug with its wings spread, across the street, down the next hill and finally rolled to a stop not far from the implement. I stood there speechless and wide eyed the whole time. All of the what-ifs occurred to me post flight. I did not attempt non-motorized movement of the car ever again.

Ellen Stowell

I have heard people say that Volkswagon bugs can run of three wheels. I know for a fact that it is true.

Back in 1967 my dad had purchased a '65 bug and read in the manual that it should be driven 'briskly'. Well, that suited my dad to a T. He loved that car and kept it in top condition.

One afternoon Dad was taking me and a couple of other kids to Little League Football practice, when, to my surprise, I noticed a tire rolling along beside us. As it slowed and veered over into the ditch my dad blurts "What in the world?!?" and the front right corner of the car dipped down several inches. Dad yelled, "Lean left, lean left" and the little car stayed off the ground until he got pulled over and stopped. He had performed some of his regular maintenance on the car that morning and he had cleaned the lugs on the wheels, inadvertantly introducing a lubricant to the threads. Luckily there was no wheel damage and all the lug nuts had been captured in that baby moon hubcap.

Steve Strickler

Dayton, TN

In 1991 Scott Dunlap’s mother Lynn bought a 1984 Cabriole for his graduation gift. Being the wise woman she has always been wouldn’t teach him to drive this straight shift cutie. To whom did she turn, her fearless friend who to this day has whiplash. Scott crossed two lanes of traffic to enter a fast food place in staccato 4/4/ time. He and his Mom then traveled to N.C. School of Performing Arts her behind him on every hill when he would roll backwards. Two years later and 4 alternators later they drove cross-country to California. (I didn’t go either trip, I was at the chiropractors).

Pat Longwith

Cleveland, Tn.

My husband Blake and I just celebrated our 33 wedding anniversary and my 57th birthday in June. (I agreed to get married on my birthday if during our wedding vows he would say "I will always buy you TWO presents".) This year he broke that vow for the first time and I'll explain why that is okay later.

You tell me if you think the following statements are coincidence or perhaps "God things"...

1. At the time we met we both drove black VW's. Mine was a 1965 and his a 1967 model. Blake had also owned a VW bus that had a very ugly picture painted on it and a 1969 VW bug.

2. I bought my '65 VW from Junior Lawson, Blake's best friend about a year before I met my future husband. (I had never heard of Blake at the time.) I casually knew Junior's wife, LuAnn, who decided that Blake and I should meet and therefore invited both of us to a party at their home.

3. A few weeks later Blake told me that he had actually re-built the motor and other parts of my '65 in mechanic classes he was taking in Athens before we even met. I couldn't believe that one and at that point started thinking....hummmmm this might be one of those "meant to be God things"!

4. We were married 6 months after meeting at the Lawson's. Our first new vehicle purchase was a 1975 gold VW with a manual moon roof. The first VW with fuel injection.

Blake is currently restoring a black 1971 Squareback VW that he bought from our son and had transported here all the way from San Diego. He loves it but I think it looks a little sinister.

Now to explain why it was okay with me that Blake only gave me one present this year. Before retiring a little over a year ago I purchased a darling little New Beetle onvertible. For our recent anniversary/my birthday, Blake finished paying "her" off for me. We love Volkswagen's!

Blake and Debbie McKinney

Cleveland, Tennessee

The first new car I ever bought was a light blue '67 VW bug in El Paso, TX. It had an 8-track tape player, so I went straight to the Globe store and bought "Soul & Inspiration" by the Righteous Brothers. Then I was ready to cruise the desert.

Once I stopped to break off a blooming stalk of yucca plant which I stuck in the back seat. I took off down the road only to discover a swarm of small white moths that lived in the plant were now filling my car. I quickly stopped to throw out the lovely plant.

I took the VW to Las Vegas where I found it was unstoppable in the snow drifts that often covered the roads in the winter time. It sat high enough off the roads that it could keep going just like that pink bunny with a drum.

We soon had two children and the youngest slept behind the rear seat quite often. We even rented a U-Haul trailer once that it towed to a job site in Mercedes, TX. and later to Heber, AZ. We became convinced we needed more room (though I remember carrying 8 people to a picnic once) and traded it in on a new Dodge Dart. But I'll never forget my dependable little blue bug that I was so comfortable in even at 6ft. 2in tall!

Ron Cumbie

In 1969, the year I graduated from high school in Orlando, a friend and I worked out a deal with our parents to travel to Europe that summer for almost six weeks. Another good friend had spent that same senior year as an exchange student in Berlin, Germany. He was living with a neat German family and had attended the Berlin American High School. He was the only one of us fluent in German.

Our plan was to visit with him in Berlin and then the three of us would see as much of Europe as we could by train in the time remaining. My parents agreed to purchase a Eurail pass if I came up with money for the airline tickets, which I did by mowing lawns. I also purchased some travelers checks with money I received from graduation. So, the plan was set - more or less!

We flew Icelandic to Luxemburg on June 4 and then traveled by train to Berlin. On the train we met a Canadian student who was more or less bumming around Europe at the time. In Berlin, the four of us began to think about our trip and the amount of money we had available, which wasn’t much considering our plans. However, as things go with teenagers, we decided it would be better if we had a car instead of those Eurail passes. So . . . , our exchange student friend located a university student willing to part with his canvas top VW beetle for $100 US.

We each chipped in $25 and we had our car. So the first car I ever owned was actually only a quarter interest in a well used VW bug that I didn’t even have a license to drive legally. A bit more paper work and we had some insurance and one international driver’s license.

We traveled in that VW as far north as Oslo, Norway and as far south as Madrid, Spain and saw as many points in between as recent high school graduates could find. As we drove up the Gold Coast of Spain, we began to run low on funds. So before traveling on to Italy we decided to head back to Berlin while we still had some money in our pockets. The interesting thing about the return to Berlin was that another university student purchased the VW for $75; so we really had a very cheap trip as far as the automobile was concerned! I have never had a better deal on any car purchased since!

My parents were able to get a refund on the Eurail pass when we returned home since it was never used.

You might wonder how four guys with luggage managed to fit in a VW. It was tight and sometimes we strapped luggage to the bumpers. We stayed mostly in youth hostels.

As our money ran low we ate a lot of bread and cheese (which was very good) and by the time we returned to Berlin we were a pretty gammy bunch. I don’t remember exactly what year the VW was but I recall that it did not have much power in the alps. It must have been 50s vintage. The power didn’t matter much because we were never in a big hurry.

One funny incident occurred at a border crossing late at night in the alps. The border guard didn’t think our car was safe to travel in the mountains across that particular border. One of the tires had a bit of cord showing through. Not speaking German I didn’t understand exactly what was being said. However, I could understand my friend naming all the places we had traveled and the guard stepped back, looking at our car in total amazement. He just couldn’t believe that car could have made a trip like that.

In the end he did not give in and we had to find another location to cross that border. As I recall, we did eventually have to replace that one tire, but that was the only work performed on the car while we owned it - besides a few pints of oil.

The picture below shows our first car and my two good friends Jerry Thrailkill on the left, standing inside the car, and Jerry Powell standing on the right at the door.

Loren Hartley

Everyone has a high school senior prank story. Having been a high school principal for the past 30 years, I have a few myself.

In the 1970's the late county commissioner, Buster Vandergriff, who owned B and B Auto Parts in Hixson, had kids at Hixson high School. We came to school early one spring morning to find a VW bug perched on the top of our gym. It was not uncommon to have a group of guys to move a VW bug from one place to another, but to find one sitting on top of your gym was something else. By the way, the engine had been removed and it had been placed there by hand. Knowing Buster, and his access to junk cars, it was not too difficult figuring out which senior was involved.

Tom McCullough

The first car I owned was a black, 1959 Volkswagen Beetle, which I bought in 1962 from a used car dealer. It was the only used VW I could find, and as I drove away, I could swear I heard a sigh of relief from the guy that owned the lot. Beetles were still oddball novelties in many places at the time. It would be a few years before they became cool.

I was just out of college, working my first job, and needed cheap, reliable transportation. A college buddy had owned one, so I knew the Beetle was right for me. Plus, it had an amenity: a fabric sunroof that you opened by reaching up, turning a handle and folding back. Breezing through the Smokies with the roof open was as good as it gets.

Out in the country, farmers would stare at the Beetle and wave that slow, disconnected wave that says, "What in the world is that?" Sometimes they'd call the family out onto the porch to look.

When a summer downpour caused a flash flood one day, I looked out my apartment window to see my Volkswagen slowly floating out into the middle of the street – toward a car, with people in it, that had stalled in the deep water. I tore off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants legs, and dashed outside. I grabbed the Beetle by the front bumper and maneuvered it back to "shore," anchoring it with a rope to a small tree by the sidewalk.

Beetles could float!

Jim Sparks

My Mom was a nurse at Children's Hospital, when a lady doctor named Lynn asked if anyone would help her move to Loma Linda,Ca. in her Volkswagen. My Mom volunteered me to help drive. Mom did not drive and the longest trip I had ever driven was to Cleveland, Tn.

Lynn was a Seventh-Day Adventist, so we didn't leave Chattanooga until 10:30 pm on June 27, 1970. Three women in a VW going across the USA. Lynn and I switched driving that first leg of the trip. We did not stop for the next 25 hours.

Mom was the "cook" making sandwiches in the back seat . Mom had a big lamp shade and a rolled up sleeping bag with her in the back seat. The front trunk was filled with heavy medical books and the top rack was packed full of suit cases. With all that weight, we could only go 45 miles an hour. We tried to pass the big trucks, all we did was get beside them and see the truck driver laughing at us.

Anyway, 25 hours later, We got to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Got a motel, slept a few hours, then moved on. Saw the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, then a 178 mile side trip to the Grand Canyon were we only stayed 30 minuets. It was worth it, to thrill at the sight of such a wonderful sight. That night we drove over the Serria Mountains, after dark. Drove 19 hours, that day. Got up, very early the next morning and I drove through the desert with a cup of coffee in my hand. We were in California! Arrived in Loma Linda at 11 am. It was an accomplishment for three lone women to cross USA in two and a half days. in a old VW, with no air conditioner,fully packed, weighted down ,, yet, reliable VW ! PS Mom and I flew back.

Susie Shimel

My VW memory involves the birth of my daughter. On January 4, 1977 my pregnant wife and I had just returned from a UTC basketball game at McClellan gym and it was beginning to snow. We lived in the Northgate area on a steep hill. After being home for a couple of hours my wife’s water broke and we needed to get to the hospital. By then the snow had increased and had covered the streets. We got into our VW bug and headed out for Erlanger. There wasn’t any traffic on our way but the snow seemed to increase, but our ‘bug’ kept going and we were able to make it to the hospital for the birth of my daughter less than two hours later. Thanks to our VW we made it safely to the hospital for her birth. I hate to think what I would have had to do if it hadn’t been for our ‘bug’.

That’s my VW memory.

Walter Jones

I have owned a 1972 super bettle since 1980. I have recently restored it with newly rebuilt engine, new black paint job, and new interior. We've been through a lot including the blizzard of '93 when I had to drive it to work at US 101 radio in the Osborne building at Eastgate. When the snow stopped, it was over the tailpipes, but I made it out to Brainerd Road and drove on home. In 1997 it was stolen while parked on highway 2-A after the coil wire burned into. It was like losing a member of the family. I found it two weeks later in a field in Catoosa County, and needless to say, it was torn all to pieces. It took a year to put it back together.My granddaughter Zoie, who is six, says she's going to drive Herbie, as we call it, when she gets old enough to get her license.

Bob Cox

My Sargent and OJT instructor of USAF ordered a USA version VW in 1961 while in France, so it took awhile to get. I was worried because many of our friends found themselves hanging by their seat belts over glass on the side of the road in VW's. Europe required seats belts long before the US. The VW had a tendency to have the rear try to pass the front and would roll, as most rear mounted engines cars do. The Sargent and I were 5'6", but Sarg weighed 300 lbs and I 150. Therefore we had more weight

in front. We had a great and safe tour of Europe and England. We stayed in what is call B&B's in this country and were treated like kings. It was a wonderful time. The Sargent still had that VW when I came home 3 years later.

Bobby Thompson

Here is a photo of my Beetle Bug, painted burnt orange and personally decorated with flowered fabric seat covers and door panels. In 1976 when I was a sophomore at MTSU, I purchased it for $325 from my older brother after he towed it out of a corn field and rebuilt the engine. I had started college with only a 10-speed bike and after exporing conversations with my parents about buying a motorcycle, they talked to my brother, the budding VW mechanic, about providing me a safer mode of transportation.

I buzzed around in my Bug for the next 4 years, back and forth from MTSU to Chattanooga, and then from my first real job at the advertising agency in Nashville. Now that I am in my 50's and driving a van, it is my dream to eventually own another VW bug, and will be first in line when the new ones come off the line in Chattanooga.

Barbara Bowen

In the mid 1950's I bought my first volkswagon, second hand, and royal blue in color. I had learned to drive on a straight shift car so I had no trouble driving "Old Blue".

One day my youngest son who was 7 or 8 at the time, wanted us to go to a neighboring farm to get his goat, whose name was "Sapphire". She had been sent there to be bred.

We had three children;( ages 8-10-& 11) , and two of their cousins (ages 7&9), who were visiting for the day. So off we went. All five children and I. We took a cupfull of feed to lure Sapphire to the car.

When we got the the farm, our cat "Evinrude" ( so named because his motor ran all the time), came out from under the car. Not wanting to be left out of the excitement, he had riden over on the axle.

After getting Sapphire & Evinrude in the car, off we went home; five children under age ll, myself, a goat and a cat!!!!

That has always been my most memorable volkswagon story. We talk of it often when we are together and always get a laugh over it. Oh, and by the wway "Old Blue" ran on fumes!!!

Also Old Blue was finally traded in on another new "bug", that was driven to "City School" by our son Paul until he went away to college at Ga. Tech.

Betty Puryear, Chickamauga, Ga.

In 1967, Dave Regar and I worked for a new company, Security of America Life Insurance Co., and we drove from Reading, Pa., across the entire state in Dave’s little, blue beetle. The beetle was bulging at the seams with our luggage and convention supplies to attend our first bankers convention. I remember stopping outside the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel ,while a rookie, Terry Bradshaw stolled by on the way to the steelers football practice. When our blue beetle pulled up outside the hotel the doorman opened my door and then he stepped back in utter awe as I uncoiled my 6’ 8” frame.

Niles C. Meacham

Waaaay back in 1969 my husband and I owned a 1963 dark gray Beetle. I was 9 months pregnant and on the night of March 8 began labor. At 2:30 a.m. I roused the hubby and we headed the 15 miles to the hospital.

This being my first child, needless to say I was scared to death!! and here we go in the wee hours, my hubby "reeking" of Brute cologne, and smoking his little

Swisher Sweets cigars in this tiny little car. I was sooo sick I had to get him to roll down the windows!!

Even with those memories I now own a Yellow '03 manual 5-speed Beetle Turbo named Lola, which I ordered especially for me. As my mom just quit driving

her '64 Beetle last year, I'm just another little white-haired granny flying low!!! I LOVE my Lola, shes's the last car I'll ever own!

Paula Rodery

I’ve own several Volkswagens (my first one 1959 Beetle) 1960, 1961, 1965 then up to 1971 for the pass 30 plus years. Several VWs’ we beat-up and made Dune buggies to run in the woods with roll cages or just chop off the front and rear fenders.

When going gets rough VW engines are tough. You can rebuild one day roll out of garage and run wide open all on next day. It’s a must to keep valves adjusted properly and good grade of oil to full level on dip stick.

I currently own a 1964 Beetle color Diamond Green as seen in the picture.

This Beetle was Shade Tree disassembled and restored to almost new condition inside and out in it’s self was a lasting memory. All fenders, trunk & motor lids, all glass, headliner, seats, floor matting, motor/transmission, all wheels/ drums, brake lines, wheel and master brake cylinders’ and motor rebuild. There’s not a part we haven’t taken loose repaired or replaced. People may not think you can buy parts for these old VW Bugs but cip1.com can help you with most any part you need to restore or soup up your favorite BUG down to the last screw.

My children can certainly tell lots of stories about mud rides across the mountain roads and trails after winter rains and Oh yes the snow tail spins in the middle of the highway down town. About the only way to stick a BUG is bottom out or not let the tires touch the ground. I've had nothing but fun with these cars.

I have a small collections of Volkswagen miniature cars are on the bookshelf.

Ken Reed, Spring City

Our love affair with VW began in 1968 when we purchased our first car, a brand new 1968 blue Beetle which cost $1907.95. We traveled in our new bug to Florida for our honeymoon. It took lots of elbow grease to get off all that white shoe polish!

In a few years, we upgraded to a 1971 bright Orange Super Beetle with lots of chrome, mag wheels, and other accessories. Its cost was $2542.00. We were cool!

Meanwhile, we purchased a 1972 blue/white bus which we used to travel all over the western United States in the summer of ’72. We would sleep one night in our bus which we had converted to a camper for the trip and then would stay in a motel the next night. We weren’t hippies but maybe we were and just didn’t know it! One night we were camping at the Grand Canyon and woke up to find a group of Hell’s Angels, who had arrived during the night, sharing our campsite! Gas averaged 25cents per gallon (what a deal!) and our total gas cost for the 8,471 mile trip was only $183.00. As a matter of fact, all expenses including souvenirs, food, gas, lodging, campsites, etc. was only $884.95 for the 6 weeks we were traveling!

Our 4th VW was a yellow 1975 convertible which cost $4670.00 and welcomed the birth of our second child. After that, we needed a larger car but it was only a few years before we welcomed a used red 1972 VW beetle back to our family.

Here we are 39 years later with our children grown and married and gas prices soaring. We find ourselves thinking about that good mileage the VW gets and that wonderful body style and are looking toward buying a 6th VW beetle…another convertible for our retirement traveling!

We have come full circle! Thanks VW for many years of fun memories!

Sally and Phil Russell, Cleveland

During my teen hood I had a 71 VW Camper van. At the time, I was still living at home with my maw. I asked her if I could get another van for parts, she said no. Naturally, I got it. I knew she would be pissed, but me and a friend decided to have fun with it.

We towed the van over and stripped it down, taking the motor and everything. Then he got this wild idea of spray painting the thing to freak her out. Well it worked! She came home and had a total cow. "You gotta get that &@%# thing out of the front yard, blah, blah, blah!!"

The following day we used her car to tow it away. We were pulling it along and he screamed something to me. I could not hear him so I hit the brakes, bamm, he plowed right into me. I pop out of the car and said "why did you do that?!", he said he was trying to tell me the brakes went out. Fortunately, no damage came of her car and to this day, I don't think I ever told her the story. The "majic bus", as we called her, was able to keep on cruising the Ft. Lauderdale strip with a few spare parts hoggin up the garage.

Richard Cartier

Living hand to mouth in the 70's, we drove a VW bug. It was cheap, but how we longed for comfort. We sure missed the station wagon. You froze going uphill, and burned up going downhill 'cause the motor was in the front. No real heater. There was liberty then so we didn't have to be tied in with seat belts. Once we got 12 people in our VW - there was no other way to get the crowd to Chattanooga.

We once forgot to turn over the extra-gallon-gas lever so we had to push but pushing it was not really a problem. I see where VW is having to Americanize its new car.

No wonder. Thank the Lord for birth and education in a Christian land. Plenty of comforts! Air conditioning, plush seats, push-button windows, all products of the United States. Wonder why Hitler gave his people such a bug when he drove a Mercedes?

June Griffin, Dayton

My first car was an orange, 1977 VW rabbit. Each year for homecoming (I attended a very small school in central Montana), we decorated my car for the parade. We had big eyes on the windshield, ears that went up and over the top and a punch balloon covered in cotton balls for the tail. We even had cotton balls coated in brown tempera paint powder for bunny droppings.

Have a great day!

Cheryl Clark

December 1963 my family bought a new 1964 Volkswagon Bus. It was green and had a cloth top that slide back, the early version of a sun roof. We left the very next week and drove non-stop from Columbus, Ohio to the Southern California coast. Mom would sleep while Dad drove and vice-versa. We would stop at rest stops and eat food that we kept in coolers. We slept wherever we could find a spot. That's not always easy with eight people trying to find a comfortable spot. I usually slept on top of the box of dry-goods and cooking utensils that was behind the back seat. My dad made a wooden accordion-type platform that would lay across the two back seats to give additional sleeping space.

We took many more vacations over the coming years in that bus. We always camped along the way. Some of my favorite