Time Capsule #4: the VW Beetle

There were a lot of these bugs on American college campuses in the late-60s.

You could pick up a used one for $500 (or less if you were mechanically minded enough to fix up a clunker yourself), and they got 22 MPG, not bad at 32-cents/gallon of gas.

Craig Sullivan drove his red '64 Beetle (aka The Dude) from West Hartford to Tacoma in June 1970 when Adele and I got married. Senior year, he was still driving it back and forth from Hanover to the Bones Gate farm house asylum in Enfield.

With those 25" diameter tires, and the motor mounted above the drive wheels, Beetles were legendary snow plows. My pal Chris Chesser D'70 drove his Beetle with me and a Syracuse guy south through a blizzard on I-81 in Pennsylvania. Snow was pushing up over the front bumper, and we were the only vehicle moving --except for snowmobiles!

If you didn't own a VW bug, you're bound to have been a frequent passenger in one.

I saw greasy, dog-eared copies of this manual in many a back seat of those VW's.