Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 09:26:41 -0700
Reply-To: "Stewart, Donna" <DStewart@REEDSMITH.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Stewart, Donna" <DStewart@REEDSMITH.COM>
Subject: Re: State of the List... State your ages!!!!!!! :<)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
First VW my dad saw was in 1945 in a little town just off the Rhine; it was a Kubel that was mostly intact but had run partly off a small bridge after it was likely strafed. A guy in my dad's unit was trying to take it apart and ship it back to the U.S.; my dad shipped out before that guy so never found out if he succeeded in shipping it back here. My dad also saw his first diesel engine in France in 1944; it was in a German military truck that had been abandoned. There were diesels in the U.S. at that time including in farm equipment but he hadn't seen one up close before.
Donna, 1987 Wolfsburg
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
Of Klun John
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 9:04 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: State of the List... State your ages!!!!!!! :<)
Hey all!
I'll be 59 later this year. My first exposure to VWs was back when I was 11
watching 3 guys pick up a bug and move it sideways into a parking slot. My
next exposure to a VW was when I worked for a coffee roaster and he asked me
to deliver some coffee to customers in the beige colored VW bus. I loved
it! I wanted one myself. Unfortunately, in my home growing up, anything
German, Japanese or Russian was not to be mentioned or purchased. It was a
throwback to when Poland was invaded by the Germans and Russians in Sept '39
and my parents were subsequently taken prisoner and sent to Siberia for a
while; after they were released, my dad fought the Germans with the Polish
Free Army under the British in the Middle East and Italy, therefore the
prejudice...
My next exposure to a VW was in 1965 when a friend of mine took me in his
sister's 64 bug to a meeting and we went the back road. He scared the crap
outta me. The little bug held the road but we were going fast!
My first car was a Studebaker Commander V8; a real tank! My second was a
1960 Chevy 2 door which my wife ran into the ground while I was in the Navy,
out to sea on a cruise. We replaced that car with a 1967 Mercury Comet
Capri V8. We traded that in (in 1969) for our first VW! A 1968 VW
Squareback! We loved that little car. It went anywhere, it had some heat
(after the engine warmed up), drove 70 with no problem and had great gas
mileage (in those days gas was around .25-.30 per gallon). Just before I
got out of the Navy, we (my wife was very pregnant at the time) hooked up a
U-Haul (the biggest single axle enclosed trailer they had at the time) to
the back of the Squareback and pulled it from Norfolk, VA to Concord, NH.
Gas mileage was very good and down hills I had to out run the trailer so it
wouldn't pass me.
We kept that car for 3 more years until the heads warped and we traded it in
for a 1972 Squareback. We kept that one another 4 years when we traded it
in for a 1975 Volvo 245 wagon. By then our kids were bigger and we 'needed'
a 'safer' car.
In 1982 we decided we'd drive from NH to San Diego non-stop. We were 10
minutes too late in buying a 1976 VW Camper so we had to make do with a 1980
Chevy van. We wanted to buy a Vanagon but they were just too damn
expensive.
My midlife crisis car was an 1986 VWJetta GL gas (couldn't afford a
Porsche). We bought it with 3 miles on it on 11/14/85 and we still have it.
We just retired it and it is parked next to the house. It was the best car
we ever owned. Fantastic gas mileage- 35-37 mpg at 70-75 mph. It made many
trips between NH and CO and NH and other cities and states on the East
Coast. When we moved to Delta, CO, I drove it pulling the largest enclosed
single axle U-Haul trailer. It was so loaded that opening the back door
would spill everything out. The Jetta got 19 mpg and the fastest I could go
was 55 mph. I could get to 65 if a semi rig passed me and pulled me along.
The Jetta had no problem going up over CO passes to 11,000' but I had to do
it in 3rd at a steady speed. Retired, we estimate the Jetta has in excess
of 400,000 miles as the odometer broke about 3-4 years ago.
After my wife totaled the Ford Aerostar van we had when she hit a deer, we
started looking around for a VW vanagon. Our mechanic had an 84, one on
which he just finished rebuilding the engine. We bought it Oct of 2000 and
we haven't regretted it one bit except for my wife and that's another story.
My wife bought an 84 Scirocco from our mechanic last fall after he had put
an 85 Jetta engine in it. She loves it! It's her sportscar.
So, over the years, we've had:
1968 Squareback
1972 Squareback
1971 Squareback (leaked oil and seized the engine on the interstate...had it
for not even 1 month [never buy from your sister-in-law])
1986 Jetta GL
1984 Vanagon GL (doesn't look like much but gets 23-25mpg at 70-75mph as my
daily driver)
1984 Scirocco Mk II
John Klun
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