Date:         Fri, 7 Sep 2007 10:36:07 -0700
Reply-To:     Clint Kolda <clint_kolda@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Clint Kolda <clint_kolda@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: Remembering the First Bus
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I remember riding in the front seat of my grandfather's bus when I was about 4-5 years old.  He took me to look for a new bicycle.  I guess that day started me down the road of a strange lifelong obsession with VW's and bikes.  I don't remember much about that bus other than it was red.  It had a camper interior but no pop top.

  When I was 14, my father got me a 1979 Rabbit.  It was wrecked, but he gave me full access to his repair shop and tools.  Together we slowly got it on the road again.  I learned a lot rebuilding that car.  A few years later I wanted something faster I sold the Rabbit and I got a 16v Scirocco.  That was absolutely a fun car to drive.

  About 5 years after I sold the Rabbit, I graduated from college.  When I returned home, my Dad said that my graduation present was in the garage.  I went out to find my old Rabbit.  Instead of selling it, he had stored it in a friend's barn all those years.  It had been placed in a giant plastic bag and left untouched.  To this day I still have the car.

  http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v207/yellow_rabbit/?action=view&current=rabbit-storage.jpg

  http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v207/yellow_rabbit/?action=view&current=1979Rabbit.jpg

While we were growing up, my dad would sometimes get vehicles into the shop and customers did not want to have them fixed.  One of the vehicles left there was a turbo diesel Vanagon .  I don't know where this van came from, but I have not seen a factory turbo Vanagon since.  In the days prior to the internet, finding parts for this thing was a chore.  The VW dealer could not find a replacement turbo and swore that no such vehicle ever existed (even though we had the turbo and as I recall, the rear hatch emblem said turbo diesel on it).  The engine finally got replaced with a NA rabbit motor.  It was slow, but as a teenager I had a great time loading up all my buddies in it and screaming down the road at 50 MPH.

  I've always been into VW's.  I don't know what triggered my renewed interest in Vanagons.  I've had my Westfalia for a couple years.  I figure I'll always own one.