Date:         Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:37:05 -0600
Reply-To:     Max Wellhouse <dimwittedmoose@CFU.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Max Wellhouse <dimwittedmoose@CFU.NET>
Subject:      Re: VW bus and beetle on Yahoo's 10 deadliest car list. Any truth?
In-Reply-To:  <86476e250902150933t5afff306i594d98e3ed21ebc3@mail.gmail.co m>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

  Loren: You asked for 2 cents worth and here you go!!  My parents
woudn't let me have anything but a 4 cylinder car in 1967 when I got
my driver's license.  I had $700 to spend of my own hard earned
money  so that really cool 61 T-Bird for 7 bills was out the
question.  Found a 62 Beetle for $700, and they were okay with
that.  Long story short, within a year, I changed lanes on a
snow-covered 4 lane too quickly and at 55mph, hit the median curb and
rolled the Beetle 5 times for a total of 175'.  The roof, to it's
credit, didn't get below shoulder height, but the gas tank was
leaking all over me as I was climbing out.  Don't remember if that
Beetle had a Camber Compensator on it or not or whether it had seat
belts in it.  Didn't stop me from buying another one and anther one
and another one......up to about 50 VW's by the time I was
22.  Mostly parts cars that supplemented unemployment during the
winter months.  Also rolled a 64 rust bucket Ghia from pushing a
corner too hard in Arkansas and a tire blew off the rim and in the
ditch I went.  That roof went right down on top of me and I had to
crawl out the back glass or wait for the Jaws of Life.  NO gas spill
this time, just a redneck State Trooper that tried to give me a
reckless driving ticket.

Speaking of Porsches, I was driving my immaculate 63 356B Coupe(wish
I still had that little plum) down to my parent's house in Arkansas
one fall for storage(early 70's),  and I was taking liberties with
the traction of my Michelin XAS tires on the curvy part of Hwy 65 in
southern Missouri.  A light rain shower had apparently fallen
educating me from that day forward that a little rain is worse than a
lot of it.  The tires broke free of the pavement and I was in a
slow(if 60 mph is considered slow) spin to about 180 degrees and then
miraculously I pulled it out and got the headlights pointing  back
South again.  I'm thinking that Jesus might've had ahold of that
steering wheel for a couple seconds there, because I didn't have the
skills to straighten that mess out!!.  An underwear change later, I
was back on the road and pretty much wide awake for the next day or two.

Enough of those old memories.  Only bus damage was hitting a deer
with my 79 loaf in the Ozarks.  The deer lost that battle and several
good ol' boys carried it off for dinner that night(you think I'm kidding).

DM&FS



At 11:33 AM 2/15/2009, Loren Busch wrote:
>  RE: Deadliest Cars
>I agree that the writer shows a lot of ignorance in the comments on several
>of those vehicles.  For example if he was going to talk abou the swing axle
>on the 300 SL then what about the Triumph Spitfire and it's swing axle.  I
>couldn't even enter an Autocross or go on the track for training until I
>showed that I had the Empi de-cambering bar installed.
>But, and here is the rub, without the author finding the facts or citing the
>right reasons, the VW Bug earned it's place on that list.  The insurance
>company statistics in the '60's had the Bug at the top of the list, highest
>single car accident rate of anything on the road in North America and
>highest single car accident fatality rate.  I saw those figures myself in
>what was supposed to be a confidential copy of a summary report from the
>part of the insurance industry that kept track of such things at the time.
>That was before the government agencies were keeping track of such numbers
>and making them public.  And a footnote paragraph in that report cited
>driver attitude and, if I can recall the wording, 'handling characteristics
>under adverse driving conditions' as the reason.  Basically, many young
>people thought they were driving a sports car until they overcooked it going
>into a curve.  I know a lot of you on these lists drove Beetles during that
>time (I didn't) so comments on handling would be appropriate.  All I know is
>what the statistics I saw in 1968 said.