Date:         Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:39:15 -0800
Reply-To:     norman leong <nleong@JPS.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         norman leong <nleong@JPS.NET>
Subject:      Re: Squareback Security Was: Vanagon Security Challange...
Comments: To: vanagon@vanagon.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Per related the following:

>When I locked my key in my '73 Sqback a couple of years ago, I didn't have
any
>extra, I were 250 miles away from home, and it would take too long for
anybody
>to drive me the key. The luck(?) was that this was saturday afternoon,
>everybody was closing for the weekend. I felt both happy and proud at this
>moment. I was able to get hold of a couple of parking valets at the parking
>house, they didn't get the locks open with the slim-jim. They tried that for
>over 10 minutes. What they did to my precious Sqback, was that they pryed the
>door jamb open with a giant screwdriver and unhooked the lock knob with some
>coathanger wire. All in all, it took them OVER 20 MINUTES to get into my
'73!!
>VW knew how to do it in the old days :-) After this, I hid a key, which was a
>couple of turns of a screwdriver away.

My first car was a '72 Sqback which I had a couple of occaisions to break into
with a coathanger.  You don't need the screwdriver.  All you have to do is
have
a smallish U shaped hook on the end of the coathanger, slide it between the
door
and weatherstripping, maneuver over to the lock tab, hook it, and pull up.
Easy.
The vent wing window is also relatively easy to get by by pushing against the
glass and rotating the lock tab.

Fortunately modern vehicles are just a little bit tougher to get into.

Norman