September 6, 1969
After owning three VW Beetles, my grandparents decided on their fourth and final "bug" in the late Summer of 1969. Sixteeen years after they bought the first one, they looked into a 1970 white beetle with a red interior and a new option, air conditioning. They were living in Scottsdale, Arizona and the Summer temperatures reached into triple digits every day. Having air conditioning would be a nice touch in a new VW. It cost an additional $275.00, so my grandfather agreed it would be a good investment.
According to the plate on the door of the car, VW of Germany in Wolfsburg rolled the car off the assembly line September 6, 1969, and it was loaded first on a train, then a ship bound for the U.S. shortly thereafter. That was about the time I started the first grade.
Upon arriving in the U.S., the beetle was loaded on an auto transporter (I'm not sure if it was a truck or train) and shipped to Arizona where it was unloaded and brought to Mark Imports, of Scottsdale. There it would be signed over to my grandparents in consideration of a $2,275.00 payment, which included the A/C installation.
DP-Air, a division of Delco products, made the A/C kits for Volkswagen, and apparently this was one of the first kits installed by Mark Imports' service department. It took more than a week, but they got it put in and the bug had cold air in the summer.
Factory stock (almost)
1970 Type I Sedan (Beetle)
Doors - 2
Seats - 5
Engine - 1500cc, single port heads, carbureted
Cylinders - 4
Transmission - 4 speed manual
Fuel capacity - 10 U.S. Gallons
To the untrained eye, it was just a plain ordinary VW Beetle. But in the Summertime in Scottsdale in 1970, you didn't see too many VW Beetle owners riding around with the windows rolled up. There was my grandmother though. Windows rolled up tightly, A/C/ on, nice and comfortable.
A new home
In 1971, my grandparents moved to Prescott, AZ. They took their little bug with them to their new home. At 5,368 feet, two things would be certain.
- The engine would need to be retuned for higher altitude.
- The A/C would be needed a lot less than on the desert floor of Scottsdale.
From 1971 to 1985, Prescott would be home to the little car. It was mostly an uneventful life. There were two things I know of that were out of the ordinary. The first is that at some point, another car hit the right front fender and it needed to be replaced. This is evident by the lack of factory sprayed undercoating, or "submarine sealer" on this one fender. The second thing, is less stressful. In the summer of 1972 Sam Peckinpah brought a film crew to Prescott to make the movie "Junior Bonner" starring Steve McQueen. My grandmother, like most of the townsfolk, had several opportunities to see the filming as it occurred. Since the movie was about rodeo, and Prescott has a pretty famous rodeo, there was a lot of exposure for ordinary people in many of the scenes.
One scene involved Steve McQueen driving downtown to look for his father at a saloon on Montezuma Street, or as it's better known, "Whiskey Row". Grandmother took my older brother downtown to see the filming one day and parked across the street from the Whiskey Row saloons at the Montezuma park, the center of downtown.
Once filming began, they closed the street off and no one could get in or out unless they were to do so for the film. So when they shot the scene of Junior Bonner pulling up and parking his Cadillac. There was Grandmother's bug, refelcted in the saloon windows as he walked to the door of the tavern to find his dad.
I discovered this many years later when I was watching the movie at home. It was pretty easy to identify the car. Grandfather bought a set of louvered aluminum window shades for the side windows. They were made to fit the window exactly, and in the film, they are clearly seen in the reflection. There was only one other beetle I ever saw with those screens during my Summers in Prescott, and it was candy apple red.
A simple life
There are "urban legends" about cars owned by "little old ladies who only drove them into town twice a month to get the mail". Well, this is one of those cars. After moving to Prescott, my grandmother drove this car about twice a month. Six miles into town to get the mail, and buy groceries. My grandfather took the occasional trip to Flagstaff or Phoenix for business, and when his Volvo™ 144 was in the shop, he "took the bug out for a trip". In all, the car saw about 1,000 miles a year from 1970 1980.
I can remember going with my grandmother on several of her "trips into town" and pumping gas into the little car. Back then $2.75 would fill it up. These days it barely buys a gallon, but I'm still putting gas in it forty years later.
"I go where I'm toad"
in 1980 my grandfather retired from State Farm™ Insurance. That Summer, he bought a Ford® F-250 Ranger™ pickup with a cabover camper. Some time earlier, he bought a roof rack and a tow-bar for the VW. He and my grandmother set out every Summer driving around the United States in the Ford® pickup with the little bug in tow. When they needed or wanted to go somewhere, but didn't want to take the whole camper rig, the'd unhook the bug, and "tool around in it". For fifteen Summers, the Beetle was a passenger on these Summer excursions, racking up somewhere in the neighborhood of 85,000 miles on the odometer.
Another move
In 1985, my grandparents moved to Tempe, AZ to a retirement community. Because the community was pretty much self-contained, dining, recreation, and wellness all onsite, there was not much need of transportation. The beetle sat in a garage most of the year. The summer trips continued until 1995 when grandfather had a close call behind the wheel and decided it was best to stay home. He passed away in 1997 so there would be no more Summer trips. After that, the car saw maybe 100 miles a year.
Changing hands
June, 2004. My grandmother was 89 years old and came to a decision. She looked at the amount of use she was putting on the car, and decided that she really didn't need it anymore. She called my father and told him she wanted to get rid of it. He didn't really need it and knew a friend who would auction it off, but grandmother wasn't too enthusiastic about that idea. Dad called me and I jumped at the opportunity to inherit the bug. So on a Wednesday morning, we took a trip to Tempe to get the car and bring it home to Tucson.
After thrity five years, it still smelled like a new VW inside. The motor was dusty, and it had eight year old tires, but it was in great shape. I took it around the block just to get the feel for it, and then it as off to the gas station to "fill 'er up".
We made one more stop before hitting the road, and that was at Discount™ Tire to get the tires checked, just to be sure. They said for their age, the tires were in excellent condition, and we shouldn't worry. So it was out to the highway. June in Arizona is hot. The car hadn't been driven at highway speeds in years, and it was the middle of the afternoon. On the way home, it vapor-locked and shut down. Taking the age into consideration I pondered whether it was just a vapor lock, or if the fuel pump had gone out. Either way, we opted for a tow the last forty miles.
Making it my own
The tow was a bumpy one and caused a leak from the sump cover on the bottom of the engine. I tried new gaskets and silicone, but it kept dripping. I was going to learn bug repairs again and right away. After two attempts to sela the original cover, I went to my old buddies at Chirco Automotive and bought an aluminum billeted cover, and a new gasket set. A little bit of silicone and it was drip free again.
Over the next couple of weeks I set about cleaning up, restoring and in general, making the little white beetle my own. I was amazed at how well the interior cleaned up, and the engine too. I had it looking like new inside and out in no time. To make sure it stayed mine, I put an alarm in it. It took about a week to do because I was trying to put 1997 technology into a 1969 electrical system.
I took out the aluminum louvered shades in favor of some nice dark tinting on the windows, but other than that, I kept it original.
A new phase
A funny thing happened a few weeks after I got the VW. My daughter started the first grade and I took her to school in the car. That very first morning a little boy yanked his mom's hand and said, "Look Mommy! Herbie!" when we pulled up. Throughout the school year, other kids woudl call my car "Herbie". My daughter had seen all of the Love Bug movies, and she started calling the car Herbie too.
In March of 2005 I decided to visit my friends at Pro-Line Graphics and get the number 53 "gumballs", and stripes put on, to make "Herbie" into a Love Bug. They had it done in a matter of hours, and when I took my daughter to school the next morning, the kids went crazy. Now it really looked like Herbie, and they knew it. This was just the start.