My favorite takedown of VW vans was said by “Click and Clack” on Car Talk: VW’s designers wanted to cut down on weight when they designed the VW van, so they replaced the front bumper with YOUR SHINS.
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They restored this one in 3,000 ad
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Wow! What an incredible story! (Incredible and depressing…)
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Not to take anything away, but “few repairs”? They put another engine in it.
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Samba all the way, with the pop-top “party roof”. But that’s just like, you know, my opinion, man.
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So… there are just hundreds of VWs abandoned in the German hills? Doesn’t that seem odd.
Also, what if these guys are desecrating sacred VW burial grounds where old VWs go off to die?
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Man, that was a crew of high-fivin’ white guys and no mistake. Still, that looked like something my buddies and I would totally have done over a weekend, if any of us could have afforded the new parts.
As he was yanking it out from between the trees, I wasn’t surprised at all to see the rear wheel totally frozen. I once dragged a Karmann Ghia out of my mother-in-law’s back yard, and it had only been there in the mud two years or so, and the drums were rusted tight to the shoes. It was easier to get running. Just needed a wiring harness (parked because of battery fire) and a new fuel pump. I fired it up with a jelly jar of gas on the roof feeding the carb by gravity.
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On site or on-site. Not “onsite.” You could also use “in situ.”
Give me a VIN plate & I’ll restore it.
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The cool thing is the trees actually grew to trap it. In another couple of decades they would have crushed it or even enveloped some of it.
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I always have mixed feelings when I see, for instance, an abandoned '34 Ford with a stout oak growing through the otherwise empty engine compartment. It looks kinda neat, in a Nature Ascendant postapocalyptic way, but it bums me out because there’s no harmless way of rescuing the car.
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That opening span definitely had me thinking of The Shining.
Did he indicate the approximate cost of the parts to make it drivable?
Dude… my dad has a gnarly set of tools… I can fix it.
But it’s just a little engine. 
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Hands down: it’s the pickup.
No no, don’t try to dissuade me…I’ve only ever seen one 23 up close and it’s owner was afraid to take it out into daylight lest it burst into flame.
(the story was that he found it in an abandoned VW graveyard where it was calling softly “Help me”)
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FFFUUUUUCK VIMEO!!! IT SHOULDN’T TAKE HALF A FUCKING HOUR TO WATCH A 12 MINUTE VIDEO!!! USE PUBLIC DOMAIN MUSIC AND PUT YOUR SHIT ON YOUTUBE LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.
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There’s a story about restoring a “found” car and then the owner shows up with the registration paper and keys and drives it away. Maybe it’s different in Germany?
Wouldn’t someone raise an eyebrow about a VIN plate on a car that predates VIN plates? Or can you just stick a VIN plate on anything and never mind the make and date of manufacture in the number?
