Which is understandable but that car would also, almost by definition, use incredible amounts of fuel, release tons of harmful substances and kill you even in a light crash.
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A friend in high school rolled his bug around a turn into pole and broke both his legs.
My dad had a ~'64 bug around 68-70 and I remember a conventional clutch pedal. It must have been an optional transmission.
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We had one of those( @lava , yeah, they’re rare. When I mention it to Bug enthusiasts, they get all excited at the thought). Weird car. It also had an exhaust that fell off every 20 miles or so, which meant the car filled up with exhaust fumes through the heater vents, so we had to park up, open all the doors and wait for my dad to walk back, pick up the red hot exhaust and kick it back into place, swearing mightily the whole time. Good times.
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60s VWs that friends owned are how I mastered manual shifting in high school.
I’ve only owned one Beetle, a 68 maybe? for 2 days. Day one - fun! Day two - brakes failed, fortunately in the parking lot. When we tried to jack up the car, the rust stopped holding it together. It fell to pieces so badly that the tow truck could only hook up the chassis. Then again, I only paid $50 for the car, and got $25 from the tow truck driver for the parts.
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Ha! I love my MGB. After I sorted out the wiring issues it became a very fun car to drive.
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They e got a bigger engine than the A series from the Midget, haven’t they? I dunno how one hops that particular lump up, but the A series shares the same bolt and pet patterns as a BMW K series twin cam head, which does… Exciting things to the amount of power available.
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Might want to look at Toyotas from the forties and fifties: They were built solid because the Japanese didn’t know how to make a car with tissue paper sheet metal at the time (They learned it from us) and they had reliable efficient engines because gas was scarce and parts hard to come by.
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There’s also no logic in me loving some cars: the first two versions of the beetle, the T2, the Citroën DS, the Jaguar E-Type. All of them are nowadays better off in a museum.
I don’t own a car, and I never did. I try hard to keep it that way. But these? I couldn’t resist, if I got offered one and had the money to spare. Just because.
All that said, one of my favourite cars re:spare parts was a 90s version of the Toyota Hilux. I found spare parts for that one all over West Africa. I doubt I would have the same experience elsewhere, though…
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I remember driving my MGB across a parking lot early one evening; I hit a big crack in the pavement and the lights went out, then came on again when I hit the next crack.
It reminds me of the old joke: “Why do the English drink warm beer? - Lucas refrigerators.”
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I remember one of the VW-specific magazines having a bus like that, featuring a shot of it doing a wheelie. My folks had a '71 bus with a Corvair conversion - it was quite a bit tamer, but it could still peg the 90-mph speedometer. Those extra two cylinders worked wonders.
ETA: @nixiebunny mentions Corvairs leaking oil. There’s a secret weapon: replace the pushrod tube O-rings with ones made of Viton. That’s something that should have been done at the factory; neoprene can’t handle the temperatures. Then there’s the fan belt issue; if you tightened it like you would a typical small-block, it would inevitably throw the belt. It needs to be looser, and there’s also a specific industrial V-belt that works better than automotive fan belts. Or, convert the fan to electric.
This is why Corvair owners keep that heavy-duty long-handled screwdriver under the front seat.
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I keep my entire toolbox in the frunk, along with a spare belt and a supply of Dexron for the leaky Powergide. It also improves the front/rear weight balance.
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