My family has owned many aircooled VWs in many different types - bug, bus, single cab. With proper, basic maintenance and mindful usage, those engines could last as long as there is gasoline to burn.
However, driving an old VW on today’s roads amongst today’s larger cars is the scariest thing in the world, especially considering the VW’s slow acceleration and lack of crumple zones.
Oh yes, I recall going to Florida with four people, luggage, and Christmas gifts stuffed into a microbus and trying our best to get up to 45 mph in I-75 over Jellico mountain.
I remember canoeing with 4 guys and 2 boats and trying get a VW van to do 20 mph up the mountain.
And maybe this will be the generation we’ll finally have kids with have no memories of growing up in an aircooled VW!
Seriously… bring up old VW’s with anyone over age 30. I guarantee they have a story about one. In the US, people over 20 are about 50/50. Younger than that and it gets hard but you can find 'em (you might actually need to be driving an aircooled VW to find them).
I was riding shotgun in one of the really early panel Ty2, the one with no windows along the side except the front doors, and a tiny one in the middle of the back that was about the size of a dinner plate, and the tiny round side mirrors were about as big as a silver dollar, so it was like being in a traveling cave. We were on a freeway going uphill behind a big-rig, and my pal was hanging close to it to draft - he’d taken out the drop gears in the rear hubs, so it wasn’t as slow going as it could’ve been. Got over the top, and he pulled in closer and we we were being sucked along by that big-rig, going as fast as that Ty2 ever would. Pal gets this wild look in his eyes and says, “I’m gonna pass!” and before I could say anything, he pulled over quick to pass. It was like a giant hand put itself in front of us, and I literally bounced off the dash a little, had to brace myself with one arm. That van seemed like it stopped dead, altho it really didn’t. The engine sound shot up into this high squeeeeeeeee and then went down the the revs as he let off the gas. The big-rig was almost invisible by then, it was so gone. “WTF you do that for?!” I yelled. He didn’t really have a coherent answer. We proceeded at our previously standard Ty2 leisurely pace.
That got me too…Rear-engine, forward control, etc.
Cab-over has nothing to do with a full body van. A friend had the crew-cab version with a canvas canopied truck back. That was a cool machine!
I’ve had a couple of VW LTs, a lot bigger, front engine, between the driver and passenger. Makes a great campervan.
Sad news - as a teen I’d always wanted one. Closest I got was a 20 year old '65 Type 3 Notchback, as advertised by Dustin Hoffman. The smell of exhaust when the heater was on; the brake fade; and the smell of damp. Goddamn classic.
Who can one contact at VW to propose the abandoned Kombi be released as an Open Source hardware design? There seems to be no useful contact information on any VW web site. We missed this opportunity with VW Bug, which should have been the first de-facto public domain automobile given its ubiquity and the number of third party component manufacturers globally. But there was no open development concept at the time of its abandonment and the third party parts/accessories industry lacked the coherence of the PC industry when it ‘appropriated’ the IBM PC architecture. The Microbus T2 architecture has some problems from an open design standpoint, since it’s still based on antiquated pressed steel welded unibody construction. But there are many benefits in the developing world context to creating the possibility for an open independent production and development with the vehicle that could see it evolved to suit smaller scale industrial process (ie, space frame and modular body panel) and alternative energy use. I think it would be a practical platform for re-imagining the ideals of Tony Howarth’s failed Africar.
My first (not current) mother-in-law had a lime-green 73 bus that I spent some time fiddling with. At the time, it wasn’t smog-exempt, so getting it street-legal was a tad more effort than it was worth. She offered to give it to me, but I passed. Shortly after my divorce, that bus became smog-exempt, and I regretted passing it up. Deadly as it would have been in any freeway collision, it was a nifty little bugger. And there’s a certain thrill that comes with the realization that there’s nothing between your knees and the car in front of you but an eighth inch or so of steel, and maybe a headlight bulb. Unless your bus wore the spare tire up front, which mother-in-law’s did not.
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