I entered college before I could get a driver’s license. To this day, I am not sure what my parents were imagining my college experience would be like. My older sister had commuted to the same college and graduated several years ahead of me. I guess my parents thought that I would easily follow in her footsteps. The big difference was that she had a driver’s license before her first day of college. There was also no way for me to get to the college via public transportation, so each morning my mother would drive me 45 minutes to school and then at a pre-determined time would retrieve me. Mercifully this arrangement did not last long. I got my driver’s license, as fast as I could, and the fun began.
The year I started college my older sister went abroad to study in England. She spent several years living and working abroad. When she left, I was given her car. It was a very beaten-up VW beetle. My sister had been and unfortunately has continued to be in automotive mishaps. She had a head-on crash with a truck while still in college. She survived, but her vehicle was a total wreck.
The VW that I inherited was its replacement. Not all my sister’s mishaps were spectacular crashes. Many resulted in just another dent. The right side of the VW had been hit by a drunk driver who decided to drive down a broad sidewalk in Philadelphia, sideswiping a whole block of parked cars. There were so many dents in the VW that I could not determine what was new vs old damage when, as a new driver, I popped the clutch and hit a phone pole – just a tap, not a crushing blow. I could see blue paint that kind of matched my bug on the pole. It just added another bit more character.
The bug had many failings – character marks. It had no gas gauge. Old VWs did not have gas gauges. They were equipped with a reserve tank that was operated by the driver flipping a lever inside the car. I never got to do the gymnastics this would have required, because the reserve tank was inoperable long before I got the car. To check my fuel level, I carried a yardstick and dipped the tank. It was in the front of the rear engine bug. This exposed another failing. The latch on the hood did not work – a collision by my sister with a deer had smushed in the front of the bug and had made the latch inoperable. Always inventive, I used bent wire coat hangers to lash the handle of the hood to the bumper. I always carried an ample supply of coat hangers ready for instant replacement and repairs.
My first VW bug also had no turn signals. You had to wind down the window and use hand signals, even in cold wet weather. Rain presented another set of challenges. The floorboards were rusting away. The area where the brake, gas and clutch pedals went through the floor was so rusted away that water would gush in whenever I hit a puddle or heavy rain. My solution to this problem was to drive without my shoes on when it was wet.
The driver’s side was in good condition compared to the passenger’s side. The floor had a large completely rusted through hole. I used a flattened cardboard box to cover the hole. It was convenient for dropping apple cores and other food debris. All I had to do was gently lift the corner of the box and discreetly dispose of my debris directly onto the roadway.
With all this ventilation, the heater was not up to the task. It couldn’t even keep the windshield from frosting up from the inside. My solution was to keep an ice scraper ready at hand whenever I needed to improve my view out the windshield.
Did this battered vehicle run? It barely ran. It burned oil at a startling rate. I carried a case of reconditioned oil in the back seat and added yet another quart whenever it needed more oil, at least once per tank of gas. The synchromesh on the gears no longer worked, so the driver had to make sure that the engine and the transmission were in sync before going from first to second etc. even using the clutch. It was tricky. My brother had taught me how to drive the 4-speed transmission even with its idiosyncrasies.
This rolling wreck died in two stages. First, I hit a bump, and the right rear bumper broke loose. I pulled over and using one of my trusty coat hangers wired it back together. A few weeks later, the engine seized up as I was exiting a major highway, and my rolling wreck came to a halt, never to roll again.
Rolling Wreck No. 2
My parents were not pleased when the battered wreck died. I was chastised for not taking care of it. What was there to take care of. Search me. I initially thought with dread that my mother would commence driving me to college again. It was winter, and she did not want any part of my commute, so on came Rolling Wreck No. 2. It was another VW bug. It was the color of cream of tomato soup. It was in much better condition than the battered wreck that I had been driving. It was not without its minor problems. It had no gas pedal. In place of a gas pedal there was a hard rubber disk like a hockey puck with a hole in its center mounted sidewise on a lever. My guess is that a pedal would have fit over the hockey puck and made a nice smooth connection. The way it was configured, the driver had such direct contact that the car would lurch and bolt at the lightest tap on the gas.
There was also an issue with the battery. Old VWs had the battery positioned under the rear seat on the driver’s side. There should have been a metal cover over the battery. There was none in my car. Rear passengers were in for a thrilling ride. If we hit a bump and the springs on the seat depressed and contacted the battery, sparks would fly. I would urge my passengers to be prepared to post like on a horse to ensure that the springs did not contact the battery. Not every passenger followed the directions, but all quickly learned to sit lightly or enjoy the show.
The soup car, as my sisters dubbed it, ran well. The heater was inefficient, but overall, it got me to school and back with little or no drama. My folks loved VWs and how efficient they were – lots of miles per gallon of 25.9 to 29.9 cents per gallon gas. My mother bought herself a VW, a nice white car that even had a wicker shelf under the dashboard. It was a very uptown version. It became my car in my junior year of college. The soup car was sold, and I got to roll in style.
The white VW saw me through college and on to graduate school. I sold it my third year in graduate school and bought a car from my sister – the same sister that I got my first rolling wreck from. You would think I would learn, for I quickly became a buyer’s remorse candidate. My new old car was a black VW. A collision with my sister at the wheel had badly dented the left rear side panel. A coat of Rustoleum minimized the visual effect of the collision.
The car had a sunroof. There was a bit of a problem with it. The darn thing leaked all around the edge. My solution was to carry a roll of duct tape to seal the edge of my roof. Opening and closing the sunroof was challenging. All the tape was stripped off to open it and reapplied upon closure. Before I got rid of the car, it developed a unique set of mechanical problems. First, the long screw that holds the turn lever in place went missing. There were three options for activating the turn signal. The first option was to hold the unit in place with one hand and move the signal lever up and down with the other. This did not work well if the driver needed to steer the car and activate the turn signal. Option two was to simply use the signal as if nothing was wrong which meant that the signal unit would rotate around the steering column in its own special and unpredictable way. The third option was to use old-fashioned hand signals.
The turn signal problem became big problem when the worm gear that operated the steering decided to lose teeth. Turns became chancy, who knew how many turns with the wheel it would take to engage the steering enough to make the turn. At first the steering was just a bit crunchy, then as the steering lost more teeth, it became flatly unsafe – even by my then low standards.
My family always kept our cars for a long time. A car with less than 100,000 miles was a new car. I even now keep my car for a long time. The last car I traded in had over 100,000 miles on it. I carefully maintain them, so they run well, and they still look terrific when I trade them. I guess driving the rolling wrecks instilled in me a love of nice cars.
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