The very first car I ever drove, and subsequently the first car I owned, was a yellow 1974 Volkswagen Beetle. Technically it was a Super Beetle, and its top recorded speed was a superlative 118 km/h down the backside of Malahat mountain circa 1988. At speeds over 90 km/h it had a tendency to belch blue smoke. From the glove box.
It made a noise like the Cedar Hill Middle School Jazz Lawnmower Band on parade. It steered like a fully loaded tea cart. The heater didn't work, the windshield fogged up at night, the back seat fit two legless midgets comfortably, and chances were 50/50 it would stall when faced with a red light, forcing me to do a crazy toe-tapping jig to keep the revs up while waiting for the green.
I loved that car.
It had been my mother's. The four of us kids were hauled all around town in the indefatigable VW. Once, Kinza accidentally slammed the passenger door shut on my fingers. I screamed. My mom screamed, and shouted at Kinza to open the door, quickly. Kinza panicked and locked it instead. Thanks Kinz.
When I got my license at 17, I drove the car to school whenever I could. At lunchtime the guys would go to 7-11 or a like purveyor of chili dogs and Big Gulps and other edible oil products. One time we piled into the Bug and roared off to the McDonald's drive-through. The rough howl of the engine was so loud at the order booth that I turned the car off to communicate our dire need for 16 Big Macs or whatever, but when I tried to start the car again it just went: "a-rrur-rrur-rr-rrur-rrur. A-rrur. Cough." And died.
So we got out. We got out and we pushed to the pick-up window, where we were laughed at by the cruel McDonald's pickup window girl, and then we snatched our greasy burgers from her with as much dignity as we could muster, and in those days we gangly acne-ridden D&D players needed every scrap of dignity we could get our hands on.
Fortunately it is very easy to push-start a VW, which we did, after fortifying ourselves with the McDogFood.
Eventually it got to the point where I could push-start the Bug myself, if it wasn't facing uphill. If you put your back into the passenger door hard enough, the car would start rolling slightly, at which point you leaped into the driver's seat, threw it into first, and popped the clutch. It would splutter a little bit and by tramping on the gas you could coax the splutter into a full-blown thundering start and a big reeking cloud of burning oil.
It's funny but I can't now remember how we parted ways, the car and me, but it was the end of an era.
>sniff<
That's very touching. What is it with VWs and fond memories?
I can recall that very day. "Please push through." Fortunately there wasn't the added humiliation of pushing over to the waiting area for delayed orders. Ahhh, the old bug. I can hear its pb-t-t-t now, smell the acrid tang of its blue smoke, feel the springs in its back seat, just like it was yesterday. Sniff.
I have similarly fond memories of my first car. Except I very distinctly remember how we parted.
One day I was driving home thinking to myself that I really couldn't afford to keep her anymore, and in a touching act of love and loyalty, she burst in to flames and was no more.
The fire was spectacular (and required fire fighters, whom I adore), and my only regret was that I had a very cute pair of leather boots in the trunk.
Mine was a 1979 Super that my brother and I purchased together for $350. "Multi-hued". Loved it.
It had pretty much the same "didn't have" list as yours, but it also didn't have a defrost fan so driving out to school on the Trans-Canada in the middle of winter required both side triangle windows open (and angled to blow across the windshield) along with a thick blanket provided by my very concerned sister. Probably a good thing as that also vented out the exhaust ;-)
We parted ways when, on the way to a final exam, it decided to dump it's entire oilpan of oil on the street. It made it home that night (following a phone call home saying something like "if I'm not home in half an hour, can you come out and find wherever I am on the #1?"), but after that, it was my "new" 1979 Rabbit. Red. With a 1985 Golf engine and 1984 five-speed tranny, low-profiles, big discs, etc. That thing moved.
Ah, the memories. Now it's a Honda CR-V and with #3 on the way...and to think when I was growing up we fit all six of us and a dog in our 1977 VW Rabbit (me in the trunk).
remember gramsie's blue one? i have fond memories of driving to the beach with three currans, two smiths, two dogs and no seatbelts. i rode in the "very back", between the back seat and the rear window.
Ah yes, the Very Back! I spent many trips wedged back there. By preference...
Mom is still proud of the time we drove some distant relatives to the airport with all their luggage and a picnic lunch... for 11! Most of us were kids, but still! I challenge any modern SUV owner to pack 11 people from A to B.