53 Horsepower

by
Rick Brown

For some reason us Baby Boomers had a love affair with the Volkswagen Beetle. I’m unclear as to why when I look back honestly. I’ve owned several of these cult cars, know as “Hitler’s Revenge” to my father and anyone who fought in World War II. My wife Yvonne learned to drive in a Beetle. And up until a couple years ago never drove an automobile with an automatic transmission. VW has marketed a “new” Beetle and had great success selling it…although everyone I’ve known who has owned one doesn’t have much good to say about the vehicle. I drove one for a few days while my Miata was having some body work done and believe me…I was quite elated to have my faux British sports cars back.

So why was the original car such a hit? It was cheap. I bought my first Beetle…as in Super…brand new in 1973. At first I loved the thing. (The Thing was actually a different VW model…but that’s an entirely different tale.) It wasn’t long before the nagging little things that go wrong with Beetles regularly began happening. The passenger’s side window crank had a habit of breaking off in the rider’s hand while cranking down the window. And although these little beasts went great through the snow…and always seemed to start on cold days…the heater…or lack thereof…was a big…BIG problem. Even when the heaters worked…which was in about 20 percent of the cars produced…they were problematic. Take my 1973 Super Beetle for example. It had a great heater…too good as a matter of fact. I jokingly referred to the settings as “being of only two distinct levels”. HELL! And “off”.

But the heat was the least of my worries. About 18 months into ownership I was driving with Yvonne one fine day when the accelerator cable broke. Since the engine was in the rear of the car a cable ran from the gas pedal back through a small channel…out the firewall where it connected directly to the throttle of the carburetor. Now some of you might be impressed by all this automotive jargon I’m throwing out here. Don’t give it a second thought because none of these parts actually exists anymore. Anyway…the cable had a fragile little “s” hook that merely slipped into a hole underneath the gas pedal. High tech huh? And that stupid thing was constantly braking off. So on this, the very first time it happened, Yvonne and I were taken by complete surprise and left up to own invention as to a remedy. Fortunately I had a pair of vice grips in the car. While Yvonne tried to lay on the floor with the vice grips clamped tightly on the broken cable, I instructed her as to how far out she should pull the cable while I attempted to shift through the gears. This hot summer afternoon still stands as one of our finest moments as a couple. I learned soon enough it was much easier to carry a replacement cable at all times than to rely on vice grips. This discovery also gave me the freedom to drive all by myself.

As I said earlier, I’ve had several Beetles…some good…many not so good. (I distinctly recall a yellow one that I once ended up kicking the shit out of in a busy intersection…quite a scene. I lovingly nicknamed it “Lemon”.) But the very favorite Volkswagen I ever owned had to be the 1964 Microbus. It was the old style with the split front windshield and opposing side doors that open out in opposite directions. AND…it had been converted into a camper! Not one of your stock dealership campers, mind you…but a funky cross between acid trip/fishing lodge décor. Inside was that cheap paneling you used to be able to buy at places with names like “Paneltown” (There actually is a Paneltown here in Columbus. As a matter of fact that’s where we bought flooring when we remodeled our kitchen last year. We got a great deal…from the Mayor of Paneltown.) But the coup des grace was that it had been painted LIME GREEN!!!!

And just in case you are desperately wondering…yes the accelerator cable on this hippe van broke constantly also. In fact, one time after Dan, another friend and I had run the Cleveland Marathon…in the rain…we were forced to craw under this behemoth and fix…you guessed it…the accelerator cable! In the rain. After running 26.2 miles…in the rain. Those were the days! You can see how Volkswagen had this strange spell over people’s memories.

Anyway, despite the idiosyncrasies…despite all the work of adjusting the valves…changing the oil every 3500 miles…changing cables…the popping out of third gear on occasion…the ultimate slowness of the vehicle (It’s air cooled rear engine logged in at a powerful 53 horsepower.)…I had tons of fun in this mobile party pad. One St. Patrick’s Day it was dubbed, “The Mean Green St. Patty’s Day Machine”. It took groups to the Lake Erie Islands…camping in the Hocking Hills. Lot’s of people had great adventures in this old lime green hippie van. But the biggest adventure of them all was surely the vacation Yvonne and I took to Cape Ann, which is a beach area just north of Boston.

This was by far the longest trip ever taken in the 1964 Microbus. The two of us had it loaded to the gills for a week in the sun, on the beautiful Massachusetts’ shoreline. Little did we know, getting there would be the story. I mentioned briefly earlier that this albatross had a mere 53 horses pushing behind it. I hadn’t thought much about this until we got to the mountains in the western section of Massachusetts. It wasn’t so much that these were…by any means…huge ass snow covered mountains. By Ohio standards sure…they were big. But I’ve been to Germany and there are much larger ranges there. And that’s where they assembled our vacation wagon. Soon I discovered that if there was anyway we were to actually make it to the top of a mountain, I had to get this green monster moving as fast as possible DOWNHILL just for the CHANCE to make it up the next incline. That meant a 1964 VW Microbus/Camper (in lime green) doing no less that 92 miles per hour! You haven’t yet lived…or come close to a horrible death…if you have never been traveling downhill at 92 MPH in a vehicle whose front wheels sit directly under your ass!! The first thing that entered my mind…besides the “why is this thing shaking so damned much”…was the reality that in between my legs and (hey pick any moving object…a dump truck full of slag shall we say)…in between my legs and a dump truck full of slag was a sheet of metal about 3/8 of an inch thick. At 93 mile per hour…downhill…in a 64 VW bus…this is not an uplifting epiphany. Thoughts of going through the rest of my days with nothing below my knees rushed into my throbbing brain. The only advantage to losing one’s legs below the knees that I could come up with were that then…and only then…would you be able to ride comfortably in the backseat of a VW Beetle. I was truly uncomforted by this thought.

But if screaming downhill in the Massachusetts’ mountains was anything but terrifying the n trying to make it uphill was equally embarrassing. By about a third…just a THIRD…of the way back up the incline the lime green hippie machine immediately began slowing down. And by the time I had the thing halfway up the mountain…and I am NOT exaggerating here…I had the bus in second gear doing perhaps…oh…18 miles per hour! TOPS! And the noise! AYEE! An air cooled 53 horsepower reared mounted motor straining to push it’s cargo up a mountain is deafening…a deafening BAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Yvonne tried to speak to me. I mean…I saw her mouth moving but all I heard was BAAAAAAHHHH!!!
“What?” I yelled. Still…more mouthing and just BAAAAAAAHHHHH!! Then right before the crest of the incline…about half a mile from the top…one of the most embarrassing things to ever happen to me occurred. I looked into the big side mirror and saw…much to my amazement…a tractor trailer with a “Wide Load” sign lashed on the front…a tractor trailer pulling a modular home…not a trailer…a fucking MODULAR HOUSE!…turn his blinker on and move into the fast lane to pass. I was beside myself. I began to swear up a storm. “JEEEEZZZ UZZZ FUQUE ING KEEE RIST!!! I was yelling so loud Yvonne even heard me over the constant BAAAAAHHHH!!

By the time he came up alongside us we were doing maybe 12 miles per hour. BAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! I turned away as he crawled past. I couldn’t look the other driver in the eye. Who could? BAAAAAHH! Glancing into the rear view mirror I saw what looked like the parking lot on a busy day at Disney World. There must have been 150 cars impatiently waiting to go past a 12 MPH hippie van and an 18 MPH tractor trailer pulling a modular home with a “Wide Load “ sign strapped to the back! And of course over the hill I had to go as fast as possible downhill for the next mountain…as did the guys pulling the “Wide Load” It dawned on me just then to let him by. Otherwise there would be a repeat of the world’s slowest drag race each time there was a mountain ahead. And on every frikkin’ hill it was second gear….BAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! But soon Mr. Wide Load was ahead…out of sight. And I’ll tell ya…it’s a lot less embarrassing doing 18 MPH while the engine is deafening you with BAAAAAHHHHH!! when the vehicles passing you are going 65. They zip by you without looking.

We got to our destination safely. I believe the drive out and back must have cut off 3 days from our beach time. Yet we made the best of it and had a great time. Actually, sleeping in the lime green hippie van was more fun than driving it on the freeway. We made it home in one piece too…still have our legs below the knee. But if anyone tries to tell you what great cars the Volkswagen Beetles and Microbuses were…well…think of me driving up that mountain…BAAAAAAHHHH!…at a walker’s pace. Perhaps my father had a point. Maybe it was Hitler’s Revenge.