Originally posted by gaweidert A few old VW stories form my youth.
A friend had one. Would only run on one cylinder but as the engine warmed up the other three would kick in.
Another friend of mine had one. He used candles to defrost his windshield. His beater did not have the optional heater.
When I managed a gas station the night shift guy always had interesting stories. One morning he told me of a girl who stopped in the night before with her Beetle and asked him to add a quart of antifreeze to her radiator. He tried to explain to her that she had an air cooled engine and did not need any antifreeze. She got all huffy, accused him of calling her boyfriend a liar and being lazy for not wanting to do his job. So he told her to start her engine. He lifted the bonnet, took a quart of antifreeze and poured it all over her engine. This got her concerned about all the steam but he told her it was just the antifreeze working and all was okay. She paid for it and drove off happy.
Those old Beetles had to be about the greatest cars ever made.
On my '61 Beetle I put a frost shield on the inside of the windshield as with our -30 weather, the defroster / heater which relied on heat coming from the air cooled engine, wasn't enough to keep passengers warm or the windshield defrosted. Later on I had a '69 VW Beetle which had the optional gas heater and that kept all passengers warm and all windows defrosted.
I never got stuck in my air cooled, rear engine V-Dubs...in snow or mud. I remember going to a rock concert in a farmer's field in my '61 VW. Everybody in about every model of car, paid their admission, drove over the dry field in the farmer's field, enjoyed the concert...then the heavens opened with a torrent of rain.
There was a lot of slipping, sliding, fish tailing, wheel spinning on the way out from all the regular front engined, rear drive cars. This was in the 1960's when people didn't have 4WD anything, just regular cars.
Near the exit there was a morass of mud...thick, heavy, gooey prairie gumbo...which is almost impassable for any two wheel drive vehicle. The farmer whose land the concert had been on, was an enterprising man. He sat there on his Massey-Harris farm tractor, engine idling with the metal cap over his tall exhaust stack...flapping up and down from the tractor's power strokes.
He had a grin on his face, a chain with a hook, and a hand lettered sign hastily painted on a wood board that said tows- $ 5.
Some people tried to drive across this huge mudhole and invariably got stuck...real good...about 10 feet in. He would get his $ 5, hitch them up and pull them through the mud.
Then it was my turn and I thought I think my V-Dub will get through this, or at least I'll give it a shot and if I can't make it through, then I'll pay my 5 bucks.
I backed up about 20 feet, revved the engine to get full advantage of my 37.5 horsepower,
popped the clutch , hit the redline in first, then hammered a shift to second to get as much momentum as I could and der Beetle slipped, slid and spun it's wheels at top revs ('bout 3800 rpm)
through this previously impenetrable mud hole and got to the other side on it's own power and merits. I saved 5 bucks, had the satisfaction of wiping the grin off the grasping farmer and yes...could hear a bit of a cheer from the stuck multitudes.
The VW Beetle with it's tall, skinny tires (5.60-15), great traction with the engine directly over the rear drive wheels, the chassis with it's smooth, one piece, sheet metal bottom (which slid over snow and mud) and light weight, combined to never get me stuck, as long as I used momentum and lots of it.