Bugged by news about the Beetle

I’ve never been a car junkie, but I can’t imagine living without one. I was thinking about the cars in my life several months ago after reading about Volkswagen ending production of the Beetle this year after 80 years. The story brought back memories from 50 years ago.

In the early 1970s I bought a 1964 Bug. It wasn’t my first car – that was a ’64 Rambler American I shared with my mother – but it was the first car I bought. Who didn’t love VW’s Bugs and Buses back then?

It was rear-engine and air cooled with a stick shift on the floor and got great gas mileage before gas became expensive. I could fill up the tank for under $3 because gas cost about $.27 per gallon back then. Compare that to today.

It wasn’t much on power. When I would drive home from college, I had to get a running start to make it up the hill outside of town. Sometimes I thought I could run faster than that car moved when it reached the top of that hill.

That was the first of about 20 cars I’ve owned during 51 years of driving, including many years as a two-car family. Most of them we kept between five and 10 years. I recently tried to make a list of all of the cars I’ve owned. Great nostalgia. That includes several mini vans, which allowed parents to separate their children (“Mom, she’s touching me.”) and carry all the things that never fit in the trunk of a car.

I’ve never had an interest in owning another Beetle, but it’s sad to see such an iconic symbol of the ’60s and my journey into adulthood end. 

The Beetle was associated with the decade of love – the love bug – and was featured in the “The Love Bug” movies of the late ’60s and early ’70s. The Bug and the Bus were favorites of the hippies and the flower power generation of the ’60s. College kids tried to see how many people they could stuff into a Bug, when they weren’t doing the same thing in phone booths. Remember those? Those challenges may have seemed silly, but they made more sense than some of the things kids do now.

The Bug spawned the punch buggy game – punch buggy (red), no punch backs – that entertained kids (“Mom, he’s hitting me”) who watched for the cars on long family rides decades before electronic devices came on the scene.

It also had one of the top advertising campaigns of the 20^thCentury – “Think small.”

The beauty of the Bug back then was its simplicity. Now it’s hard to live without all the bells and whistles – gauges, navigation, power accessories, remote starters, heated seats and voice-activated commands. I used to take pride in believing that a car was simply a way to get from one place to another. I’ve become spoiled, although I sometimes try to convince myself that it’s all in the name of safety.

As I’ve grown older, all of that technology helps on long drives, which seem longer than they did when I was in my 20s. Which is part of the reason I’ve been thinking about owning a sports car. If you’re going to spend a lot of time behind a wheel, shouldn’t it be a little fun to drive? 

It couldn’t possibly be a mid-life crisis because I’m no longer middle-aged. Besides, it’s not likely to happen because I don’t like to spend excessive money on insurance, repairs and high-octane gas.

All of which never were concerns when I owned that Beetle five decades ago. 

Even though I have no interest in reliving those days, they are good memories of a much simpler time.