So what was your intro to the aircooled world?

[Araon]

So whats your earliest memory of all things VW?

From an early age I loved bugs and busses and my old man loved this white bug he bought me mam sadly in a tantrum he torched it....

Well heres a pic of me and me sis in Fallingbostel shortly before we trashed the paint job whilst using the bug as a slide

it had a stunning red leather interior much like my backside shortly afterwards :shock:

 

[lard]

I grew up in Germany so was always seeing vw's around in my early days and took a shine to beetles - back in the Uk and one day my next door neighbour came home with a ratty looking bug, it disappeared and 6 months later was on his drive with a mean gun metal grey paint job and red leather interior 8)

Could never afford a vw in my youth so had minis and triumphs...then a couple of golfs....then as i was nearing the end of a 7 year restoration on my gt6 my brother turns up in his 67 bay and the rivalry started all over again :lol: - thought I'd be gutted selling the triumph as had never driven it but haven't looked back since

Now he's gone and got a fastback and I'd quite like a square back with 3 kids and all but I still have a longing for a bug......

What's nice is my kids are into vw's already so wont have to go 30 years before getting their hands on one!

 

[Marvel]

I used to do a lot of dinghy sailing as a teenager. Then when the guy I used to sail with turned 17 he got a late westy which we then used as accomodation for regattas.

14 years later I was in a position to get one and the wife thought it would be a good passtime that she and the kids could get involved with (unlike rugby and skydiving!!) so she bought the van. 8)

 

[67panel]

been a mechanic since left school when i was 15,old school style country garage ,mend any thing.one of our customers had bettles as his repmobile,another a white 72 and one with a 412LE with petrol heater on a M plate and i can remember a split with cable brakes ,that was early 70s and it was rough then .aloso had a local plumber/builder with a yellow and brown split panel(it should have been yellow all over but the brown bits had started outnumbering the yellow).allways liked them ,nicer to drive than a lot off the cars you got then! could have bought a notch as well off one customer for £200 and it was mint ,but that would be like £1500 today i recon .anyway when i took over the garage clive who runs Individual Interiors (now the Camper Shop)asked me if i would alter a small pop top westy roof into a late Devon opening ,the customer was a member of the local vw club and as i was happy to do other work,mot ect i started getting lots of dubs in .it dont take much to get hooked :shock: first was a t3 panel,denzil the diesel.the rest as they say is history or fate :lol:

 

[Danbury Doug]

My love affair with them began c1970, when I would have been only 4 years old.
My parents hired a new Dormobile for a day, and we went to Bristol Zoo in it, from Portsmouth, where we lived.
I remember my dad picking the bus up the day before, and seeing it parked outside the house from my bedroom window!
I was hooked from that day on!

My folks went on to buy a brand new '72 Danbury.
We had some fab holidays in that bus, which we had for about 17 years!
Below is a pic of it, as we descended the airey mountain, following a skiing holiday. If you look carefully at the pic, you will notice my family all wrapped up with jackets and blankets etc, due to the lack of heating, as the engine didn't get a chance to warm up for the 20 minutes or so it took us to trundle gently down the mountain roads! :lol: I remember that occasion very well!

I used to accompany my dad to the local dealership, each time the bus went for a service, and my treat each visit was for me to go into the showroom and have a clamber over the gleaming buses and panel vans etc that were on display. :mrgreen: At the same time I would pick up a few more brochures for my collection, all of which I still have!

It was only a matter of time until I would eventually have my own bus!

 

[Mr Brightside]

Might have been warmer if you drove with the sliding door closed

 

[slammedresto]

mine began in the mid 80s at school, reading volksworld and custom car. when i was old enough to drive i was bought a used peugot 205 diesel :msn4:

once i had my own money, i sold the pug and bought my first aircooled, a restored 61 anthracite and cream bug, lowered with whitewalls, hence the slammedresto moniker. It was all downhill from there.................lol

 

[Fortunate Son]

I started helping my dad from the age of 6 as he restored various vehicles (generally always getting the fiddly / awkward / messy jobs to do!); an Allis Chalmers B tractor, sit up and beg Ford Popular, Austin Healey Frog Eye Sprite and a knackered twin back wheel Bedford CF van are a few that I remember well.
Before I came along he had had three beetles; an oval and two early big windows. When I was about 12, I clearly remember him coming home one day very excited about a rare vw kit car he had heard about that may be for sale. This turned out to be a GP Kubelwagen that had been used in the film A Bridge Too Far. It had been stood for a very long time but was pretty complete. It was built on a 1972 1500 floorpan - JDM514K (what a memory!! ) I helped extensiveley with this resto / rebuild and loved the uniqueness of this vehicle - it was quite a head turner driving around North Wales back in 83/84. The Kubel went on to be owned by my Uncle / Cousin a few years later but sadly met its demise not long after they got it, being fibreglass bodied it was a total write off Just before selling the Kubel my dad bought a 76 Viking which I absoluteley loved. We had some excellent holidays in that van. (A few years back I was milling around the pits at Bug Jam and saw it again - unbeleivable!! A guy from Mexborough with an army green Baja drag racer had it as his tow vehicle / weekend crash pad!)
One of the cars I learned to drive in in 1988 was a 74 1303 which was shared with my Mum. I didnt drive another aircooled again until 1997 (though the "bug" was still in the blood), this one was a 1975 1800 bay that me and two mates bought at Kings Cross car market in Sydney and subsequently drove around Australia. I then bought a 1970 Beetle in 2000 very cheap (I still have it) I bought my early bay in 2006. Would love an early Beetle one day, would also love a Kubel again!!

 

[Matt_B]

Went to bug jam in 1991 with a friend who had a Beetle - I knew nothing of the VW scene but fell in love with beetles and bought my first one a few months later.

 

[ib-bus]

I had my first air cooled back in the early '80s while in high school , a nice '71 Baja convertible , lack of funds and a top for those rare rainy days made me sell it a few years later and got something more reliable for those long commutes to work, had a few watercooled VWs after that but it was not until early '05 when my wife asked me to get her a Baywindow Westy to use with the kids we were planning on having , finished that first resto in June of '06 shipped it to the UK to have our last kid less vacation and drove around Europe for a month, later that year we had our first kid in December of '06 , got hooked on the resto-travel on a Bus around the UK thing and the rest is history.
So it's really my wife's fault I got hooked on earlybays , but you can't blame her for having good taste.

 

[NickJ]

My earliest memories of a car was a Beetle, my parents had an early sixties Beetle when I was born then bought a new '66 Beetle I remember going to school sitting in the space behind the rear seat we didn't worry about seat belts then. In '69 they bought a new 1600 Fastback which they kept for about 10 years but then it died from terminal rust. Got my own Beetle in '87 a Kansas Beige '73 1300 and did 50K miles in 5 years only sold it when my wife was expecting our first child as it had no heating, there's a surprise :lol: Bought my first Bay '96 and not looked back. So you could say they truly have been a life long passion so far :mrgreen:

 

[guidddo]

The first i remember is the new van of the milkman, a white and blue twotone earlybay
My first aircooled hands on experience was a solex moped but that does not count i think
the first car expierience was giving the neighbor a hand lifting a beetle over its motor

these are pickies of the first holliday with my parents in a borrowed crossover

 

[monkeyvanwestybike]

So whats your earliest memory of all things VW?

From an early age I loved bugs and busses and my old man loved this white bug he bought me mam sadly in a tantrum he torched it....

Well heres a pic of me and me sis in Fallingbostel shortly before we trashed the paint job whilst using the bug as a slide

it had a stunning red leather interior much like my backside shortly afterwards :shock:

I had to move a westy when working at a house for a builder back in 78
i remember the owner of the van saying to to me did you find reverse ok?

I think that is a ford Taunus next to the bug in your pic!

 

[Clem]

I remember my Dad having a bug when I was very young, maybe 3 years old? I clearly remember him asking us not to breath on cold mornings :lol: I used to sit in the bit behind the rear seat to look out of the rear window ... :shock: Dad ended up kippering it and I recall us climbing on it whilst it awaited scrap collection, he never had new cars so I guess it must have been an an early 60's model.

He then had a couple of company cars, an early 70's Fastback (I then used to sit on the rear centre armrest!) after that he had a very early Mark 1 Golf with the houndstooth interior 8)

In the meantime my sister had several bugs which all got scrapped though crashes or rust :roll: and in the latter 80's we saw the RTTS convoy coming down the M4 as we were heading to Margate on Scooters. Within a month Id bought a 73 1200A Bug for £250 :mrgreen:

Van wise the 'rich' family in out village had a Bay Microbus and it was used for communal village outings, and our relatives had a Devon Bay, I distinctly recall seeing them go to bed in the roof bunks ... how jealous were we as kids??

 

[buddysbuddy]

This was mine - reckon I must have been about 6 or 7 when we got it......

This photo was taken in France.

My best memory is helping my old man to paint it with rollers on the drive after we returned - dark blue up to the waistband.

We also had a beetle for a little while, and then 'progressed?' to a T25 syncro.

 

[AxlFoley]

I'm not sure why I go itn to Air cooled VW's all I know is that I have always been into them. this was my first on the day I boght it, a 1974 1303, bought on my 16th birthday, so many memories.

some time later and a lot of cash it looked like this

unfortunatley the dreaded tinworm got at it, its now in the big scrapyeard in the sky

 

[Araon]

I had to move a westy when working at a house for a builder back in 78
i remember the owner of the van saying to to me did you find reverse ok?

I think that is a ford Taunus next to the bug in your pic!

Indeed it is that was the old mans, i dont think he ever owned a new motor.... as a young man (rocker before joining the army) he worked in a local (south shields) garage and they used to race their cars up the John reid road (route of the great North run now)..... anyway I digress this was always his favorite motor of all time and regretted leaving it behind, i remember a long drive through France and Germany overnight in that thing the four of us freezing our tits off mid winter.....

 

[Justin & Muttley]

...unfortunatley the dreaded tinworm got at it, its now in the big scrapyeard in the sky

It's not tinworm that made the roof look like that!! :lol: :lol:


My first car in 1990 was a '72 bug - I threw loads of cash at it and it still looked like **** (slopey headlights and wings, early rear wings and lights, 'W' decklid, lowered, purple wheels!!!
I worked at a large restaurant at the time and there were loads of VW's among the staff cars; about 8 or 9 bugs, a couple of late bays and a Wizard roadster - we used to line them up in the carpark every saturday night!!
Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the bug but I'm trying to get hold of one from the old owner.

 

[froggy]

My intro was this, 'if you want it come and collect it' a trailer and a mates disco later and its parked on my driveway

Its the only aircooled i own and the only 1 i have ever owned.
It was sat in its previous burial ground for 7 years (it had to be oulled out from the under growth that had engulfed it) and prior to this for a further 7 years with its previous owner sat on his driveway

 

[Slammed]

My first was a '73 1303, I got rid of it after it popped a fuel line and burned out the motor, then six months later the front wheel overtook me on a country road!
Since then I've had a '56 ragtop oval, '54 oval, '64 notch, '66 splitty panel van and now the '70 deeluxe.

8)