Got my first VW in 1967... It was a tan one year old '66 and bought it used from a VW dealer... Didn't take long for it to go from looking like a boring '66 VW to a not-so-boring hippie buy with flowers and peace signs painted all over it... It lasted me 3 years when I sold it to another hippie and set off for the West Coast in my band's old equipment truck, a '49 Ford Panel van, also painted up with the usual hippie art work...

Didn't last too long on the left coast and found myself back in Richmond and bought a '60 VW panel bus with door on both sides and Westfalia camper in the back... It had been wrecked and had no engine but, hey, it was cheap... Over the next few months I did the body work and found a 1600 dual port engine for it and had it on the road... About that time I was dating this newly separated lady who had a '65 Karmann Ghia that needed a clutch... She sold it to me cheap...

So for the next 10 years (at least) those two VeeDubs were all I had to get around but that was fine 'cause by then I had figured out how to do anything that needed to be done to keep then running well...

(Well, fine, Boberdz... Where's the story???)

Okay, running fine and looking fine are two different animals... It was around '75 and the Karmann Ghia had gone thru quite transformation mechanically with modifies suspension, engine, wheels and tires and I was auto-cross racing it on Sundays... But I really didn't care all that much what the poor thing looked like and the rear bumper had gotten bent up so I bolted a 2X6 board to the bumper brackets... Oh, an' okay... I might not have had the best turn signal lenses in the world and the wiper blades were shot... Well, the mother of my son and I had been up north in DC for a party and were about 10 miles from Richmond on our way home when a State Trooper decided that he didn't much like the looks of my VW... Well, that kinda made two of us.... I didn't much like the looks of his copcar with them blues lights flashing behind me...

"Driver's license and registration"...

Okay...

So Officer Meanie has my drivers license and my registration and tells me to get out of the car... I'm thinking, "What, am I gonna get arrested for driving an ugly old VW?"... He then precedes to walk around the car with me pointing out the cracked lenses, the worn out wipers and then gets around to the right rear of the car, puts his foot up on that wood bumpers and says, "And further more, your bumper is on fire"...

Well, yeah... The exhaust had it kinda smoldering a little... I wouldn't call it "on fire"... I mean, there were no flames but it was smoldering and a little smoke was coming from it...

"Son, I want you to follow me"...

I had no idea where he was going to lead me??? The ugly car jail??? The hippie jail... I mean, this was back then when hippies and cops didn't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff...

So we pull into this gas station in Glen Allen, Va. and he says for me to park the car behind it and then tells me that I have to have a tow truck come get it and take it to a repair shop to fix all the things he pointed out... He tells the guy at the gas station that a tow truck will be coming for it and then says to me, "Get that car fixed, Son" and leaves us standing in the office of the gas station...

The guy working there asks how many tickets I got and, well, I really hadn't gotten any actual tickets so I said, "None"...

"No way" he said, "That cop is the meanest trooper out there... He'd write his own mother a ticket."

Well, folks... I've often remarked that God looks after fools, drunks and kids so I guess I had triple coverage that day...

Oh, and do you really think I had my car towed out of there??? Heck no, I didn't... The buddy I called to come get me and my son's mother drove me back out there after it got good and dark and drove it back home that night...

B~