Five years ago when our three sons had grown and left "the nest", my wife, Joyce, and I began to reminisce about the first VW, a 1966 1300 Beetle that we bought when we lived in Germany during the first three years of our marriage. I had just graduated college and had an army commitment to satisfy. It was our first car and we and we loved it so that we shipped it back and drove it unit it finally "expired". We traded it in for a 1974 Type III Square Back when our first son was born.

The desire to own another Bug got stronger each time we past a local automotive repair shop that had a VW cemetery in the back. I finally stopped in one day to talk to the owner as he worked on one of the cars that he pulled in from the field to ask him how to get started. He told me to go to the local supermarket and pick up a copy of the local Auto Trader to check out a few VW's for sale and buy a current copy of VW Trends magazine where I would find numerous parts supplier ads. I did just that and as I looked through that March 1998 issue, I saw an article inside featuring a 1974 special edition SUN BUG owned and restored by a man named Mike McClanahan of Beckley, West Virginia who I learned had been featured before in VW Trends. I thought wouldn't it be great to find one just like it in our area. As fate would have it, there was one for sale in that same Auto Trader. It was located down in Atlanta, just a 1-1/2 hour drive from our hometown of Dalton, GA. We contacted the woman who owned it and she still had it for sale. For whatever reason she had previously listed it in the Atlanta Journal with no takers. She then listed it at a greatly reduced price in the Auto Trader but wouldn't sell it to the only previous caller, a father who wanted it as his sixteen-year-old son's first car. She told me she only would sell it to someone she felt would take care of it since she had owned it from the beginning and it was part of her life's memories.

We drove it for two years, entered it in shows, and it did quite well in the Daily Driver classes. Two years later in the winter of 2000, we took it down to restore it so we cold enter it in the more prestigious stock classes. It has won first place here also since the final restoration. What we love best about attending shows is to talk to and listen to other people as they check out all the cars and reminisce about their younger days and the joyful memories they had owning their first VW.

Bill & Joyce Schuler
Dalton, GA

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