SuperBeetles.Com

BACK to Gallery 3

Mike's 1964 Beetle

I am proud and lucky to say that I own one of the cars that out produced the Model-T Ford (and it took a lot of them to do it). I am a Beetle owner and I know I'm not alone but let me tell you about my car who's name is Dieter (pronounced Dee' ter for those who don't sphrecht Deutsch). Dieter and I crossed paths when I was in high school, about 32 years ago, when I was looking for my first car and he's been mine ever since. My Dad had just passed away and my Brother was the 'man of the house' and wanted to get me something simple, reliable and easy to work on. We looked at several advertised VW's and Dieter was it. His first owner who bought him in '64 wanted $550.00 but my Brother talked him down to $500.00.

His odometer had already gone around once with the first owner and in my time I made it go around twice. It took me time to learn to drive Dieter as he was/is a standard and I had passed my Driver's Ed that same year on an automatic. I owe my Sister for the stick shift lessons, who came to visit us from Oklahoma and had a VW of her own. And that is how the saga began. I drove him through High School, then college, then my first job and on and on as the years and the odometer rolled by. If only Dieter could talk, the stories he would tell. Like the first day I drove him in daylight and he got creamed in the side by a '74 Torino station wagon! But an artist of a paint and body man brought him back to life looking great. When I taught school he rushed a child to the hospital who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. And when a stalled winter storm in the '80's once dumped an unprecedented amount of snow on tropic San Antonio, Dieter was one of the few cars still able to make it around on the freeway that day thanks to his great rear engine traction.

He taught me how to work on cars and do everything from rebuilding his carburetor to replacing his master cylinder. Dieter introduced me to John Muir and his great VW Idiot Book with all the cool cartoons (who in turn taught me how to drive my Bug without a working clutch the night Dieter broke down in Austin TX and I had to get back home to the suburbs without a tow truck). My Kaefer taught me faithfulness between Man and Machine never once leaving me stranded on the side of the road, even when I had my initiated engine fire. They say you haven't bonded with your VW until three events have happened - you've had an engine fire, you've had to move the battery over to the other side of the car under the seat and you've named your car. Well, I have done all three and then some. I've driven Dieter on two cylinders, with no brakes and twice watched him roll out of my driveway in horror with no one in the car. Miraculously he lived through all incidents.

In the 90's my ex and I would take him to the local Saturday night car show we'd have in my small town outside Austin where you could see every make of car, from Model-A's to Corvettes, and Dieter always drew a crowd despite my partner's VW Corrado being in the lime light. It seemed like everyone there I met had a VW story of their own to tell as my Kaefer brought back many memories to them. I was also lucky enough to have Dieter make it on TV in the 90's when the PBS series Motorweek featured him on national TV as their 'Car of the Week'. I guess that was my fifteen seconds of fame or actually Dieter's 15 seconds of fame. And of course, owning Dieter through the years got me into the VW toy collecting habit of which now I have hundreds of VW toys all over my house including a plush Herbie the Love Bug that sits in Dieter's back luggage compartment behind his rear seat. You may have read some of my toy articles in this very newsletter some time ago entitled, "Think Small…Think Toys". And I'm the same guy that won the contest naming this newsletter as the Vintage Voice. But I digress……

Having made it from the 20th Century to the 21st , Dieter has now been semi retired as I have a Saturn for a daily driver and one day he will be permanently retired as a static display in my garage where he will stay with me 'til 'death do us part'. I have no children to pass him onto so I will donate him somewhere whenever I one day leave this Earth. Perhaps the VVWCA will inherit him. Often in a strange and romantic thought I have an odd vision that Dieter and I can always be together as I might have my ashes from cremation put into a Blumenvase to go on his dash where we can both remain in some wonderful auto museum together for the years to come among the VWs, Packards, Duesenburgs and other great cars from the golden age of automobiles. And so to you the reader I say thanks for learning a little about me and my Bug and reading my story. And as it says on the back of my car, "Old Bugs Never Die". (They just go to old Volks homes!)