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After that I had an empty
spot in my garage for a while, and nothing seemed to catch my interest.
Until one day my wife
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After that I had an empty
spot in my garage for a while, and nothing seemed to catch my interest.
Until one day my wife
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Working
around automobiles is something that's in my blood. My father, uncle,
cousin and both of my sons work in the automotive trade. My grandfather
used to work on the assembly line at the GM plant in Oshawa, hand
painting the pinstripes on the new cars as they passed by on the assembly
line. I also work in the automotive industry and my love of the automobile
makes my job a pleasure rather than a chore. It has been said, "Work
at what you love, and you'll never work another day in your life"
and I truly believe that.
The passion that I have for all things automotive is something that
follows me once I leave the office for the day. I've had a few hobby
cars in the past, a 1990 Suzuki Samurai, a 1972 Honda N600 and a few
motorcycles too. The last was a 1971 Fiat Spyder that I restored myself
at home. Unfortunately the poor Fiat suffered from terminal rust and
I was getting tired of fixing holes that formed each winter, so it
had to go. 
and
I were driving through Mississauga and we came across a young guy
working on a totally customized vintage VW Beetle. Mariano's 1975
Super Beetle was done up in a beautiful teal colour with a white leather
interior, slammed, de-chromed, Porsche wheels, and a hot motor. I
had never seen an air-cooled Volkswagen that looked like this. He
told us of a VW event that was being held near Kitchener the next
weekend and invited us along. When we arrived at the "11th Annual
Bug Out" we were shocked to see over a hundred vintage VWs of
every description. There were stock Beetles, customized ones, Campers,
Karmann Ghias and other Volkswagens dating back to the early 1950s.
Everyone was very friendly and before we left the show we decided
that a vintage Beetle was going to be our next car. I spent the next
month traveling all over Ontario, looking at every Beetle that I found
for sale in the local newspaper, online, and in the Auto Trader magazine.
From visiting various web sites, I knew where to look for rust and
how to tell a good prospect from a basket case. After checking out
over ten Beetles I began to lose hope, it seems that winters in Ontario
are hard on the Beetles floor pans and heater channels. I could have
bought one and started a ground up restoration but something told
me to keep looking. 
That
summer my wife and I took a vacation to Vancouver to visit our neighbors
that had moved there due to work obligations. Before we left home
I promised that I would spend no more than two days trying to find
that elusive Beetle in the salt free streets of British Columbia.
The second day was winding down and I was having no more luck out
there than I did back in Ontario. We were on our way to see one last
Beetle and there it was. Sitting in the used car lot of a Honda dealership
was a Harvest Gold 1975 Volkswagen Super Beetle, La Grande Edition.
It was late in the day and the dealership was closed so I pulled over
and gave the Bug the once over through the fenced in lot, and it looked
perfect. 9 am the next morning we were out on a test-drive around
the block in my new find. I pulled the VW to the curb and crawled
all over it. This Bug was mint! Under the front hood I found extra
parts, shop manuals, receipts for repairs and a pile of VW magazines
including one called VW Trends. I noticed the previous owners' phone
number on an old invoice and I thought; why don't I call him? The
owner was only too happy to tell me the story of his beloved Beetle
and the painstaking restoration that it had gone through. He finally
sold it to get a bigger car and by the end of the conversation he
had convinced me to buy it from the dealership. I shipped my Beetle
back home to Toronto via rail, and it took nearly two weeks to arrive.
We went to the depot to pick it up and started the cruise home, enjoying
the smiles and waves from people that saw it. It seems that the Volkswagen
Beetle is one of the most recognized shapes in the world and even
though the last Beetle was sold in 1979, little children still know
the Bug. 
We
cruised in our Beetle every weekend and started attending air-cooled
VW events all over Ontario and made friends wherever we traveled.
Everyone we meet seems to have a story about his or her experience
with this popular car. Whether it was scraping the ice off the inside
of the front windshield or riding in that little spot behind the rear
seat, the stories and smiles never seem to stop. The more Beetle owners
I met, the more my fascination with the whole phenomenon grew. Doing
a bit of web design where I work I decided to start a web site dedicated
to the air-cooled Beetle. It became so popular that I started a second
site (