Subject: History, what life was really like in a 54 beetle
kombikim
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posted on December 23rd, 2002 at 08:32 AM
History, what life was really like in a 54 beetle
What life was like in a 54 beetle - History
It occured to me yesterday that I was one of the original Aussieveedubbers, coming home from hospital in a 54 on Xmas day 1956, & that very few of
you would know the trivial bits of history of what they were really like to live with, so hear goes.
My father ordered his cream 54 at Hercules Motors, before the 1st shipment landed, without having ever seen one, my trivial memories ----------------
It was very noisy.
from when I could walk & mum wasn't in the car I got to sit in the front on an upturned wooden box, so I could see out the windows, the
restraint mechanism in an emergancy stop was my father's arm, this only failed once & I hit my head on the dash.
I once vomited pineapple Juice on the front seat, this reacted with the leatherette & caused it to craze.
The car WAS NOT slow in its day, we really used to sit on 60mph on trips & really did get 40mpg.
Whenever we went away we HAD to have roof rack. especially by the time there were three kids.
Dad had a wooden measuring stick marked off in 1 gallon graduations for the petrol.
Sydney - Melbourne was a two day trip.
At least twice we went thru flooded roads that other cars couldn't, & I remember the sensation of the car actually floating for some
distance.
The car NEVER broke down until 1964 about half a mile from home, I think the diff broke, but I do remember that this led to the engine being
reconditioned at Wards Motors Penrith.
I remember I was very disappointed when dad replaced the semaphore indicators with the flashing "Ears" - the semaphores were fun to play
with,,,,maybe thats why they had to be replaced.
1954 beetles, easily identifiable by the small brake light above the tailight, were quit a status symbol among other Dubbers "we were the
first"
I was quite pissed off about the single exhaust pipe though, after all, with two pipes the other beetles had to be faster!
I was really upset when dad replaced the rear guards in 1965 with 1956 ones, losing the unique tailights.
when a hubcap fell off, usually on a corrugated dirt road, it was a big deal, we always had to hunt for it until it was found, they must have been
expensive..
I remember coming home from school in tears in 1964 because other kids called the car an old bomb. At that stage a car over 5 or 6 years old was
considered OLD.
I remember the first time we saw a 1500 type 3 (it was blue) & parked on the side of the Cox's River. It was a most beautiful thing, &
EVERYBODY was stopping to look at it, the poor guy couldn,t get away. Our car was traded in 1965 on a Mazda 800, which was also a fantastic car which
served us well until dad died in 1969. I saw the VW again in 1973 still with the original motor, which had not been reconditioned again & it had
covered over 400,000 miles, the car was near death though, looking at the body.
Hope this hasn't been totally boring
Kim
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posted on December 23rd, 2002 at 11:34 AM
beautiful story!!!
Hey Kim,
Just read your post...
i'd just like to say, i'm a 21 year old with a die hard passion for anything old and VW.
because i wasn't around when the car was first produced or even being produced stories like yours are unreal to read through and get a glimpse of
what it was like to live with a true original beetle!
Thanks once again for sharing.. and if anyone else has any stories of their beetle (or vw for that matter) filled childhood, i'd be greatly
appreciative to get a glimpse!
Thanks kim, great krissy present
:rudolf
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posted on December 23rd, 2002 at 11:09 PM
My Dad originally had a second-hand 1956 model that he bought when it was a year old, but in 1959 he bought a brand new Manly Tan Beetle from the
dealer in Parkes (R R Nock)
I came along in 1964. I remember growing up in the rear luggage compartment, which was where I always sat in trips (illegal today of course). Some
other memories:
* Chewing on the rubber rear seat restraint strap, and peeling off the roof liner just below the rear window. It tore in nice straight strips about
3mm wide.
* Looking at the reflection of Dad's lap and steering wheel on the windscreen on a sunny day. It looked like he was driving a truck, as the wheel
looked like it was horizontal
* When I helped Dad wash his Beetle, I was always amazed that I could put the hose to the exhaust pipes, and the water would just disappear somewhere
inside the engine. The car never complained.
* I have a slide (remember them?) somewhere of one of Dad's camping trips. The '59 had a roof rack, with a sabo sailboat tied down on it,
and also pulling a caravan!
* I still have the scar on my hand when I got my finger caught in the door the day it was slammed shut really hard.
Dad sold the '59 in '78, a few years before I got my licence, but sadly the new owner was a young kid who soon wrote it off. Dad had also
replaced the trafficators with blinkers, and the stock rear lights with later '63-67 blinker tail lights. It had a 1500 engine from a Kombi when
he sold it, about the fifth engine it had and had been built from spare and borrowed parts, all we could afford. It still ran, though.
Our street wasn't kerbed and guttered until the mid '70s. Until then it was loose gravel on the sides. Dad used to love hooning down the
road in the '59 and locking up a few doors away, coming to a skidding halt in front of our driveway in a cloud of dust and gravel.
vw54
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posted on December 24th, 2002 at 07:34 AM
My 2 sons both came home from the hospital in the Type 3 Wagon, now one is driving it every day and teh other is Learning to drive on it ( when he
can rescue it from his brother)
A.k.a.: Kim
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posted on December 24th, 2002 at 07:41 AM
Wow Phil, you were BAD,I would have been killed, one time when we were leaving for Melbourne, about 4am I went down to get in the car & found the
twins, about 1 year old, writing all over the inside of the just cleaned windows with soggy teething rusk's, I ran & hid, I think dad must
have woken up the whole of Glenbrook. I was never allowed in the luggage compartment, dunno why. I got my fingers flattened in the door a few times,
all the panels were a very tight fit,
after 38 years I still remember the smell if the Hessian? trim bits.
posted on December 23rd, 2002 at 11:34 AM
