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Topic starter
21/10/2023 3:56 pm
Zeeky Banutski
The People’s Republic of Maryland
21/10/2023 4:58 pm
These are all beautiful and probably very powerful Porsche drive train as well. Not too speed bump friendly though.....
22/10/2023 12:48 pm
When you know more about the Beetle, it is just so hard to understand that they were sold by the millions....
Bad gas-mileage, bad road-holding, bad heater, very noisy...
What were people thinking ??? 
22/10/2023 6:25 pm
@joop I've had a few over the years and aside from desperately needing a gas heater they are great IMHO. I would like to have a mid-60s Beetle and Karmann Ghia at this point in time.
John Kuvakas reacted
22/10/2023 6:54 pm
The beetle had a charm all its own. It was cute in its own way that earned it cult status and that's all it took. The advertising back in the day was innovative and fun which didn't hurt.
Jack Dodds and John Kuvakas reacted
22/10/2023 8:43 pm
The Beetle was well-built, fairly inexpensive, and easy to maintain. It was a great brand-new car for the price of a used one and was the first car for many a high-school grad and young folks just getting started. They were dependable and could last a long time with routine maintenance. There was very little to dislike.
John Kuvakas
Warrenton, VA
Jack Dodds reacted
22/10/2023 9:08 pm
The Beetle was well-built, fairly inexpensive, and easy to maintain. It was a great brand-new car for the price of a used one and was the first car for many a high-school grad and young folks just getting started. They were dependable and could last a long time with routine maintenance. There was very little to dislike.
Those are good points, John. They were developed in the Thirties as a so-called "peoples car" and, after the war, used ones, as you point out, were the affordable introduction for many in America.
23/10/2023 1:27 pm
Come on guys, if you compare the 70's Beetle to other European cars from the same era, they were much noisier than let's say an Opel.
Road handling was way off, that's why a lot of people used to throw bags of sand in the front, especially when it was windy.
But that would increase fuel consumption and because we Dutch always had one of the highest gas-prizes in Europe, that was not welcomed.
A friend of mine had one of the last German Beetles and during the winter she always complained that it took her more that 15 km of driving to get some heat from the engine to defrost the windshield.
And let's not forget it was terribly tail-heavy.
In hindsight, one may smile when told about these things and nowadays people see these quirks as character.....