My first car was a VW Super Beetle (71 if anybody cares.) I loved that
car. I got it 80k miles, put another 80K on it. In between I had to
replace the engine (dropped a valve head which chewed up a piston and
bent the main crank.) I lost it in an engine fire.

And you know what? I also hated that car. I hated scraping my knuckles
everytime I changed the sparkplugs. I hated the fact that I didn't have
an oil filter. I hated the fact that I didn't have AC. When the heater
boxes rusted through, I hated not having heat in the winter. Or
alternatively having enough heat to melt plastic if you were unwary
enough to leave it in front of the heater vents. I hated having to
choose between having windshield wiper fluid, or having air in my spare
tire.

The day it burned up, I swore I'd never own an aircooled engine again.
And I haven't. I still miss that beetle. I don't miss its quirks though.

On Friday, May 9, 2003, at 02:03  AM, Robert Keezer wrote:

> I don't know about you, but after I take a long hard look at a
> beautifully
> restored spit window bus - the repressed memories all come back to
> haunt me.
> It was that bad.