I'm new here - age 57 and working on getting my first Westy.  My first
car was a '66 442 Olds, but then I abandoned the drag racing fantasy.  I
had a '68 beetle back in the day - with a big peace symbol taking up the
back window.  It ran great even after a rock fell off a Rocky Mountain
and did in the windshield and made it go down the road not-quite-
straight.   Then I had a friend with a '68 bus that a bunch of us took to
rock concerts and which got searched on a regular basis.  Go figure.
Much later, a friend of mine with a '71 bus wanted to go cross-country to
ski at Brian Head, UT.  Thought we were going to have to back it up the
mountain in reverse, but finally crawled up.  Have wanted a bus ever
since, but wasn't even allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia (3 years) and
when I got to the Navajo rez, needed a 4WD (didn't know about syncros)
and ended up with a Blazer, followed by another Blazer.  When I went back
to school recently I met a friend with a Westy and that was all it took
to rekindle the old desire for a bus.