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Who all had this book back in the day?

Without the Internet I never knew about the book but sure could have used it for my '68 Beetle. First time driving it I found it eerie that I could roll up the passenger window with out leaning over.
 
Never ever owned a VW but came close. I wanted to spend our last $ 950 on a VW bus but my cheque bounced by a buck or two. Never intended that to happen and when I offered to pay cash the guy got cold feet. May have been a blessing in disguise. We really needed the money more than the VW. I really wanted the VW more than the money. I still see one go by (slowly) every once in awhile and wonder what might have been.
My girlfriend (later my wife) learned to drive on her mom's VW bug. It and the subsequent bugs in that family were prone to breakdowns. They could've used this book.
 
lol, never owned the book, but the first car I bought with my own money was a 67 VW fastback, The lady I bought it from liked the fact that it didn;t need water, but she didn't keep up with the oil and blew the motor. I gave her a $100 for it and rebuilt the motor in my driveway for about 200. This was 1975. My best friend in HS had a beetle that we ran the crap out of too. If that bug could talk I'd still be in jail... My grandfather had a westfalia wagon that he'd take me on camping and fishing trips. That thing couldn't get out of its own way. It was a 76 or 77. VW's back in those years were a hoot.
 
I never had that book either, but I had a VW...sort of.

When I was 19 years old, I bought an incomplete kit car, a Bradley GT, from a dude that was overwhelmed by the process of building a car.
I had to finish the interior, wiring, install the glass, and install an engine.
This was all based on a 1972? Super Beetle chassis.
I bought a 1600 cc engine from a wreck, bought a big bore kit for it, a header and a high performance intake and two Webers.

All together, the car weighed 1,400 lbs, I don't know how much horsepower or torque it had, but it would zip to 105 mph faster than some muscle cars, and could take street corners at 50 mph!!
The overwhelmed original owner had put in Koni shocks, a quick steering kit and a shift kit. I think it was 1-1/2 turns lock to lock on the steering.
It was like a street legal go kart, that really moved.

Sadly, I sold that car to pay for a drilled well. I have photos somewhere...
 
I guess I win the prize for the oldest VW so far and I had the book about 40 years ago. Paid a couple hundred dollars for the old bug after I destroyed my 55 Chevy and needed something to get back and forth to school. Drove the VW my first two years of college then gave it to my father who drove it another 3 or 4 years. That VW was around 20 years old when he finally handed it down to my step sister. It was a 1959 with a whole 36 horsepower and practically no heat in winter. Wooden dip stick for a fuel gauge. Traded up to a 1960 Alfa Giulietta Sprint and from there it was on to a Saab 96. The Saab had a three cylinder 2 stoke engine and was my last adventure with old cars for a number of years. That VW is still one of the favorite cars I owned and luckily we only needed the book for relatively minor repairs but the car was so simple even I could repair just about every part on it.
 
That VW is still one of the favorite cars I owned and luckily we only needed the book for relatively minor repairs but the car was so simple even I could repair just about every part on it.

I come from a family of VW owners. We had a Bug, or different Bugs, through the early 1960’s and into the 70’s, including a baby blue convertible. My father used a couple different bus variants for his side business, including a pickup and a panel van. All would now be worth some bucks.

I owned a ’68 Bug for several years, and had that book. And you’re right, even I could work on the VW. Fortunately I also had a couple of friends who owned WV’s and were more experienced mechanics. For anything that looked too daunting they would come over and help. We always managed to sort it out ourselves and that Bug never saw the inside of a car repair business.

With the complexity of modern vehicles and engines those days of shade tree repairs and tinkering seem to be largely a thing of the past for most teenagers.

My fondest VW memories are of a ’67 spilt window camper bus. Not mine, but a friend’s that we used for several month/6 week long cross country wanders. There are a thousand happy memories of travelling in that classic bus.
 
Never heard of the book and never worked on a car.

But I did buy my friend's beat up VW fastback for $750 in 1971 when he visited me during my first year in law school, because my wife had usurped my wonderful 1969 copper color Dodge Charger -- same as the Duke boys "General Lee", a car that would be worth huge bucks today. That old VW with it's cruddy manual gear shift was a real treat when starting from a stop on a steep hill. I trade both in when I graduated and bought a new Chevy Malibu station wagon that lasted over 20 years.
 
Wow, what a blast from the past. I did own the book and used it extensively to keep my '68 bus going. Eventually sold the book at a garage sale and often wish I had it back. Such a classic of that time period.
 
I have never owned a VW but have meant a few folks who are die hard VW fans. I watched this video blog of some bloke fixing up a VW van in Peru and driving it to Alaska rebuilding the engine some where around 9-10 times. He completed that trip and is now planning another trip with way better VW van and way better engine from the UK to Australia.
https://www.youtube.com/user/kombilife/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid
 
I watched this video blog of some bloke fixing up a VW van in Peru and driving it to Alaska rebuilding the engine some where around 9-10 times. He completed that trip and is now planning another trip with way better VW van and way better engine from the UK to Australia.

Reminds me of an elder paddling friend who owned an early ‘60’s Dodge Tradesman van. He once drove it to South America and back, and repeatedly all over North America. He kept it going until it turned some odometer-rolled-over million miles

By that point almost nothing on it was original, but a local Dodge dealership offered (and he accepted) to put it on display. I think there was some quid pro quo.

Cool van, mostly because he kept it through 40 years of increasingly personalized fit-out.
 
I bought a VW van off the streets of Amsterdam, Netherlands, in January 1978, for roughly $900 US. The registration process seemed legit, but we were never sure. Slept in it parked on the streets every night. Sold it several months later in Naples, Italy for roughly $400 US.

Many adventures and close scrapes in between. We had some difficulty getting it over the Pyrenees Mountains twice. Got snowbound in it in Genoa Italy. Lived on bread, canned or salted fish, wine, and cheese. The two pictures I have of it are in 35 mm slide format.

Young, in love, living free and in the wild. Some of my best days ever were facilitated by that beloved VW van. It never broke down, but we had problems with the headlights out of sync blinding other drivers. Never had a manual, it goes without saying.

Kids today have many advantages, but few of them will be lucky enough to live like we did those few months. No phone, no credit card, no safety net, no money, just determined independence and self-reliance.
 
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Bought an orange 1972 VW Bug shortly before I got out of the Army.
Needed an economical vehicle as I was getting ready to start college on GI Bill, and traded in my green 1970 Chevelle V8, which was a gas guzzler compared to VW.
Wife got the orange bug when we divorced; I got a new, 1974, light blue Bug.
Drove that thing everywhere; never managed to get it stuck even in worst conditions. Fun to drive.
Never knew about the VW book................
Kept blue bug until I got out of grad school; then started a long line of pickup trucks that still continues.

Daughter on my Honda 450, next to green Chevelle in 1973.
Me with long hair; daughter on my lap. Clean cut brother in law with his daughter. Probably 1975 or 1976
My daughter will be 50 this coming January. Time does fly when you're having fun.......................
 
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