One night, I was driving my ’63 Beetle on the Indiana Turnpike in a snowstorm. I found myself in a line of cars behind a snowplow in the right lane. We were doing maybe forty, give or take. I was pretty confident in my snow driving abilities, and the VW was as good as it got for that. I kept looking at the deserted left lane, which had several inches of fresh snow on it already. I finally lost my patience, felt a youthful surge of adrenaline (or did we do these things in order to make the adrenaline come on?) and made my move, into the left lane. Not a good idea.
It was dark, and the thick falling snow reflected in my feeble six-volt headlights, so I couldn’t see very far at all. I passed the line of cars, and when I got right up next to the plow, I was very surprised to find that its blade was angled left, shooting a stream of snow into the center median. And of course, me. I hadn’t counted on that! (a youthful tendency).
I was now doing about ten mph more than the plow. I momentarily considered backing off, but I was too committed having got this far, and plunged ahead. The curtain of snow buried my bug. The wipers stalled. I suddenly found myself in a windowless (and eerily quiet) igloo in the left lane of a snowy freeway doing 50 or 60 mph, and only feet away from a snow plow.
Yikes! I had to fight the instinct to back off, because that would put me right back in the snowplow’s discharge. So I just kept all the inputs the same, and keeping a cool head (literally), I tore open my side window and stuck my head out into the icy gale to navigate. Reaching out and around with my instantly-frozen left hand, I started clearing snow from the windshield until the little 6 volt wipers slowly came back to life. The advantage of the VW’s windshield being so close to one’s nose was finally appreciated. Try that in a modern car! On second thought, don’t try that in any car.
Why do all of the best stories involve VWs? My wife tells a story of she and her brother crossing railroad tracks when their bug stalled. When the car would not restart, her brother got out to hoof it to a telephone. She describes the way he came running back in a full panic yelling something about a train. The two of them managed to shove the car safely off the tracks before the train got there. Just like in the movies.
Her other great VW experience was feeling a clunk and having the throttle stick wide open on a city street. I guess this would be more terrifying in most other cars, but still, she managed to get the thing into a parking lot before everything got really out of hand. As she stopped the car, the engine thudded to the ground. Something had let go with the engine mounting.
My only VW story is a vicarious one. In college, I delivered pizzas with my 71 Scamp. One night it was the beginning of an ice storm, and the streets were glossy-slick. I had one final delivery, and was driving at about 15 mph, following about 100 feet behind a VW bug. Suddenly, the rear of the bug started to swing to the right and the car started to spin. I got off the gas and tried to decide whether it was possible to avoid the spinning beetle. To my surprise and amazement, the bug did a full 360 and then continued down the street. To this day, it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
I really can’t relate my stories that took place in a Beetle on a family-oriented site such as this… 😉
“To my surprise and amazement, the bug did a full 360 and then continued down the street”
With a little practice, that comes easily!
Railroad tracks:I had the exact same thing happen to me with a Corvair. Must an air-cooled thing.
Not hard with RWD cars. I learned to do that in a 1985 Caprice Classic wagon! B-bodies forever. And I can still do it with my 2wd F150.
I did it once on the Interstate in my el Camino in heavy rain, spun right down an offramp and wound up stuck in the mud on the shoulder facing backwards (I did a 540). I went and bought better tires that afternoon.
I got my F150 sideways on dry pavement once as I came off a cloverleaf. Why was I hurying so fast. Well, uh… someone called me to let me know “I left something turned on at home.”
Never spun a Bug. No…I was too careful and blessed with some luck.
BUT…I’ll never forget the day I was driving along I-90 going from Buffalo to Cleveland, in my 4×4 Tacoma truck. It was snowing as I left, and I had it in 4wd. But as I cleared Erie, the weather was getting warmer…that route goes south and west. And the roads were clear of snow and just wet.
I thought.
I took it out of 4wd…and almost immediately, the rear end slid around on the black ice I was on…did a full whoop-dee-do in front of two tractor-trailers, about a thousand feet back. Somehow, I don’t even remember how…I got it to track straight and put the front axle in gear – fast.
Thing about four wheel drive is, you can drive into a situation like that and never even realize it until it’s too late.
I spun my Mustang one night flying home to check in w/ my then girlfriend (pre Cell phones). It was middle of winter but there wasn’t any snow on the ground to speak of– I want to think that i hit the dreaded black ice w/ my rear passenger tire and I did a 270 doing 50 mph —– miraculously, there wasn’t any other traffic on the two lane road @ 9:30 pm.
took my knees two hours to stop trembling!
I spun my ’91 Volvo 940SE in the snow about twelve years ago. It wasn’t really a snowstorm but I don’t think the snowplows had been out yet. My dad asked me to run my brother to work and we went through a shallow S-curve on a two-lane, one-way street. Well the car didn’t straighten out, it decided to do a 180 and suddenly we were traveling 15-20 mph backwards. When I got the car stopped there were two lanes of traffic approaching. I managed to reverse onto a side street before anything happened. After some colorful language regarding our dislike of snow, we immediately drove back to Dad’s office and got his V70R AWD to use instead. That time there was no problem, thank goodness!
I agree with how easy the 360 becomes. With icy roads you can do it in your sleep. You probably should do it that way, your skivvies will stay cleaner.
When I was in Newfoundland we parked our cars in the parking lot of an H shaped barracks. The lot was between the wings. One of the guys had about a 6-8 foot antenna with a fluorescent tennis ball stuck on top. I asked him why and he said just wait.
Sure enough, the first blizzard came (not a blizzard by newf standards but it was by ours) and the only thing you could see as the snow drifted in was that tennis ball. A day or two later, we dug out his car and just drove off. The stupid things could not be stopped by the weather. A chief and a warrant officer were in the wilderness hunting and got stranded. Picked up by helicopter, they went back in the spring with fresh gas and a new battery and drove home. Newfoundland sold me on these beetles (newfoundland and a terminal 53 merc).
I know cars are supposed to be better now and I am sold on pertronix for the old ones but I just don’t see new cars being able to do any of the above. Maybe so…
Well traction control and electronic nannies can make it harder to do those things. I’ve read posts by guys on Mercedes forums talk about how intrusive the traction control is on the early 2000s models. Got to turn it off or you’ll overwhelm the computer in snow.
In my college days, I would commonly make the 45 mile trip home to see my friends and relatives on weekends. Since the ride wasn’t very long, I liked to take the back roads home. One snowy Sunday evening, I was on my way back to university, I decided to pass a car I thought was going too damned slow. As I pulled out to pass, I downshifted my 390 Torino and briefly rocketed past the old station wagon. However, as I started to get back into the driving lane, I hit a sliver of road slush left in the middle of the road by the plow crews.
Faster than I could comprehend, my Torino starts simultaneously sliding and spinning right in front of the old man in the station wagon. I only have retained flashes of that incident, one of which is seeing the horror on the face of the old man as my car is pirouetting in front of his. Much to my chagrin, I end up spinning off the plowed surface of the road on to the shoulder facing the wrong way, stopped by the mountains of snow on the side of the road.
As I get out to survey the damage (there was none), I see the old man had stopped (I guess) to see if I was OK. I waved at him and he continued on his way. I got the Ford turned around, and I followed the old man in the wagon (at something like 30 MPH) all the way into the next town. I took the Interstate the rest of the way from there…
Several years ago, when I took possession of my Sunfire, the car came with some very worn-out Pirelli P6’s. I kept on putting off getting new tires for the car, as I had originally wanted to take it off the road that winter, but was not able to due to a number of other circumstances. The first “big” snow came and I was on my way home from work driving through the city of Grand Rapids. As I am attempting to make a left turn at a busy intersection, the light turns yellow.
I goose it through the light, only to drive across a patch of black ice. My rear tires were completely bald, and they lost traction completely. The car does a complete 360 (more like a 380) in the middle of this busy downtown intersection. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to keep the clutch disengaged, recovered from the spin and drove away.
After that incident, I was about as red as the paint on my car… And I bought new tires the next day…
Some days ago I related my double spinout on I-95 while driving my ’63 bug southbound in CT.
Today, another VW story.
In 1969 was driving my 59 VW ‘pickup’ across country from OR to NY, 36 hp pushing me and most of my worldly belongings eastward.
Chicago at the time was traversed mostly with elevated freeways, two lanes wide with guardrails both sides, in both directions. I was right behind a fat Pontiac. Traffic was dense.
Suddenly the fat Pontiac began to spin out. Suddenly my brain reverted to slow motion as I watched it bounce to one guardrail and then back again.
Summoning every last bit of 36hp energy, and still in slow motion, I was able to ease around him just as he bounced back from my side heading towards the other.
Miraculously, everyone else missed him as well.
The gods were really keeping watch that day!
Paul, I can tell you from personal experience that the plow truck driver probably found your pass attempt just as hairy as you did. I did this for a winter many years ago and I was amazed by the chances people will take just to get around you. I still remember a guy who got around me in a brand new Ramcharger while his passenger rolled down the window and gave me the finger once they were past. I fully expected to find him upside down further down the road, but alas Karma took the day off.
Take care around snowplows, they are a handful to drive and rarely come out on the losing end in a collision.
I remember a winter driving trip in my ’59 Beetle in about 1972. Major snowstorm with big wet flakes coming down fast. My friend Gary and I were about half way through a 6 hour drive when the windshield wipers stopped working. Some quick roadside diagnosis indicated a failed wiper motor, so we disconnected the main link between the wipers and the motor, and attached our shoelaces to each wiper arm. The blades were able to move in unison, not connected to the motor. We continued our trip with me pulling on the shoestring through the drivers vent window to move the wipers left, and Gary then pulling his shoestring through the passenger’s vent window to move the wipers right. We did the remainder of the drive with that system, which actually worked pretty well.
Due to the very light front end, and pretty bald front tires, we did go off the side of the road once on a curve, but with winter tires on the rear we were able to get back onto the road without much trouble. Lucky it wasn’t the next curve, which was a couple hundred foot drop to the Fraser River.
A Friend of mine was driving down an onramp where 2 onramps merged together before joining the highway. The car in front of him and another car from the other ramp failed to notice each other’s existence and neatly merged right into the side of one another. My friend had no time to stop but as the two cars bounced off one another he downshifted his Karmann Ghia and shot through the gap that had just appeared between them. He continued untouched, however the truck behind him that tried the same trick got hit from both sides as the two car rebounded off their respective guardrails and closed the gap.
I only have one VW account to tell. I told this before, I believe, but was taking care of a friend’s new bright orange 1973 Super Beetle automatic stick shift (why?) while he was on Okinawa at our operating location in summer, 1973.
Only a week to go before I got out of the air force and two weeks after I sold my avatar (why?), I was out for my customary Sunday drive – yes, I did that, as I had little else to do. I came to a stop at the end of a dead-end road and the engine sounded and felt as if it were missing. I shut the engine off, opened the back and checked all wires – everything OK. Hmmm…drive back to base, get my tools, remove and check plugs, all good. Now I’m really scratching my head and getting nervous. I sucked it up and took it to the VW dealer in Yuba City on Monday. I called them Tuesday, and my worst nightmare came true – #3 piston was burnt out. I felt what money I had in the bank was about to disappear! The service mgr. said “no problem, we’ll fix it under warranty”! I almost kissed the guy! I asked why this happened. He said you have to keep the engines revved, and I was shifting into high too early (35 mph) and cruising around like I was in my 1964 Chevy – you can’t do that, especially in 95° heat! No one told me that, either! Lesson learned.
I picked up the car on Thursday evening and thrashed it the remainder of the weekend – it ran just fine, thank you!
I wrote my friend George a letter explaining what happened, including all paperwork when I locked his car for the last time on Monday, August 13th, 1973, just before I was picked up for my last ride to the Sacramento airport. The rest is history. George returned to the base on Wednesday.
We remained friends, too, for several years until we lost track of one another.
I sent my mom a link to my earlier comments on David Saunder’s piece on the Canadian spec VW, and got these replies, which she has given me permission to post:
“There was an advantage to owning a Volkswagen during the winter. Although it felt like you were crossing the Arctic you had no problems about starting or warming up the car. You turned the key once and off it went. When Dad was in the car with me, we had to keep both windows open or it would steam up too much and we would have to stop periodically and scrape off the windshield. I wore my fur coat which kept me toasty warm; Dad was bundled in woollies. Only our faces got cold.
We were married in 1961 and I had the car for one or two years before that. Sara was born in August 1965. We sold the car the following spring because we were to go to Lethbridge for Easter and didn’t think we could fit both of you into the small Volkswagen. The Valiant was an absolute luxury in comparison.
I remember one incident when Dad and I were travelling to Vauxhall. Purple gas was sold cheaply to farmers for use in tractors. Some people would use it in cars so the RCMP were always on the look out and would stop cars to check their gas. We were stopped on the rural road from Brooks and out came the policeman with his pump. I didn’t know why he would want to check our car as it used only 4 gallons between Edmonton and Calgary. Incidentally, to change purple gas to clear, place a glass gallon in the sun and it will fade it.
I shudder when I think of how we transported you and Sara in those flimsy plastic car seats and how dangerous the car itself was. Especially scary was when we hit the Chinook winds or when we were too close to a passing cattle truck which seemed to suck you in. There surely was a guardian angel looking after us!”
“I was very proud of my little car. Not many of them were around my Dad’s farm area. Whenever I went to visit neighbours they would cluster around it as though it were some new toy and everyone wanted a ride. One day when I went to buy cream from the neighbour I foolishly left the key inside. Before I knew it the kids were roaring around the yard in it. I quickly retrieved it and never left it unlocked again even in Dad’s yard.
I liked it very much for driving on mountain roads as I had better control with gear shift than with an automatic.”
Well, I don’t have any VW stories of my own, but a friend of ours had his bug catch on fire…well, actually it died and he saw smoke coming from under the back seat. Something was shorted near the battery, and he doused it by pouring beer onto it from a six-pack he had in the car. This happened in town, and he did get the hairy eyeball from the cop who responded, but nothing else.
I’ve got you all beat (but don’t tell my wife.)
I managed to do a 1080 in the middle of a two lane road… in traffic…
It was a nasty little ice storm and my mom… bless her… had tires that were more bald than Telly Savalas.
I’m doing a similar move. Passing slow traffic on the left hand lane when all of a sudden:
“VVVRRRRRR!!!!! OOOHHHHHHH SSSHHHIIIITTTTT!!!!”
Both wheels on the left side gave out at the same time. At just a hair above 17 I do what comes natural. Panic and keep on steering away from the curb. Which just so happens to keep the momentum going.
It wasn’t until right about the 720 mark that I figured, “Shit! Stomp on the brake and go the other way before you die!” I saw one of my passengers already in the ‘kiss my ass’ goodbye postion, as I proceeded to quickly turn the steering wheel the other way and brake.
I still don’t know how… but in the end the car was still in the same lane… and facing the right way. Everything else around me was stopped. No movement. After I managed to get my heart lower than 210 beats a minute. I slowly took off and never went more than 30 mph all the way home.
Mom says, “Why are you late?”
Steve says in a not so PG way, “Because you nearly killed me. When you are ready to take the Acura for some tires, I will reconnect your battery.”
The next day was a 15 rounder… but I managed to have her get tires for the vehicle. I wish I could have pulled off a similar feat when her brakes went all the way down to the rotors.
Everyone who drove Beetles back in the day has stories , I have hundreds , here’s my saddest one :
Driving my 1953 Split Window (” Zwitter “) Beetle on the freeway on a Holiday weekend with my then young wife , she began another of her infamous rants and crying jags about something that had nothing to do with her , I got pissed off and stamped on the brakes , forgetting the right front brake cylinder leaked so the R.F. wheel was grabby ~ we were going about 85 MPH at the time , the car spun like a top , slammed against the curbstone and rolled _UP_ the steep embankment , stopping on it’s driver’s side , we climbed out the passenger side door and I was able to coerce the little old man who’d stopped to see if anyone was alive , to help me roll it uphill back onto it’s wheels , then I coasted it back down to the breakdown lane before the CHP got there .
I’da driven it away but the battery hold down popped loose and the negative strap parted , necessitating it to be towed home with a bid longitudinal crease in the roof fro the curbstone and a slightly bent right front trailing arms .
Stupid b*tch ~ stupid me as I didn’t have seat belts in it , we were lucky to have survived .
I have learned to better maintain my vehicles since then , my temper too .
The trafficators still worked fine ! .
-Nate