My 1970 VW Karmann Ghia – Faster Than A Speeding Moped

 

I sold my Datsun 1200 when I went to England for a year in pursuit of my bachelor’s degree. I knew I had no need for a car there, as I could walk the two miles to the university or hitch a ride. However, I missed having some kind of motorized transport, so I bought an old Puch moped for 60 pounds sterling. The Puch (pronounced “pook”) had a 2-stroke engine; therefore I had to squirt a little oil into the fuel tank every time I added petrol.

My favorite adventure with my Puch was the time it putt-putted me twenty miles to Longleat House, the ancestral home of the 6^th Marquess of Bath. (A Marquess ranks below a duke and above an earl. Unlike “Duchess,” the title “Marquess” belongs to a man. English is a curious language.)

 

This particular Marquess opened his house and grounds to the public to help him pay for their maintenance and taxes. Attractions included a complicated maze and a wild animal park with lions roaming freely – the park was not suitable for people on mopeds. Of course, the reason I went to Longleat in November of 1975 wasn’t to see lions or mazes… I wanted to see rally racing.

 

A Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Rally involves cars racing down narrow forest lanes one after another at high speed. I don’t understand the rules any more than I understand cricket, but I believe there are stopwatches involved. The other spectators and I stood inches from the road as drivers like Stig Blomqvist in his Saab 96 whizzed by. If any missed a turn and spun off the track (Stig wasn’t one of them) we’d all hurry to push them back onto the course. It was great fun!

At the end of the school year I returned to the U.S. where I had a summer job working for the Environmental Protection Agency. I used $1,200 of my earnings to buy a 1970 Karmann Ghia with 35,000 miles on the odometer. I’d had difficulties driving my Datsun in winter weather, and I knew rear-engined VWs had a reputation for being good in snow. This one was.

Air-cooled VWs also had a reputation for inadequate heaters, but I suppose that’s why wool sweaters were invented. I controlled the heat with two levers mounted to the floor between the front seats. When the cables rusted in place a few years later, I got in the habit of crawling under the car twice a year, in fall and in spring, to turn the heat on or off.

The Ghia weighed over 200 pounds more than a VW Beetle, but it had the same 57HP 1600cc engine, so the only time I passed a Triumph or MG was if it was going in the opposite direction. Compared to the Beetle, the Ghia was a couple of inches longer and wider, yet it managed to have less usable interior space. Later, when my future wife and I had our future daughter, I don’t believe I even tried to put our baby’s car seat in the back of the Ghia.

I met my future wife, who was an American like me, when we were students in England. We had no WhatsApp at the time, which meant that our only communication with home was using air-mail stationery printed on thin blue paper. We had each other for company, and we went for long walks in the countryside, during which she told me all about her family. (I assure you that this is relevant to my Karmann Ghia story.)

I learned that my girlfriend had five brothers, all of whom were tobacco-chewing, deer-hunting hockey players. Her father also hunted and chewed tobacco, however he’d given up hockey. They were big men, and I’ll admit I was more than a little apprehensive when it came time for me to meet her family after we’d returned to the States. Therefore I invited my roommate to go with me for moral support; he knew my girlfriend too so it was natural that he’d come along for a visit.

I drove us three hours north in my Karmann Ghia. The car had frameless windows that didn’t quite meet their rubber seals, so there was a whistle at highway speeds. To quiet the whistle, my buddy stuffed some paper in the crack and didn’t mention until later that they were the directions to my girlfriend’s house. We’d gone about halfway when it began to rain and I put on the windshield wipers, which went back and forth hypnotically. Then the passenger-side wiper began to go forth and back, instead of back and forth, as it worked itself loose from its linkage. My friend quickly rolled down his window to grab for the wiper as it sailed into the darkness. He missed it, and he lost the directions, too.

Nowadays I’d tell Android Auto to navigate where I want to go. However, on a dark rainy night in the 1970s I had to remember all the stories my girlfriend had told me on our long walks in the English countryside, and translate those memories into left and right turns. It must have worked somehow, as I got to her house eventually, and we’re still married a half-century later.

 

If ever you get married in the middle of winter and your car doesn’t have a good heater, the least logical honeymoon itinerary is to drive to Quebec City in a snowstorm. I can still remember snowflakes blowing in our faces from the windshield defroster vents. My wife’s uncle had hidden a note under the fuel filler door on the Ghia’s fender in front of where my new bride was sitting, a note that said “Kiss me – I just got married.” Alas, none of the gas station attendants in Quebec spoke English, so my wife remained unkissed except by me.

I was pleased to find on the Internet photos of a dark-green 1970 Karmann Ghia just like mine, only shinier. Look at the photo of the front trunk and you’ll see it has ample room for three wrenches and that’s about all. You can also see the plastic tube that is connected to the spare tire to pressurize the windshield washer fluid tank.

At the other end of the car is the engine compartment, with rust under the battery just like my old Ghia had. I learned quite a lot working on that engine with my grease-stained copy of a repair manual written “for the compleat idiot.” I think I still have a timing light somewhere in my basement workshop, along with a tach/dwell meter and other tools I only half-remember how to use.

I’ve owned about twenty cars in fifty-plus years. My Karmann Ghia is the only one where, from time to time, I’d find a business card tucked under a windshield wiper – the replacement wiper, I mean – asking me to call if ever I want to sell it. I did sell the Ghia after six years, when I moved to England once again, this time with my wife and our daughter.

 

Related CC reading:

Curbside Classic: 1971 Karmann Ghia – The Fairest Volkswagen Of Them All

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Curbside Classic: 1963 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia – Patina Overachiever

1967 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia – The Perfect Curbside Classic For The Crunchy Granola Set?