(Updated 8/26/2026) A while back, we posted Tom McCahill’s review of the 1956 Volkswagen. By then, his love for it was already in full bloom. But that started earlier, with this review of a ’53, in the depths of a New England snow storm, and then an ice storm. He did things with it that reminded me way too much of myself, like a midnight drive up a steep rugged mountain road with seven inches of fresh snow. He was sure it wouldn’t make it…
But he did make it, using the same technique I did with my Corvair and two Beetles; just letting them slowly churn their way through, with just enough throttle to keep the wheels spinning, but not too wildly.
This ’53 still had the 1100 cc engine, rated at 24-25 net (DIN) hp, which was rated at 30 hp gross SAE in the US. Performance? A mere 7.9 seconds to…30 mph. 0-60 took 42.1 seconds, and top speed was 66 mph. Sounds bad, but it was quite adequate for the times. The important thing was that it got you there, no matter how brutal the weather, or how short your gas budget was (in my case). His claim of 50 mpg is suspect; 35-37 mpg would be more realistic.
It was reviews like this that set up VW for its meteoric rise in the US; sales exploded in 1955. The rest is history.
Popular Mechanix never publicly acknowledged the 1975 death of Tom McCahill since “he was the franchise” and at the time the Fawcett family was trying to sell off the publishing company.
I’ve read many of “Uncle” Tom McCahill’s reviews in old copies of MI, and they were always colourful and entertaining. I’ll bet his reviews helped move a lot of Bugs out the door back then.
I wonder if Tom McCahill had once tested the Citroen 2 CV and the Morris Minor?
He did test the 2CV as I recall in about 1964 and managed to roll it over. He was largely unhurt.
Minor test is at
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mi-tests-the-morris-minor-station-wagon/
Deary me, thankyou for that, awful lot of rabbits down that hole.
Oh well, it IS COVID lockdown here, can’t be accused of wasting time…
It’s true that the bug often got through when American cars wouldn’t. I was often called on to fetch my friends who were stranded in their Camaros and Falcons. But Tom underplays the visibility problem by comparing it to an MG. Every American car had real wipers and a real defroster. Getting there isn’t always worth it if you have to stick your head out the window and freeze your eyes.
Living in Georgia at the time, I didn’t have to deal with deep snow (maybe a few rapidly-melting inches at a time), but *did* have ice storms to contend with. I laughed as I passed Jeeps and 4x4s in the ditch put-putting my way to work on those occasions.
But you’re dead right about having to stick your head out the window to see in a snow storm (and yes, I carried an ice scraper for use on the inside of the windscreen).
I do think the closness of the windshield had something to do with it fogging up so badly. When I drove my 71 to high school, my youngerbrother would sit in the passenger seat with his backpack on which made his face about an inch from the windshield which made the fogging even worse. However if I told him to do something he’d so the opposite just to spite me haha.
In the era just before the Camaro, most every American car had vacuum wipers that stopped just when you needed them most and the heater and defroster were optional. VW had standard electric wipers and at least the heater was included, if marginal. I think the windshield being so close to your face meant more condensation on the inside from your breath.
“In the era just before the Camaro, most every American car had vacuum wipers ”
I don’t know what you were driving before 1967, but that was not my experience. Electric wipers were displacing vacuum throughout the US auto industry by the mid 50s, on at least an optional basis. I don’t think Studebaker used vacuum after 1955 and even then electric was most common. My 59 Plymouth was electric as was my 61 Thunderbird. AMC was the outlier that kept offering vacuum units until way after they should have, but for most of the rest of the industry vacuum was near-dead by 1955.
Optional, but not standard on many, like the heater. Our ’63 Rambler Classic still had them. Now, I’m a little surprised the ’61 ‘bird didnt have the hydraulic ones like Lincoln, built in the same plant with the same basic cowl.
Ah, Tom McCahill and Mechanix Illustrated. I got interested in cars reading his automotive reviews in the magazine. His reviews were always very entertaining and colorful. If I remember correctly, it was Tom McCahill who initiated the idea of car reviews in the late 40’s in Mechanix Illustrated.
I bought and read this Tom McCahill book a few months ago. He seemed to live an exciting life and it shows in his reviews, crazy metaphors and all. 🙂
I have a copy of that book as well. I think that’s the one where Tom gives the sage advice not to waste money on those newfangled detergent oils, bragging that he gets as much as 60K miles between rebuilds on the good ol’ non-detergent stuff! (Also having seen photos of him spanning decades, I have to ask: Did that guy ever have hair?)
The heater in a ’53 Beetle was giving “Palm beach weather” in the middle of a “snarling blizzard”…?
My thoughts exactly.
I did have a buddy who put one of those fans in the heater system (it went under the back seat somewhere) and he claimed the heater worked like a champ after that.
Nobody, but nobody wrote a car review like ‘Uncle’ Tom McCahill. That`s why I always bought PM way back when!
I thought he was funny in the 1950s, when I was a kid reading my Dad’s Mechanix Ilustrated magazines. Now, not so funny.
Agree. Definitely a product and artefact of his time, much like many of the contemporaneous Warner Bros cartoons. We wince now at attitudes and expressions that seemed just fine back then.
J Palmer Cass,
Life is going tob e pretty hard for you if you plan is to use the standards of today on yesterday’s context.
I have the feeling I read another review (of his? not sure) which mentioned the Beetle’s trunk capacity being “a weekend’s worth of shirts”.
Hey, it’s a great descriptor!
This reminds me of the fact i should really have a go in the ‘53 Beetle (oval window) that’s been sitting in my barn for over 20 years now.
Do it while you still can. It’s later than you think. Make it happen!
That or pass it on to me. I’ve been hankering badly for an early Beetle. I promise to treat it well 🙂
“The Volkswagen weaved through these churning iron hulks…”
Chicago, 1967, on what the German tourists high atop the Hancock Building used to call Lakenstraße:
‘Twenty-three inches of snow, the largest single snowfall in Chicago history, covered the city and suburbs in the blizzard of 1967. Abandoned vehicles made even major streets and highways impassable.’
— Chicago Tribune historical photo
That photo reminds me of the snow storm who hit Montreal in March 1971.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sideshow015/8338866007
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/storm-of-the-century-1.3477182
Ha!…that’s one we missed (by a year or two) having moved from Burlington Vt. to Manassas VA in 1969 (Montreal was the closest big city to us).
However…things have a way of catching up with you…my father was transferred back up to Vermont in 1975, in time to be there for the blizzard of ’78…the only time my Datsun 710 wouldn’t start (for a week, had to bum rides from him) as it was parked outside. Still remember the feeling of sitting in the seats, they were like sacks of lead, it was colder than -35F at times.
My father had a ’59 Beetle for a couple years in the mid 60’s up in Vermont, it was already a rustbucket but then it was totalled while parked in front of our house…replaced by a new ’68 Renault R10. Both were pretty good in the snow, even though the R10 had wider shorter tires, I think they were Michelin radials (first car I think he owned with radials). Don’t think he had snow tires on either car (but we had them on our ’65 F85 wagon he owned at the same time).
I was a seven year old kid in Ottawa in 1971 and I sure remember that blizzard! The snow drifts were as high as the house and it took days to dig out. We were without power for several days, too. We say next to the fireplace, which Mum also cooked on. Now it rains in Ottawa in December.
9 years after the end of WWII. That’s incredible.
Snow?
I think the licence plate is legible
But, by now, this was mid-1960’s ….
Here’s something that may interest somebody, or not.
If my link works, it should go to an Oz road test from ’54. It lacks, ofcourse, the quite amusing carry-ons and linguistic gymnastics of Mr McC – quite a bit of which could also be called self-indulgent and not served too well by time’s passing – but it does point out the usefulness of these infernal German devices in exactly the opposite sort of conditions, namely, dust and heat. They went on to win round-Australia rallies soon enough thereafter (and these were trials of almost outrageous toughness), sold up a storm, and were fully-manufactured here by ’61 or so.
Interesting to note VW’s prediction in the article of 65-75K miles before any major rebuild, a really major selling point at the time, and pretty much exactly how they worked out in conditions here too. Small cars, namely English ones, just could not do anything like such stuff then, and even the large (for here, compact for US) GM Holdens didn’t really ever go much over 80-90K which was itself considered truly excellent in the day.
https://bauer-archive.x-cago.net/vw/edition.do?page&date=19540801&id=WHL-01-046-19540801&pub=WHL&dp=WHL
’53 with split window and oval dash — that’s a Zwitter!
Indeed it is .
My ’53 Zwitter was a casualty of my marriage, she’s long gone now, I still pine for that little car .
Two or more people in the car and they were warm when new and all the seals and things fit properly .
-Nate
Beetles were our college cars in Colorado, and everyone attending college in Colorado, skis. We filled them up with weekend supplies, equipment and buddies – then head for distant mountains. We downhilled when we had money and cross countried when we didn’t. Beetles were our transportation through Colorado and Wyoming snows.
Lord almighty how we would find them buried in snow, especially after weekend cross country trips. Far from a plowed road. After an exhausting day skiing, we’d return to them and get out from where they were buried.
The Beetles were always better than other cars, except Jeep CJ-5s and 7s. We’d warm up pushing those Beetles over snow ruts and obstacles as the Sunday sun drifted over the mountains, painting everything light blue.
I grew up in Chicago with my dad’s Beetles getting through Lake effect snowstorms, so I was an old hand getting our mountain VWs out of snowfalls there.
Today’s rides are 100 times better.
0-60 in 42 seconds!
That makes my Olds diesel look like a rocket.
My late brother in law was a hoarder. When the local library was tossing out old periodicals, he got a complete set of Mechanix Illustrated from 1930-1955. As a teenager, I read everything Uncle Tom wrote in them. He was a really interesting man, who didn’t automatically discount unusual cars, kind of like with the featured Beetle
No surprise bugs were decent in snow. They barely had enough torque to break traction on ice…
One of my aunts had a 1970 yellow / white top convertible if memory serves me correctly. I liked it with it’s top down.
A short, steep hill viewable from the living room window provided steady winter entertainment. Many cars came down the hill sideways during snow storms. My aunt had no trouble climbing it. Tire chains worked magic, too.
A compression ratio of 5.8 seems a bit light for an overhead valve engine. Maybe the quality of gasoline in Germany at the time was questionable or to keep the air cooled engine flat 4 for vibrating too much. Also, did he leave an extra bit of gap in the exhaust valve for the cylinder furtherest from the fan (can’t remember cylinder number, but I did blow that valve before I knew the trick).
My neighbor owned a used bug when he was in the navy half a century ago. Apparently cylinder #3 was problematic for him since the oil cooler obstructed air flow. He said it wasn’t a huge issue and described his scheme for lower the engine on his chest when removing it from the car 😂.
I noticed there was a famous Plum hammer ad on the pages. According to a old guy at work, this is the best hammer for working man.
Loved the ads for the Plumb Hammer with its second growth hickory handle and the Little Beaver drill extension.
Today it’d be an ad for a $400 Titanium Stiletto or Martinez and the Simpson Quickshot collated screw attachment.
Funny how things change but stay the same.