The Story So Far

For my money, there's nothing like an old Volkswagen Beetle. Inside a body full of curves, with a mighty little engine pushing from behind, you bathe in a kind of perfume--the musky scent of slow-baked horsehair, German vinyl and god-knows-what-else.... Oh how I love thee, VW Bug.

Somehow I convinced my wife to let me buy one on eBay a few years ago, a 1963 model with 80k on the odometer, a relatively straight body and a half-assed primer paint job all around. The seller was a kid in Grand Junction who had fixed it up for home-school credit, and though it died halfway home on the road back to Denver, I believed that with a copy of the Compleat Idiot filled with the gorgeous illustrations by Peter Aschwanden, I could keep my Bug going.

I actually did keep it going for a while. I cannot claim to be mechanically gifted, but I replaced some necessary things--starter, carburetor, the exhaust system--and I also invested in a new paint job to bring it back to its original gulf blau splendor. By day, I sat at a keyboard, staring at empty text docs, waiting for inspiration; at night and on weekends, I scraped up my knuckles and got grease in my hair, and I was rejuvenated.

Then about a year ago the Bug threw a rod or something. I still don't know what happened, but I knew it meant it was time for a rebuild. Actually, I knew it was time for something else: to turn it into an Electric Bug.

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A VW Family Album

Mom and her Bug in Brodhead, Wisconsin.

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Dad's homemade Baja in 1975.

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When I was in high school, Dad and I chopped the top on a '64.

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My current Bug, as I first saw her on eBay (top),
waiting for a new paint job (center),
and in the frost at home last fall (bottom).

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Don't blame the kid for the anti-Bush logo on the decklid--I did it myself,
and proudly!