Vw Lovers Have Always Had The Bug
The front-yard pizza picnic was about over when the subject of smuggling bubbled up like hot mozzarella.
Many of my new friends outside this Spokane Valley home have a theory on how someone could go to Mexico and sneak a certain illegal substance into the United States.
“I’d go down with a beat-up old one and bring back a new one” was my suggestion.
“Naw, I’d just carry a set of plates in my suitcase,” says Russ Maak, 44.
Don’t call the Drug Enforcement Administration. We weren’t talking about running drugs, guns or Cuban cigars. The River City VW Club’s idea of forbidden fruit is much more creative:
Shiny new Volkswagen Beetles.
They stopped selling the VW Beetle in the United States in 1979. But in countries such as Mexico - where crash and emission standards are less niggling - homely humpbacked bugs still roll off assembly lines by the tens of thousands.
“As nice as ever,” says River City President Troy Hobbs, who shows me a color brochure for a red Mexican-made Beetle. Only $7,500.
All the smuggling talk is just lighthearted dinner conversation, of course. No one in his right mind actually would risk jail for an economy car.
Well, I wouldn’t.
But I can’t speak for these fun-loving River City characters. They all suffer from terminal Beetlemania.
“My whole life revolves around them,” says Terry Conley, 26, a VW mechanic and lifelong collector. “I’ve owned 50 cars. Only one wasn’t a VW. I’m sick. I’m trapped.”
The fever spikes this time each year. This Sunday, the River City club will hold Bug Fair ‘97, its annual VW show (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds.
The autofest usually draws 40 or 50 show-quality Volkswagens such as Beetles, vans, dune buggies and Karmann Ghias. The turnout is impressive considering club membership is spread among just six or eight families.
“There are more of us in the world than there are of them,” says Maak, a bit defensively, of bigger Spokane car clubs that revolve around mainstream brands such as Chevy and Ford.
He has a point. Though regularly laughed at, the Beetle became, in 1972, the best-selling car model of all time. German-engineered bugs remain a beloved fixture in American pop culture. VW bugs and vans were counterculture symbols in the psychedelic 1960s, when hippies adorned them with flowers and peace signs.
They were cheap, fuel efficient and damn near indestructible. Just about any goober with a wrench and some duct tape could keep an air-cooled bug engine running.
Ask the Conley brothers, Terry and Jim.
Confident of bug reliability, the duo once paid $200 for a ‘59 convertible Beetle and immediately set off to sell the beater in Seattle. “We figured we could fix any problem that came up,” says Jim, 27.
An oil leak threatened to derail their plans after just 20 miles. The brothers yanked off a hubcap, using it to catch the dripping oil. They plugged the leak with an old bolt found in the road and poured the oil back in.
Then a rainstorm set in. The wipers were deader than Jerry Garcia. The Conleys puttered into a gas station and stole a squeegee. “Every few minutes,” says Terry, “Jimmy would peel back the ragtop and swipe the windshield.”
The generator was next to expire. The Conleys tracked down a new battery in Moses Lake.
Running by moonlight instead of headlights to save what little juice they had left, the Conleys crunched into a boulder that had washed into the road. The impact destroyed the right front tire and wheel. But it’s a little-known fact that “you can drive a VW bug on three wheels,” explains Terry.
It’s true. The rear-engine bug is very light in the front. By positioning their bodies just so, the Conleys’ weird journey continued.
By the time they got to the West Side, “we were pretty attached to it,” concedes Jim.
Any wonder it’s called the Love Bug?
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo