Re: Sort of NG, Chasing late D&RGW with Volkswagens.

I chased both the West Side and the DRGW ng. in a Beetle. On the other hand I also took my Chevy Corvair into places like Osier and Sublete. And my first trip was with a '52 Ford sedan. I would say the primary advantage of the Beetle is it was cheap, well made, and simple to repair. The flat bottom also provided relatively few targets for rocks (on the West Side I slid down hills on the sage brush between the ruts). But it was also grossly underpowered....I remember crossing the Arizona desert at 45 mph with the acccelerator floored (the desert was sloped and I was going slightly up hill). When I was going to school at Berkeley the Beetle was something of a intellectual status symbol in those days, Berkeley was full of them, many driven by faculty members who coud afford better. On one trip to the ng. the elecrical system on my Beetle shorted out, prematurely ending a GREAT fall color chase. The modern equivalent of the beetle seems to be the Fiat 500.

This is the only picture I have found showing my Beetle:



I don't remember what model year it was, I purchased it used about 1961. But it had some of the original "features" like no gas gauge, and a flat windscreen. But it did have a radio and a sunroof.

And here is one for Dan.



JBWX



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2021 02:48PM by John West.