Would a Honda Element fill the bill for your son in transporting his equipment? They do have, for me, a sort of appealing funky look. A Honda Element would be a lot safer and much more reliable than a VW Microbus from the 1960’s.
The only road-worthy split-window Bus you will find today will be a fully restored collector vehicle. Big Bucks. Any unrestored VW Buses will be a pile of rusted junk. Dreams die hard…
Back in the '60’s and '70’s, EVERYBODY drove death-traps and they KNEW it. Today, the guy coming at you has two seat belts and 5 air-bags and feels confident he can plow into you at 45mph and walkaway…
Forget the well-deserved death trap label for a minute and consider the fact they had no real heater and no A/C. Some had a cute little rubber-bladed fan in place of a defroster.
Don’t make your wife suffer more than she already has…
In any endeavor, the survivors are always the only ones that can recount their adventures. You are implying that driving a car without the latest safety gear is inherently risky. That is simply untrue. That’s like the phony blanket statement non-bikers make about motorcycles: that they’re dangerous. In the right hands,they are not any more risky or dangerous than any other vehicle. The difference is in the severity of injury in a crash. Obviously, crashing a Beetle or a bike is far more likely to injure the driver than crashing a new Toyota loaded with airbags, crumple zones, etc. My point is simply that crashing a vehicle is not an inevitability; the driver plays the biggest role in preventing it. Since you claim that drivers were 8 times more likely to die in an auto accident in the '60s than they are today, doesn’t that mean the roads are much safer today, and the people who constantly mention “today’s drivers” and how dangerous it is now are completely wrong?
Diamond-Chevy:
Drivers in the 1960s and 1970s didn’t have cell phones. They didn’t even have CD players.
Yes, as a motorcycle rider, I can tell you motorcyclists are less likely to be in collisions than car drivers, but when they are involved in collisions, the injuries are far greater, even if you are smart enough to wear a Snell approved helmet. I waited until I was 35 years old to learn how to ride because I knew, based on how I drove as a young person, I would not have survived the experience if I had learned to ride when I was 20 years old.
texases’ point is that the dead can’t speak to the dangers that killed them, so any advice that begins with “I survived…” is inherently biased. Many didn’t survive, and they aren’t here to testify.
There are young people who could do just fine riding a motorcycle. After all, you can’t talk on a cell phone while wearing a helmet, and there is no CD player or MP3 player to distract you on most motorcycles. However, in this case, the boy’s mother doesn’t think he is up to the challenge, and she knows the boy better than you.
“higher speeds”? Are you just making stuff up, or did you mean to type “lower speeds”? Do you remember the speed limit being lowered nationally to 55? Jeez Louise!
Your egregious error having been pointed out, and in spite of my love of the VW bus, I’m inclined to agree that there are better options. I was offered one for free in the eighties and I turned it down. I regret that to this day.
8 TIMES? Prove it.
“The only folks that can tell us now that they survived risky behavior are then ones that DIDN’T crash.”
Except for Evel Knievel and any number of BMX racers. Oh, and me. Every crash in the '60s resulted in death? Pishposh!
Texases is correct.
Yes, many thousands of people lived to tell the tales about their VW Microbus experiences, but those that didn’t survive are not around to remind us of how they were killed.
If we use the same logic regarding diseases, then there was no reason for folks to fear Smallpox back in the days prior to immunization. After all, there were people who did not contract that disease and who did not die. The survivors may well have thought that Smallpox posed little threat to the populace, but those who died might have told a different tale if they were able to communicate from the grave.
Most children did not contract Polio in the days prior to the Salk Vaccine. The ones who did not wind up in an iron lung might have thought that the talk of immunizations was silly. The ones who wound up crippled probably thought differently.
In other words, when no alternative exists, we must tolerate the only options that we have. When better ways of doing things become available, continuing to cling to outmoded technology is good only for nostaligia purposes. The OP would be foolish to put his child in a 40 year old vehicle that is unsafe by modern standards when so many superior transportation options exist.
Whitey:
You’re making my point for me. I said the OP should be honest and objective about his son’s abilities. I also implied many people lack the skill to safely drive an older car, as well as any car, short of a tricycle in their driveway. I would not hesitate for one second to drive a Bug, Bus, original Mini Cooper, or any one of a thousand other so-called death traps on today’s big, scary roads. I would do just fine, but some people wouldn’t. Now, if ultimate, guaranteed safety is the only deciding factor in life, then no one would ever do anything.
“Today, the guy coming at you has two seat belts and 5 air-bags and feels confident he can plow into you at 45mph and walkaway…”
Yeah, he can walk away about an hour later when the fire department comes along with the jaws of life to pry his car open. Just making stuff up you are.
No, everybody DIDN’T drive deathtraps. I present the Dodge Charger, any Oldsmobile, and the the Cadillac of cars, the Cadillac. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. If you can’t find a way to get warm in a VW bus, then maybe leaving the house is not for you, but actually the heat is quite adequate. Admittedly the air conditioning comes in the form of WINDOWS, but if that doesn’t work for you you might need to cowboy up a bit. AC is NOT a necessity. Keeping those darn kids off your lawn is.
“would you rather have this,or would rather have that”? Is your son hellbent on a VW bus? Remember, most people back then were high on LSD, so sitting one foot away from death was not on their minds.
I don’t care who makes the van, they are a pain in the butt to work on and maintain.
How about trying to find a '50’s delivery truck. They truly rock!
Richard, if you want to relive the old days, you can buy a VW bus. i myself had a series of VW bugs, (before VW ruined the concept with the “Super” beetle), but i wouldn’t have touched a van with a ten-foot pole.
There aren’t that many left because:
- People DIED in them. Once it’s munched, you pull the engine, bury the bodies, and crush the rest.
- It was too easy to overload them. As i recall, your 67 was a 1600cc engine. Designed to transport 4 people at MOST. But the van had room for many more. Or just more “stuff.” Folks constantly overloaded them. i wore out a '65 bug in pretty short order just by having a 4-person carpool.
- Teaching him rudementary mechanics? i can see that, but with your VW bus, it’s stuff he really can’t use, unless he decides to drive old VW buses his whole life. Name me one modern air-cooled car. Can’t? Okay, this might be easier. Name one modern car that you can work on yourself.
- Oh yes. i forgot to mention the whimsically named “heater” and “defroster.” Someone in Germany had a sense of humor.
- Perhaps nostalgia also has blurred the memory of all the contortionist poses you needed to get into to work on the thing. It’s a VAN. Van’s are AWFUL to work on. It doesn’t matter who built them. All those awful memories and scars will come rushing back the first time you try to change the spark plugs.
i guess my question is, do you love your son? If you don’t, get him the bus…
i’m thinking a drum set will fit fine inside a pickup bed, and unload a LOT easier. If weather is a consideration, (or if you’re just dead set on experiancing the joys of moving the drums inside of something), place a camper shell over the pickup bed.
Zombiewoof, you are a breath of fresh air. Finally, someone else in this forum I can agree with who doesn’t see imminent death and destruction in any car built before last week.
Your argument is essentially that dead people are dead, and therefore you’re right. The basic question that needs to be addressed first is: is the percentage of deaths in VW bus collisions over or under 50% ? I suspect you don’t know.
“The OP would be foolish to put his child in a 40 year old vehicle that is unsafe by modern standards when so many superior transportation options exist.”
Hmm, skateboards are easily 50 years old and demonstrably unsafe. Thoughts?
Thank your for the quick lesson on epidemiology. I thank my Maker every day for my sickle cell anemia, as it protects me from malaria.
Finally, someone else in this forum I can agree with who doesn’t see imminent death and destruction in any car built before last week.
Don’t you hate it when someone tries to oversimplify your position into a sound bite in an effort to make you seem ridiculous? It’s a dirty trick, but I guess I do it too.
Fortunately, my position is much more nuanced than that. If I had been a teenager in the 1960s, I probably would have owned a VW van, and I probably would have survived, but today we have better choices, different alternatives. Back then, compared to other cars on the road, relatively speaking, the VW wasn’t much more dangerous than all the other cars with metal dashboards and inadequate or underutilized seatbelts. However, if you compare a Microbus to any vehicle sold in the last 20 years, the Microbus would lose. In terms of reliability, compared to cars of today, the Microbus is on the same level as a Yugo.
If all you can afford is a relatively dangerous motor vehicle, I understand the choice. If you feel nostalgic and want to drive around in or ride around on something dangerous, that is okay too. However, going against your wife in order to put your son in one of these vehicles is just an all around bad idea. In terms of risk vs. reward, and getting the most bang for your buck, I think risks like the one being proposed are a bad idea.
Here we go again. You’re assuming a VW is inherently dangerous, like standing inside a burning building. It is not. No vehicle is. Driving ANY vehicle beyond its capabilities, though, IS dangerous. Are there vehicles that will provide better protection in the event of a crash? Absolutely! But that does not make this vehicle any more dangerous than any other. The assumption throughout this thread seems to be that it’s inevitable the kid will crash. In that case, I suggest he not be allowed to drive ANY car, and be banned from climbing stairs, playing sports, bathing, or any other activities that people have managed to hurt, maim, or kill themselves doing.
OK-Dokey, so some of the folks here thinks the rest of us are just a bunch of nervous Nellies…I guess they’d be happy driving either one of the Chevies in this video:
And you know that '59 is WAY safer than the feet-for-front-bumper VW…
And I do have to correct my early comment, modern cars are not 8 times safer than 60s cars, they’re only 5 times safer. My earlier comment, based on fatality statistics:
“Regardless of the source (government, insurance companies, or carmakers), safety equipment in cars has made a HUGE difference in the death rate from driving. What else, really, has changed since 1965, right in the ‘golden age’ of American cars? Are roads better? Are drivers better? In 1965 there were about 6 deaths per 100 million passenger miles. By 2008 there was almost an 80% reduction, to 1.25 deaths per 100 million passenger miles, and it’s been going down year by year.”
Rephrased so it won’t be “meroved” to the dreaded “domertator’s Q”:
Ding! Ding! Ding! Hang on to that thought, friend, because if experience is any guide, there may come a day when I tick you off. (Censored). I will, however, graciously accept any positive comments. Thank you.
“Remember, most people back then were high on LSD”
Nonsense.
“I don’t care who makes the van, they are a pain in the butt to work on and maintain.”
Again, nonsense. The only vehicle easier to work on than a VW van is a weedwacker. One person can swap in a replacement engine and/or transmission. Everything’s accessible, brakes are easy, etc.
@Whitie: So you wouldn’t have been concerned that the driver is essentially strapped to the front of the vehicle, as opposed to say, a Chevy Impala, where there’s a V-8 engine between the driver and the other car or the tree in a head-on collision? Again, nonsense.
The VW Bus is less dangerous than the Space Shuttle.