I remember that date because I was employed by a VW dealer during that time and they sold a lot of them.
As a matter of fact, a gentleman came in one day and ordered 5 brand new '79 Beetles; all in the same color (Lemon Yellow) and all to be retro-fitted with a very high end Blaupunkt stereo. They were all to be delivered to his ranch near Ada, OK for Thanksgiving. He was giving each of his grandkids one of them as an Xmas gift.
This guy was loaded and an interesting gentleman anyway. A WWII fighter pilot, self made millionaire, and he (now deceased) owned a trainload of vintage aircraft. His name was Colonel Tom Thomas and some years back he set a record here in OK by flying something like 65 aircraft in 12 hours time. While he was airborne his mechanic would get the next one running and make sure it was ready to go. He would land, hop in, take off, and repeat the cycle.
He owned about 75 planes and was qualified to fly about 125 different civilian and military aircraft in total. What a life!
@ok4450 is correct. I was just having fun with HHO since we had so much fun with it in another thread. Check that thread out too, @Marnet, if you want a chuckle.
the same mountainbike: The last Mexican air cooled beetles were the 2004 model. Some friends kept one at their vacation home in Nueva Vallarta. In 2006 we rented a brand new “1994” Nissan Sentra in Can’cun and drove it over much of the Yuca’tan.
I also read “The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough, I got it on my Kindle e-reader from Amazon. Just a fascinating read. Lot’s of technical details and a terrific story about hard work, determination, and competition. Highly recommended.
The old air-cooled VW bus was produced in South/Central America, until just a few years ago
In fact, it was more recently than 2004
I remember reading one of my German oldtimer car magazines, and one of the readers was planning to buy one and import it to Germany. But he was advised against this, because it couldn’t be legally imported and registered
@“the same mountainbike”, how many minutes did it take that old V-dub to 60 from a standing start? You are letting nostalgia get in the way. You are far better off with that Scion of yours than the old Beetle.
No, I meant as a plaything to putt around locally and to an occasional local car show. It would not be safe as a daily driver in today’s world. And there’s no way I’d even think of taking it on a modern highway. That’d be suicide.
I drove my 59 Beetle on the interstate. Pretty hard to make 70 with it and never worried about the time it took to get there. Warm summer night, sun roof open, WDGY playing the top 50 coming through the rear speaker, good date, and all was well in the world.
Yes, in 2004 they sold some special version of the Old Beetle.
I went to market this morning and there were several Buses bringing passengers from small villages.
Engine parts are still available. I expect old Beetles to be still running fifty years from now. These people can sometimes be extremely clever at keeping old cars running. And, the large number of Bugs make it practical to produce the parts.
Of course, the government could simply decree them out of existence for smog reasons.
According to Wikipedia, there were 21,529,464 Beetles produced. And they’re routinely restored, mainly I suspect because they’re so basic and simple and every single part still is readily available. They make a great project car for a novice. A friend of mine’s son is doing a second restoration on one that his dad restored many years ago. A shop just up the street from me that does restorations completed a body-off total restoration of one just this last summer. That was one sweet car. There’ll be some with us forever.
Anyone who thinks all 1903 cars were produced in small shops with whatever engines were available locally should look up the production figures of the 1903 qnd 04 Curved Dash Oldsmobiles that were produced in great numbers with many of the engines produced by the Dodge Brothers, who later supplied engines, rear ends and many other parts for Model T Fords.
In fact Fords desigh of the model T was so fragile that it was used only for the first year of the 18 year eun of the Model T. Note Ford also produced many of their own engines but they couldn’t keep up with demand until 1913 or 14.
Regarding the Flyer’s engine, in 2003, The Wright Experience built a flying replica that was as accurate as they could make it. (Since the Wright brothers had never drawn a full, complete set of plans for the plane, it’s tough to say how accurate any replica is.) I had an article on that replica at the time, and it said that the attempt to replicate the plane included an attempt to recreate the original engine. They were never able to get the replica engine running reliably enough to make it safe to use on the plane, so on that issue, they compromised and used a more modern design that approximated the 12 hp the original engine produced. When they attempted to fly the replica on the 100 year anniversary of the first flight, the calm winds, light rain, and low output of the engine prevented them from getting the craft airborne.
Fair enough, oldtimer. The production figures for the early years of the last century (see link) would suggest numbers larger than in small shops with whatever engines were available locally .
I stand corrected. The industry was moving toward mass production a bit earlier than I thought.