Somewhere near 27th Street and Cornhusker Highway in Lincoln, sometime in (I believe) August of 1993, one Mr. McDonald (02) was driving his 1974 VW Westfalia (the one and only Ludwig, though not by that name then) when it made a tremendous clunking noise unto the Lord immediately before the abrupt cessation of all engine power. No efforts, heroic or otherwise, could get the vehicle running again, so it was towed ~120miles to the Melcher farm Northeast of Stanton.
All America-bound VW Type IIs (that is, busses and campers) from 1972 through 1979 were equipped with Volkswagen's Type IV engine, aka "the pancake engine", which proved to be the last air-cooled engine VW would ever develop. Many would say (I would agree) that the Type IV engine is also the best air-cooled engine VW ever made, in terms of power and durability.
(The Beetle (Type I) engine (aka "the upright engine"), produced, with improvements but without real change in structure, from 1938 to 2003 (!), was certainly reliable for what it was worth, but the Type IV engine is basically a Type I engine that's had a lot of what's "wrong" with it "fixed".)
One of the pillars of the Type IV engine's strength is its "bottom end", the deepest internals of an engine: the crankshaft, rods and camshaft. The Type IV crankshaft in particular has been sometimes referred to as "bullet-proof". I remember someone telling me once that even God couldn't break a Type IV crank.
It wasn't until (01)Melcher and I were tearing down the engine 10 1/2 years later that what we had expected but couldn't bring ourselves to believe was true: on that hot August day in 1993, McDonald did what the Creator of the Universe allegedly could not:
broken Type IV crankshaft
Nota bene: See "Comments" below for an educated discussion of the above post.
This is a mid-1960s VW bus--a "Splittie"; note the two-piece, or "split", windshield--in North Missoula. Truly a beautiful working example of the type. Those giant rearview mirrors are not stock.
This well-worn mid-70s Westy was parked at the house next door for a few days.
I have owned three of these cars so far in my life, the very underappreciated VW Type 3. Honestly, I think the Type 3 is a superior car to the Beetle in many ways, interior space being foremost. This one, with an unfortunate paint job (tough to see in this picture, but it is covered with a toothbrush-applied splattering of black and gray), was at the Missoula Skatepark opening a few months ago. The Idaho plates read, quite inappropriately, "DETHBOX".
Another Type 3 Squareback (viz., station wagon), parked at a restaurant near our house. The 1968 VW Type 3 was the first factory electronic fuel-injected car in the world. I once achieved nearly 40mpg in my 1970 Type 3 ("Anne"), making one wonder why cars that are nearly 40 years newer struggle to attain such good mileage.
This 1920s (?) Ford Model A was parked in front of the Missoula County Courthouse. Notice that it has regular Montana plates, indicating that this is someone's driving car, not a museum piece or parade-only car. Awesome.
A brutally butchered early bay window seen in the UM homecoming parade. Send in the clowns.
I think this is a Nash Metropolitan from the 1950s or 60s, with Wyoming plates. It is often parked on the block North of us.
This early bay was spotted in North Missoula, not far from the Splittie pictured above. Ah, the pains of being a drivable canvas.
