Some thing
The first two VWs I have any memory of date from the late 1970s when my family lived in Mission South Dakota, on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. One was a Beetle that sat atop a pile of cars in a junkyard just outside of Winner. The other was our neighbors' orange Thing. The one below isn't the one from that distant memory of course, but it is just like it. Only more beat up.
During WWII Volkswagen had to stop making passenger cars (they'd only made a handful of prototype Beetles by 1939) and start making military vehicles. The Kubelwagen ("bucket car") was the German version of the Jeep. Years later, some NATO members were looking for a cheapo troop car and the Volkswagen Type 181 was born, loosely modeled on the wartime Kubelwagen. Military production began in 1969, but the armed forces turned out not to be too interested after all and VW only sold them a few thousand.
The Type 181 survived in civilian dress as The Thing, sold in this country only during the 1973 and 1974 model years. You can tell the two years apart by the presence of those boxy afterthought scoops above the rear wheels on '74s like the one here; the '73s had louvres in the rear panel instead. They're all convertibles, either hard- or soft-top. The doors come off without tools and the windshield can fold down onto the hood, so you can shoot directly out of the passenger seat if you need to. They kept making them in Mexico until 1983 or '84, I think.
I've done some limited tooling around in a Thing that a high school classmate had briefly. Actually, 02McDonald and I went with her to check it out before she bought it. One fine early Spring day in 1992 we arrived in Grand Island to find it sharing a garage with another Thing and a Porsche 356. The one we were looking at and the 356 sat nose-to-nose. I don't remember why, but I was charged with hopping in and starting it up. For reasons that elude me to this day, I didn't press in the clutch or check to see if it was in neutral before I turned it over. As the Thing chugged forward and smacked the 356 squarely on the nose, I remember wondering how many steaks I'd have to flip to pay for that little car. To our utter amazement, the owner simply stood there and had another expressionless sip of his coffee. He told me not to worry as he lazily gazed at it, not even bothering to take his other hand out of his pocket. Maybe it was a kit car; I was too sick to my stomach to ask.
During WWII Volkswagen had to stop making passenger cars (they'd only made a handful of prototype Beetles by 1939) and start making military vehicles. The Kubelwagen ("bucket car") was the German version of the Jeep. Years later, some NATO members were looking for a cheapo troop car and the Volkswagen Type 181 was born, loosely modeled on the wartime Kubelwagen. Military production began in 1969, but the armed forces turned out not to be too interested after all and VW only sold them a few thousand. 
The Type 181 survived in civilian dress as The Thing, sold in this country only during the 1973 and 1974 model years. You can tell the two years apart by the presence of those boxy afterthought scoops above the rear wheels on '74s like the one here; the '73s had louvres in the rear panel instead. They're all convertibles, either hard- or soft-top. The doors come off without tools and the windshield can fold down onto the hood, so you can shoot directly out of the passenger seat if you need to. They kept making them in Mexico until 1983 or '84, I think.
I've done some limited tooling around in a Thing that a high school classmate had briefly. Actually, 02McDonald and I went with her to check it out before she bought it. One fine early Spring day in 1992 we arrived in Grand Island to find it sharing a garage with another Thing and a Porsche 356. The one we were looking at and the 356 sat nose-to-nose. I don't remember why, but I was charged with hopping in and starting it up. For reasons that elude me to this day, I didn't press in the clutch or check to see if it was in neutral before I turned it over. As the Thing chugged forward and smacked the 356 squarely on the nose, I remember wondering how many steaks I'd have to flip to pay for that little car. To our utter amazement, the owner simply stood there and had another expressionless sip of his coffee. He told me not to worry as he lazily gazed at it, not even bothering to take his other hand out of his pocket. Maybe it was a kit car; I was too sick to my stomach to ask.
2 comments:
Of all the various air-cooled models, VW and Porsche - I must say my dream car is the 356. Sometimes, when rolling down the road in Little Blue, motor purring away behind me, I like to pictures myself in a 356. And then I have to go up a hill and the dream fades...
My memory of all things is, in general, very poor. For instance, I didn't remember that it was an "early spring day in 1992", or that we were even in Grand Island that day. But I will never forget you smashing that 356 and the owner's total (it cannot be overstated)lack of a reaction to witnessing two of his cars being rammed together in his own garage. It was a strange garage too...a three-car garage that was only one car wide.
I wonder what ever happened to that Thing.
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