Now introducing: Gertrude Butterblume!

How did we end up with Gertie anyway? Remember this post? Well, the person that bought her back in December sent us an email last week telling us that he didn't have the time to restore the car like he wanted, so he was selling it. He offered to sell it to us for what he paid (which was a very very reasonable and low price). We really had been regretting not buying her the first time around, so this time we didn't hesitate. 

Gertie 170.8"  Fang Fang 183.9"

Gertie's a 1971 Type III Squareback. For those who care, she has a 1600cc fuel injected pancake engine. We'll give you more details about her in future posts, like about her body condition, how she runs, yadda yadda yadda. Please make requests if there's anything you want to see.

One of Gertie's bumper over-riders was found under the front passenger seat. Hopefully nothing's wrong with it and we can get it back on her bumper. I like how the trunk comes to a subtle point. 

The tailpipe is funneling the exhaust directly in to the bumper over-rider. Not only does it look terrible, terrible, terrible but it smells terrible, terrible, terrible because the fumes dump straight in to the cargo area. (We'll be adjusting the bumper over-riders and getting a new hatch seal to remedy the problem.)

Sigh. I love the Type III's dash and steering wheel. Gertie's actual original color can be seen here on the dash. It's more of a buttercup yellow than her body color. Maybe someday we'll get her repainted the proper color, but I suspect that will be in the very very distant future, if ever. She has her original (and functioning) AM radio, which (if I have anything to say about it) will stay exactly as it is.

Welcome to the family, Gertie!

Wer dieses ist?

Stay tuned....

Not Ludwig

Hopefully not ever. Ouch. (Cribbed from Jalopnik.com.)

The 009's Days are Numbered

Q: What does that title mean?
A: It has to do with Ludwig's distributor.
Q: What's a distributor?
A: It's the thingie that distributes the spark to each of an engine's cylinders, at the right time and for the right length of time.
Q: What's wrong with Ludwig's?
A: It's a 009 ("double-oh-nine"), which is an old German code for "dead weight".

Q: But then why do so many ACVW have 009s on them?
A: Mostly due to the fact that St. John the Muir wrote so eloquently and at length about his love for them. And they're cheap.
Q: Why did Bosch make them to begin with?
A: Because for industrial ACVW engines that just sit there and run a pump or a saw or something all day long with no real variation in load or rpm, a mechanical-only advance distibutor like a 009 works just fine. Also, if your ACVW weighs about 600 lbs fully loaded, or you only ever drive it on dead flat roads at 60mph in fourth gear, the 009 is for you.
Q: Isn't that how you guys drive Ludwig?
A: No.
Q: So really, what's wrong with them?
A: Spark has to arrive at a spark plug at just the right time, and for just the right length of time, for the engine to run its best. Like when you pedal a bike: you can feel when and for how long you should push on the pedal. And that changes whether you're climbing a hill, coasting down one, or whatever else.
The engine has the same needs--the spark needs to arrive and at one point of the engine's rotation when your crate is chugging up Parleys Summit, and at another point when you're barreling down it. The proper distributor can "tell" that Ludwig is trying hard to make it up the hill, and alters its spark delivery accordingly. The 009 can only alter the spark according to how fast the engine is spinning. This makes for a humiliatingly slow creep up the grades for a heavy brick like Ludwig.
Q: Bor-ing!
A: Yeah. You could always read this instead. It's pretty hilarious.
Q: So what does any of this have to do with anything?
A: After a little research and a few ($29) bux, we got ahold of the correct distributor for a 1974 VW Type 2 with a 1700cc engine and a manual "transmission", viz., Ludwig.
(Q: Does it matter that Ludwig has a 1800cc engine instead of the 1700cc he had originally?)
(A: Not really.)
Q: Well, let's see this thing.
A: Here it is in all its glory:

Q: Cool, I guess. So after you put that doohickey in, Ludwig will power up anything at 75mph, right?

A: Not quite. I expect we'll still have to use 3rd gear some of the time. But he won't have to try so hard, if you get my drift.

Q: When will this all happen?
A: This June, hopefully. It's all part of Ludwig's Back-to-Basics Summer, which hopefully will include his getting his real carburetors installed.
Q: What are you talking about?
A: That'll be covered in another boring, pedantic post.

Q: Was the photo of that new blah-bitty-blah taken on your stellar hardwood floors?

A: No! That's our stellar hardwood kitchen counter top. No kidding.

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.