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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. As I keep saying, the air-cooled VW Beetle is the most common type of old vehicle I see on the streets of the island. By far the most common. As an former (and probably future) Type I owner, I like the clattery little beasts- unadjusted valves, crazy handling, and all- but it would drive just about everyone crazy if we had the two DOTS Beetles a week that their numbers dictate. Since it's been almost a month since the last one , however, today is Beetle Friday! What model year is this car, really? I've arbitrarily selected 1964, but here's no way to tell from these photos, and I don't care how much of a VW zealot expert you might be. Oh, sure, the door handles, rear window, taillights, door handles, gas gauge… and you can cite chapter and verse about a hundred other details, et freakin' cetera, but this is no one-owner, all-original...
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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. One thing I've tried to do is keep Volkswagen Old Beetles from overwhelming the series; that's because there we've got more air-cooled Beetles than any other type of old car on the island- more, even, than Chrysler A bodies. This doesn't mean, however, that I should avoid them completely- I just need to space them carefully… and our last one was all the way back in June. So here we go- our first DOTS Super Beetle! I'd had a couple of old-style Beetles prior to getting my first Super Beetles, and the switch from the old torsion-beam front suspension to McPherson strut suspension (this being the primary difference between the Super Beetle and the regular kind) didn't feel all that meaningful while driving. However, the new front suspension made room for lots more storage space under the hood. I'm not 100% sure of the year...
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Sometimes months can go by between my photographing of a DOTS car and posting those photographs. Today's car is a good example; I shot the original photos last August, but the island is overflowing with air-cooled Beetles and I have a glut of photos of such cars (yes, Beetle fans, I know I should be posting more of them... and I will, promise). But this particular exposed-engine Beetle, which I'm arbitrarily calling a '69 (though it could be from any year during the 68-72 span), got in some sort of messy collision in the meantime and then moved across town. At first, I thought I was looking at a different car, but checking plate numbers told the whole story. So what we have here is your standard mildly hot-rodded late-60s/early-70s Beetle, with exposed engine but retaining the factory wheels and hubcaps. This could easily be the original engine, or the 15th, and the displacement could be anything from 1200cc all the way up to a stroked "How much money you got?" mill...
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Anyone want to take a guess on the year of this thing? The taillights, 4-lug front wheels (rears are using adapters) and what appears to be a swingaxle rear suspension would seem to indicate 1968... but we all know how parts tend to get swapped around on Type 1s, particularly when it's a Baja. Anyway, it's been a while since we've seen an air-cooled VW (unless you count this 914 as a VW), so today will be Beetle Friday. Alameda was a serious Baja Bug city back in the 70s and 80s; several of my high-school classmates drove them, and I had a Type 3-powered '58 that had been horribly butchered into a cruel parody of a Baja by a previous owner. But now it seems that we're down to just a single example on the whole island (unless there are a few hidden away in garages). Ah, the old crankshaft degree wheel! And that's the de rigueur Bosch 009 distributor- you can just barely make out the number in the photo. These things actually do amazingly well off-road... but so do...
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We've seen four of Alameda's air-cooled Beetles so far in this series (a '59 , a '64 , a '66 , and a '69 ). With the 50s and 60s covered, I figured I should shoot a 70s model. With so many old Beetles still roaming the island, that's no problem at all- the only choice was between a standard Beetle and its Super Beetle sibling; I opted for the former. The old air-cooled Type 1 engine was nearing the end of its long run in North America by the time this car was built; the smog belching from the clattery opposed-four wasn't going to be easy to reduce. The '72 Beetles got a 60-horse 1600 engine, which did a fairly decent job of moving the car's light weight. This example is a bit battered, but mostly solid and rust-free, which isn't always the case in California; Beetles like to rust so much that they can even find a way to do so in this dry, road-salt-free climate. The main difference between the regular Beetle and its Super sibling was the front...
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Since 78% of you voted pro-Beetle a while back, it's time for us to look at a few of the numerous late-60s/early-70s examples I've photographed on the island. This one doesn't look so different from the '59 Beetle we saw a week ago , but plenty of changes took place under that 30s-style skin during the decade. Most important, the old rollover-friendly swingaxle rear suspension was replaced with a proper IRS unit for '69. The '69 Beetle came with a 53-horsepower 1500, close to double the power of the engine in the '59, and a 12-volt electrical system had been standard for a few years by that point. This Bug is pretty rough, but it reminds us of an era in which beater VWs filled the niche in the Cheap-Ass Old Car ecosystem now occupied by the 80s Toyota Corolla. You can still get these things pretty cheap, but the days of $100 daily-driver-ready Bugs have sputtered off into the sunset. I've owned a few of these cars, and I really liked them (in spite of the...
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According to the poll we included in the VW Thing post last week, Jalopnik readers give a definite thumbs-up to the inclusion of VW Beetles in the Down on the Street series. Looks like DOTS Beetle Week lost by a whisker... but don't worry, Beetle fans...
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