November Feature
A new Super feature every month
That Little Bug - Owner: Billy Starr
Back in 1973 my aunt was a secretary for AT&T. She needed a car that would be good on gas and had A/C to drive from Elon North Carolina to Greensboro North Carolina each day. She went to the local Volkswagen dealership and found a yellow Super Beetle. Instantly falling in love, she had to have the car. She didn't like the wheels that were on it, so she bought a set of American Racing rims and discarded the VW hubcaps. She also had the dealership install a new factory AM/FM radio. She would write notes in the car for the maintenance guys when she took the Bug in for service. This became her everyday car once she retired from AT&T and she drove my then teenage mom around all the time. She eventually decided to retire the little Bug and get something newer in the 80s. Around 1991 she decided to sell the Super Beetle to her neighbor for his two sons. The neighbors boys drove the snot out of this car. Boys being boys broke stuff of course, wore the seats out, and blew the engine up at one point.
Their dad had the engine rebuilt and after the boys grew up and got their own cars and moved out, he kept the little Bug and drove it around until one day it just wouldn't start. He wasn't a mechanic. Had no idea what was wrong with the car, so he let it sit. After awhile he realized it wasn't going to be fixed anytime soon and pushed it to his backyard. He taped the seals up with duct-tape and put a very good car cover on it. Fast forward to 2017 and my aunt called my mom to tell her that her neighbor of many years was moving to the beach. Mom asked if the Bug was going as well, my aunt told her that he wanted to sell it because his wife said it was not going with them. My mom jumped on the opportunity. My aunt had watched the little Bug rot away in her neighbors back yard year after year and thought it was too far gone and it wasn't worth anything but scrap.
She told my mom that it was going to cost more than the little car was worth to get it back to what it used to be. My mom, my aunts neighbor along with my dad looked over the car. The tires were dry rotted and it still had the American Racing rims that my aunt put on many year earlier. There was some rust here and there and a little mold and mildew inside the car. Even though it was covered, it would blow off occasionally. Mom paid the neighbor for the little Bug and the next day she was on a roll back coming to my parents house.
After delivery my dad got work. He has always been a Ford guy and had restored many Mustangs and even raced a few. The little Bug was new to him, but he is always up for a challenge. He knew that the brakes didn't work, he just didn't understand why it would have just stopped running. The neighbor told him that he parked it one day and he went a couple of days later to start it up and nothing. So, dad gets a battery and turns the engine over. It turns freely, sounds healthy. Puzzled, he pulls the distributor and there it is! The points are completely burned up. A $7 part caused this VW to sit for almost 17 years. He ran to the parts store and got some points, hooked up a little gas can because the gas tank contents were unknown at the time.. and fired the little Bug up! The Bug ran so good, just as it did the day the neighbor had parked it.
Dad began to restore the car, taking it apart panel by panel, fixing the rusty spots, ripping the interior out while saving what he could. About a week later the little Bug was back on the road. As a driving project, dad had restored it to factory condition with the American Racing rims polished and shiny. The little Bug now gleams in the sunlight in the country, just happy to have survived it's long journey. My obsession with Volkswagens began when I was a little kid. My sister's first car was a '66 Beetle. I loved this little car and riding around in it with her. She sold it to a lady up the street and when I was able to ask about them selling it back to me, it was gone. Although that one got away, the little yellow Bug will stay in the family and be cared for and enjoyed as long as I live.