March Feature
Every Month, A New Super Beetle Story
A Decades-Long Detour to the 1302 - Owner Spike Klimer
The 1971 Super Beetle is more than just a car for Spike Klimer; it is the culmination of a mechanical obsession that took root nearly fifty years ago. It all started for Spike in 1978 or so. One day, a powder blue 1974 Super Beetle appeared in the driveway of his suburban home. While his family saw a simple commuter for his mother, Spike saw a machine that defied the status quo of the typical 70s station wagon.
"The shape was confounded and shapely," Spike recalls. "It wasn’t like the other sedans and station wagons we usually had. And, it sounded different. A very distinctive sound. The kind of sound that sticks in your brain forever." At the time, he didn’t know what an air cooled flat four was, but he remembered that sound. Then, there was the smell. "It smelled like only a VW could. I don’t know if it was the material used or what, but you could blindfold me and put me in a Beetle, and I would know what kind of car it was. It’s one of the things that stuck with me."
Growing up in a household where cars were just appliances, Spike was an outlier. He found himself pouring over the details of the design. "The fenders. They were round and not flat on the side of the body. Running boards. It was like a car from the 30s or 40s. Why couldn’t the rest of my family think this thing was cool?" His bond with the blue Super grew during rides with his mother, where he learned the nuances of a manual transmission from the passenger seat. "With guidance from my mom I knew when to shift and what gear to use, just by the sound of the engine RPMs. I was getting pretty good at it too. I lived the time I got to spend with my mom in that blue Super."
The childhood dream came to a screeching halt when a tow truck driver hauled the car away with the parking brake engaged. "He drug that poor Beetle all the way to the garage two towns away with the tires screeching, leaving marks the entire way," Spike says. That was the last he saw of the car, but the spark was lit. He spent his youth in libraries reading about hot rods and eventually picked up a camera to document the automotive world. He went on to become an editor of a magazine featuring traditional style hot rods and customs, but that 1974 Super Beetle remained wedged in the back of his memories..
The search ended recently when Spike spotted a 1971 Super Beetle on Marketplace just a half mile away. "There she was, sitting on a little side street under a tree," he says. "Sitting in it instantly brought me back to the Blue Beetle from my youth." After a trip to the bank and a conversation with his wife about why he needed the car, Spike was finally a Volkswagen owner.
The car was a rare find: a 1302 sunroof model with only 82,000 documented miles. It spent most of its life in Iowa before moving to Pennsylvania. Though it required a trip to a local specialist to get it roadworthy, the investment was worth it. "He was able to determine exactly what the issue was and exactly how much money I had in my bank account," Spike jokes. Today, the car serves as the perfect subject for his photography. "I’ve taken quite a few pictures of the car since I’ve owned it. It’s so photogenic. I still shoot a lot of film as well as digital. Print magazines are all but dead so work for me has dried up. But, I still have my Beetle. And film."
