I
bought my first car when I was 18, in 1978. My Russian grandmother gave me the
money for it--very disapprovingly, as we are Jewish, and it was a VW, thus
German-made. Well, my dad had a VW bug and then a bus, so it was in my blood. I
thought for years I'd never drive anything else (ha!).I bought a 1964 VW bus with the sun roof and all the windows except the rear wrap-around ones, for $1000, being told it had a rebuilt engine. It didn't--it just needed one. It was painted acid-green, and the sunroof was blue paisley.
It
had white spots where the VW emblem had been taken off its snout. I named it
Cosmic Toad (thereafter to be called simply, Toad, or Toadie), after the
example of my erstwhile boyfriend's VW bug, Betsy the Frog.
The sun roof was later torn in the wind while crossing the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. It had been left open because it wouldn't close. I got the sun roof replaced by a friend for $100, way underpaid for a day's labor, but the color had to be orange. My friend said, "Toad now has curly red hair".
Toad's middle seat was gone and the back seat had been swapped for a wooden bench that had a storage door under its hinged seat. I kept presto-logs in there, for camping. Mice lived in there, too. Covered foam cushions were made to fit that seat (no seatbelts anywhere). It also had a bed built into the back of it, which folded up over the engine compartment. That came with a foam mattress bed, and the bed pulled out to form a slightly larger-than-double bed. (I still have the bed, which way outlasted the van.)
I painted a yellow sun on the front (and so everyone thought I was from New Mexico, because it was stylized like that) and immediately made curtains (from about 5 different fabrics) to cover the windows, including curtains across the back of the front bench seat, to close off the "living area" while camping in it. Toad had a clock in front, and it worked, and clicked periodically to show you it was working.
I glued seashells to the metal dash and had a stash of incense on the under-dash shelf. That car's exhaust didn't smell like car exhaust: It smelled like incense. When I owned it, this vehicle had lots of Illuminations and Dharma Seals on its windows, and seed beads hanging from the rearview mirror (the guy who sold them to me at the Sebastopol flea market told me that "you can eat them in a plane crash").
The sun roof was later torn in the wind while crossing the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. It had been left open because it wouldn't close. I got the sun roof replaced by a friend for $100, way underpaid for a day's labor, but the color had to be orange. My friend said, "Toad now has curly red hair".
Toad's middle seat was gone and the back seat had been swapped for a wooden bench that had a storage door under its hinged seat. I kept presto-logs in there, for camping. Mice lived in there, too. Covered foam cushions were made to fit that seat (no seatbelts anywhere). It also had a bed built into the back of it, which folded up over the engine compartment. That came with a foam mattress bed, and the bed pulled out to form a slightly larger-than-double bed. (I still have the bed, which way outlasted the van.)
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Park bum at Yosemite,
May 1980
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I painted a yellow sun on the front (and so everyone thought I was from New Mexico, because it was stylized like that) and immediately made curtains (from about 5 different fabrics) to cover the windows, including curtains across the back of the front bench seat, to close off the "living area" while camping in it. Toad had a clock in front, and it worked, and clicked periodically to show you it was working.
I glued seashells to the metal dash and had a stash of incense on the under-dash shelf. That car's exhaust didn't smell like car exhaust: It smelled like incense. When I owned it, this vehicle had lots of Illuminations and Dharma Seals on its windows, and seed beads hanging from the rearview mirror (the guy who sold them to me at the Sebastopol flea market told me that "you can eat them in a plane crash").
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| Visiting Yosemite: employee parking lot, February 1981. |
There seemed to be an
underlying theme of the airplane with Toad, who sounded and felt as if he were
a plane taxying when going his favorite speed of 51 mph. On my homemade tool
cabinet behind the front seat I had a card which pictured a little
pink-and-purple airplane soaring in the clouds on it. I told people Toad ran on
airplane fuel. Toad also had a little icebox back there.
I had a dramatic accident in Toad. I lived out of the car quite a few times, the first time being the second summer I owned him. I had everything I owned in the car and was staying at my ex-roommate's geodesic dome after we had been evicted from our house near campus. This dome was up in the hills, in the redwoods, up this steep mountain road ("Canyon Road" to be exact).
I had a dramatic accident in Toad. I lived out of the car quite a few times, the first time being the second summer I owned him. I had everything I owned in the car and was staying at my ex-roommate's geodesic dome after we had been evicted from our house near campus. This dome was up in the hills, in the redwoods, up this steep mountain road ("Canyon Road" to be exact).
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|
Toad's "bad side" (note duct tape
& smashed mirror).
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After living there for a week
or so, I became cocky about driving with a load. Now, knowing my VW Idiot Book,
I knew not to drive in too high a gear downhill with a load. And I'd had enough
warnings that evening before I set out to look at a house rental. It was Friday
the 13th, to start with. Back at the Dome, Toad wouldn't start. When I turned
the key, nothing. I sat there and said, "Toad, just start for me this
time," and I turned the key and he did. As I drove down the road I came to
a tree across the road. I got out, and a neighbor and I sawed it up. Then I was
on my way.
Anyway, traveling down Canyon Road, going in 3rd instead of 2nd for the first time with a load, I noticed a Volvo coming the other way, and I went into a pull-off, but had no brakes. I quickly decided I'd rather hit the side of the canyon than accelerate down the mountain, cross the highway and wind up in the Russian River.
So I turned the wheel into the side of the canyon and hit it. Toad glanced off, turned over and went scraping down the road. Somehow I jumped off the passenger door from the top, went running up the road, screaming, having caught sight of the rear tire (each tire was named, by the way) spinning in the air, which unnerved me.
I was rescued by neighbors who heard the crash and picked me up, and they actually soon turned the car over and brought it up to me at someone's house, at dusk. Toad's headlights burning in the dark coming up the road was a sight I thought I'd never see again. For weeks after that I saw signs of the crash--wax from candles in the bus melted on the road.
Anyway, traveling down Canyon Road, going in 3rd instead of 2nd for the first time with a load, I noticed a Volvo coming the other way, and I went into a pull-off, but had no brakes. I quickly decided I'd rather hit the side of the canyon than accelerate down the mountain, cross the highway and wind up in the Russian River.
So I turned the wheel into the side of the canyon and hit it. Toad glanced off, turned over and went scraping down the road. Somehow I jumped off the passenger door from the top, went running up the road, screaming, having caught sight of the rear tire (each tire was named, by the way) spinning in the air, which unnerved me.
I was rescued by neighbors who heard the crash and picked me up, and they actually soon turned the car over and brought it up to me at someone's house, at dusk. Toad's headlights burning in the dark coming up the road was a sight I thought I'd never see again. For weeks after that I saw signs of the crash--wax from candles in the bus melted on the road.
I drove Toad four more years, with it smashed all along its side, duct-taped, with a taped-on side mirror. I drove him without brakes (another master cylinder failure) up my mountain road and hit the side of the mountain, slipping downhill when someone wouldn't yield to me (coming back from a mechanic who could not fix it). I drove that bus without a clutch when that went, with my then-mechanic's advice on how to do so (rev the rpm's until the right speed is reached, then slip it into gear). I drove without a synchromesh for years, double-clutching it.
Toad eventually needed a new transaxle and was parked for 8 months while I earned the money for a rebuilt one. The car only lasted a few months after the new one, 4th gear going out right away ($1000 later). When Toad needed a new generator, I basically gave him up. He was immediately vandalized in downtown Forestville, and I put an ad in the paper.
For years after I got rid of Toad, I had nightmares that I still owned him, driving him without brakes, living in the mountains. (The emergency brake had never worked, anyway). Years later, I thought, "How could I sell Toad?! He was a collector's item!"
Here are some more details
about Toad, and details about two other cars, in case you haven't read enough!
Toad had a "duck quack" so that he could pass California emissions.
Toad at one point had to be hot-wired. I had a special bare wire in the back, capped off with a plastic screw-on cover, for that purpose.
Anyone who had a VW bus knows that you opened the gas compartment and the rear engine hatch with a "church key" that came with the vehicle. You could also use a screw driver.
VW buses also had "air boxes" on the ceiling, for ventilation, and what my dad called "rat fuzz" on the ceiling, but not Toad! Oh no. Toad was deluxe and had some kind of blue-greenish-white speckled plastic or something. He was high class. He used to be a deluxe, aqua blue bus.
Toad came with mag wheels (kind of embarrassing; kind of bad-ass).
Toad had a wallow on his left rear, even when I bought him, filled in with Bondo. Hmm…a colorful past, already.
Toad wasn't the only vehicle in my life, of course. While Toad was parked at the road cut overlooking the Russian River, waiting 8 months for a rebuilt transaxle, two interesting things happened.
First, I bought a 1966 VW Squareback. I used the money I was saving to go to Ireland. Oh well. That was June 13, 1982, the day Princess Diana had her first son. The car cost me $600. When I went to look at it, I was immediately dismayed at its appearance (partially smashed, rust-colored), and the seller seemed a bit odd. I thought, "Well, I've come all the way here. I might as well test-drive it!" And so I did. I climbed in and immediately felt like I was in a cockpit. (The VW Squarebacks and Fastbacks had the same engine, and perhaps, dashboard, as the Type II VW Karman Ghia - the pancake engine).
And I took her for a drive. Wow! It was like driving a sports car! I had to buy that car! And that I did - though the passenger door was wired shut, the hood was wired shut (and ya know, the gas fill was under that wired-shut hood!). Yes, it had the engine in the back, INSIDE the hatch of the back - "auf" and "zu"), and the right headlight was "hunting squirrels" as a friend said.
The car also leaked rain on the driver's knees. What else - the heat would not shut off. In fact, it would melt anything (plastic bag, perhaps) left on the back seat. Also, it had a loose coil wire. You could be (and would be) driving along the 101 freeway, or even, on the Golden Gate Bridge! And that wire would come off and the car would lose power and you'd coast to the shoulder.
(On the bridge, I was lucky to coast to the median between Van Ness straightaway and Presidio/Hwy 19 turnoff - and saw a huge GGTA tow truck in my rearview). "Oh, it's just the coil wire," I'd tell them, opening the rear engine compartment and putting it back in. ("I have to get that fixed!").
Also, the car had no working gas gauge. I quickly learned to carry a gas can in there. I remember now, I think it used to pop out of first or second gear - a sign that the transmission was going.
As I said, the car always had its heat on, and one time I was driving through the desert, after visiting Yosemite, heading south on 395. I had to basically hang out the window to survive. Visited my mother in L.A. Then I was driving back to Yosemite (I had a month off, thanks to threatening my bosses to quit if they didn't give it to me, due to a romantic interest in Yosemite). I was on whatever road it is - 80? That goes through Fresno, and then Oakhurst, and then Wawona, to Yosemite. At the last traffic light in Fresno, the brake pedal felt funny (oh no - another master cylinder disaster? Was it Friday the 13th?). The next time I tried the brake, there was none. I was right at 22-Mile House which was 22 miles from Fresno and 22 miles from Oakhurst. Lucky me.
I went over to the bar and called a tow and got it towed to a gas station in Oakhurst, where I could leave it until I came back with the part. Then I got out on the highway and hitchhiked to Yosemite Valley. I have a picture of that car when I went up to Hetch Hetchy Dam - that unfortunate place.
After my visit to Yosemite, I had to hitchhike home. Took a long time to get a ride out of the valley, but got a ride all the way to Santa Cruz-- stayed the night there, and got two rides home--one to SF, and the next one all the way up to Forestville. I worked at my job until I could buy a master cylinder, and took it by Greyhound Bus back to Oakhurst.
That winter, I sold the car for $800 to a woman who did body work.
Now, another bus story: While Toad was in repose at the roadcut, my brother-in-law and I swapped out Toad's engine and put it in his 1960 bus (whose engine was blown). I got to drive that bus too (this, the bus I grew up in, was a few months younger than I was). However, my brother-in-law didn't tell me about the bad tie-rods on that bus. I found out going around a bend in downtown Forestville.
"Bussy" was a pristine 1960 VW bus, original except for having a big old easy chair in the back instead of a middle seat, oh, and a wooden bumper that said, "High Voltage" on it, which was a joke, as those early buses were 6-volts, and had dim lights, and the lights would dim even more when the wipers were in use.
As I was saying, I told Tom, re Bussy with Toad's engine: "A nun with a derelict heart."
When I finally had saved up the money to get Toad's transaxle built (couldn't fix his brakes til the transmission stopped leaking on the brakes…wouldn't stop leaking til the transaxle was replaced, etc.). I told my sister that I found moss growing in the back of Toad, above the engine compartment. She said, "All things return to the earth."
The last car story: This is the story of the interim car after Toad met his maker and went to Volkswagen Valhalla.
My mom had a '63 Dodge Dart (bought new when I was 3). She took an auto shop class, and had located two used old Dodge Darts for sale, one which she wanted to use for parts for her working car. She decided she would buy me one, until I got another car. We had to tow it down from the mountains where it lived at this ranch.
This was lots of downhill driving, following a pickup truck, towing it on a rope (me at the wheel of the Dodge).
This Dodge broke my heart. It had been a GT, which was the Deluxe. It had been ruby-red, and was now rust-red. The rear lights went out when it rained, as it rained into the trunk. The car had no brakes. Yes, how DID I get it down off that mountain anyway?
That Dodge would go 80 on 101 freeway before I knew it. Whoa, Nelly! I had to watch that speedometer. I went to find out about getting the brakes replaced, and was told, "This car isn't worth fixing the brakes on." Boo hoo.
The license plate was FKJ something. I said to my sister, "That is a cross between fuselage and wreckage." Not a good omen.
When I tried selling that car, she wouldn't start. Somehow, though, I eventually did.
Toad had a "duck quack" so that he could pass California emissions.
Toad at one point had to be hot-wired. I had a special bare wire in the back, capped off with a plastic screw-on cover, for that purpose.
Anyone who had a VW bus knows that you opened the gas compartment and the rear engine hatch with a "church key" that came with the vehicle. You could also use a screw driver.
VW buses also had "air boxes" on the ceiling, for ventilation, and what my dad called "rat fuzz" on the ceiling, but not Toad! Oh no. Toad was deluxe and had some kind of blue-greenish-white speckled plastic or something. He was high class. He used to be a deluxe, aqua blue bus.
Toad came with mag wheels (kind of embarrassing; kind of bad-ass).
Toad had a wallow on his left rear, even when I bought him, filled in with Bondo. Hmm…a colorful past, already.
Toad wasn't the only vehicle in my life, of course. While Toad was parked at the road cut overlooking the Russian River, waiting 8 months for a rebuilt transaxle, two interesting things happened.
First, I bought a 1966 VW Squareback. I used the money I was saving to go to Ireland. Oh well. That was June 13, 1982, the day Princess Diana had her first son. The car cost me $600. When I went to look at it, I was immediately dismayed at its appearance (partially smashed, rust-colored), and the seller seemed a bit odd. I thought, "Well, I've come all the way here. I might as well test-drive it!" And so I did. I climbed in and immediately felt like I was in a cockpit. (The VW Squarebacks and Fastbacks had the same engine, and perhaps, dashboard, as the Type II VW Karman Ghia - the pancake engine).
And I took her for a drive. Wow! It was like driving a sports car! I had to buy that car! And that I did - though the passenger door was wired shut, the hood was wired shut (and ya know, the gas fill was under that wired-shut hood!). Yes, it had the engine in the back, INSIDE the hatch of the back - "auf" and "zu"), and the right headlight was "hunting squirrels" as a friend said.
The car also leaked rain on the driver's knees. What else - the heat would not shut off. In fact, it would melt anything (plastic bag, perhaps) left on the back seat. Also, it had a loose coil wire. You could be (and would be) driving along the 101 freeway, or even, on the Golden Gate Bridge! And that wire would come off and the car would lose power and you'd coast to the shoulder.
(On the bridge, I was lucky to coast to the median between Van Ness straightaway and Presidio/Hwy 19 turnoff - and saw a huge GGTA tow truck in my rearview). "Oh, it's just the coil wire," I'd tell them, opening the rear engine compartment and putting it back in. ("I have to get that fixed!").
Also, the car had no working gas gauge. I quickly learned to carry a gas can in there. I remember now, I think it used to pop out of first or second gear - a sign that the transmission was going.
As I said, the car always had its heat on, and one time I was driving through the desert, after visiting Yosemite, heading south on 395. I had to basically hang out the window to survive. Visited my mother in L.A. Then I was driving back to Yosemite (I had a month off, thanks to threatening my bosses to quit if they didn't give it to me, due to a romantic interest in Yosemite). I was on whatever road it is - 80? That goes through Fresno, and then Oakhurst, and then Wawona, to Yosemite. At the last traffic light in Fresno, the brake pedal felt funny (oh no - another master cylinder disaster? Was it Friday the 13th?). The next time I tried the brake, there was none. I was right at 22-Mile House which was 22 miles from Fresno and 22 miles from Oakhurst. Lucky me.
I went over to the bar and called a tow and got it towed to a gas station in Oakhurst, where I could leave it until I came back with the part. Then I got out on the highway and hitchhiked to Yosemite Valley. I have a picture of that car when I went up to Hetch Hetchy Dam - that unfortunate place.
After my visit to Yosemite, I had to hitchhike home. Took a long time to get a ride out of the valley, but got a ride all the way to Santa Cruz-- stayed the night there, and got two rides home--one to SF, and the next one all the way up to Forestville. I worked at my job until I could buy a master cylinder, and took it by Greyhound Bus back to Oakhurst.
That winter, I sold the car for $800 to a woman who did body work.
Now, another bus story: While Toad was in repose at the roadcut, my brother-in-law and I swapped out Toad's engine and put it in his 1960 bus (whose engine was blown). I got to drive that bus too (this, the bus I grew up in, was a few months younger than I was). However, my brother-in-law didn't tell me about the bad tie-rods on that bus. I found out going around a bend in downtown Forestville.
"Bussy" was a pristine 1960 VW bus, original except for having a big old easy chair in the back instead of a middle seat, oh, and a wooden bumper that said, "High Voltage" on it, which was a joke, as those early buses were 6-volts, and had dim lights, and the lights would dim even more when the wipers were in use.
As I was saying, I told Tom, re Bussy with Toad's engine: "A nun with a derelict heart."
When I finally had saved up the money to get Toad's transaxle built (couldn't fix his brakes til the transmission stopped leaking on the brakes…wouldn't stop leaking til the transaxle was replaced, etc.). I told my sister that I found moss growing in the back of Toad, above the engine compartment. She said, "All things return to the earth."
The last car story: This is the story of the interim car after Toad met his maker and went to Volkswagen Valhalla.
My mom had a '63 Dodge Dart (bought new when I was 3). She took an auto shop class, and had located two used old Dodge Darts for sale, one which she wanted to use for parts for her working car. She decided she would buy me one, until I got another car. We had to tow it down from the mountains where it lived at this ranch.
This was lots of downhill driving, following a pickup truck, towing it on a rope (me at the wheel of the Dodge).
This Dodge broke my heart. It had been a GT, which was the Deluxe. It had been ruby-red, and was now rust-red. The rear lights went out when it rained, as it rained into the trunk. The car had no brakes. Yes, how DID I get it down off that mountain anyway?
That Dodge would go 80 on 101 freeway before I knew it. Whoa, Nelly! I had to watch that speedometer. I went to find out about getting the brakes replaced, and was told, "This car isn't worth fixing the brakes on." Boo hoo.
The license plate was FKJ something. I said to my sister, "That is a cross between fuselage and wreckage." Not a good omen.
When I tried selling that car, she wouldn't start. Somehow, though, I eventually did.
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