Just Plain Volks
The VW counterculture is alive and well
Before this magazine was called european car, it was called VW and Porsche and before that VW Greats. So the cars from Wolfsburg have always been a pretty important part of our editorial culture. More than one of the editors of this magazine can remember driving a 40-hp Beetle over to surf at Malibu or across Berkeley's campus during the "Summer of Love." Like I said, VWs are pretty important around here.
This past summer I went to Volksfest, put on by the Central Ohio Vintage Volkswagen Club. This orgy of Volkswagen mania is one of the largest VW meets in the Midwest, drawing cars and their owners from six states. I went not only because the owner of a local VW shop had asked me to show my Volkswagen-powered 1964 Beach Formula Vee vintage racer in the Specials class, but also to get a sense of what kind of person would come to such an event.
After all, this is a car show that's in large part dedicated to an automotive design with roots directly back to before the Hitler war. More importantly, however, VWs are cultural icons that represent to Americans much of what happened in the last half of the 20th century. With more than 400 cars entered in the meet, there were certain to be lots of people around to examine.
A Festival
It's a large and friendly crowd that shows up at a VW meet. The local high school parking lot was transformed into lines of cars on display while rock music blared from the loudspeakers. The cars were lined up by category, and there were rows of split and oval window VW Beetles, Microbuses, Squarebacks and Things. Every vehicle that VW ever built was represented, including a WWII German Army amphibious Schwimwagen.
A disc jockey occasionally screamed unintelligibly into a microphone, and throughout the day there were drawings and special events for guests of all ages. In addition to the car show, there was a swap meet and an area where cars that were for sale could be displayed. A crowd of several thousand people milled throughout the cars, pointing out to one another the interesting, sublime or merely bizarre. It is hard to remember now, some 40 years later, how dramatically different a VW Beetle seemed to someone brought up driving V8-powered American cars. Small, slow and frugal, VWs were so different that nobody in Detroit's big three automakers could see any future in them. But, to a young generation tired of conformity and willing to embrace change, the Beetle was the perfect way to make a statement.
Like, Wow Man
How predictable is it that a fair number of the people who love aircooled VWs and attend a VW meet are wearing tie-dye? Flower power isn't dead, it's just a bit wilted. Strangely enough, although the VW meet has brought together plenty of middle-aged people dressed up like hippies from the 1960s, you just know that most of them have real jobs as establishment squares in their real lives. It's sort of like people who own Harley-Davidson motorcycles, dressing up in leather like outlaw bikers on weekends and then returning to their jobs at the bank on Monday morning. The best costumes are worn by those with 1960s VW Microbuses, which somehow seems perfectly appropriate. Psychologists say a little bit of role-playing is probably good for the soul, and being a weekend VW hippie seems like a pretty harmless fetish.