Rain 1, Beetle 0! The rain won out on Saturday after heavy rains during the week, and more rain early Saturday morning.
I absolutely would have loved taking the beetle to the VW Gathering in Garland, but not at the expense of soaking it down. If this was the summer, that would have been a different story. Coming home and washing the beetle in 70+ degree weather is no big deal. I am not undertaking that in 40-degree weather.
I am also not thrilled about braking on extremely wet roads, with so many traffic lights on the way there. I’ve had to lock up the brakes a few times, and when the roads are as wet as they were on Saturday – not interested in having that experience.
Tammy and I left the house in her Durango at 7:15AM and rolled into the parking lot at Whataburger right at 8:00 AM. I’m not really very fond of the drive, but seeing the gang is worth it. I would say 45 minutes is average, but I’ve had it take well over an hour if I am unlucky enough to hit just about every red light.
It takes a lot longer to get home if you happen to lose a wheel along the way. That happened to me about four or five years ago. Maybe that would make a good post sometime in the future.
We had a pretty decent turnout on Saturday, given the weather. That’s Scott and I in the foreground. Scott is my 1966 Brother. He has a beautiful red 1966 Beetle that he did a ground up restoration on. We had a long discussion about the dreaded blue box, on the 66 and 67 models. They were ahead of their time and that’s probably why they were discontinued after only two years. While you can still get the 12-volt box, forget about getting a 6-volt one. If your curious, click here to read my previous blog post on the blue box.
Scott has also done the same sort of ground up restoration on a Karmann Ghia. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing he can’t do on a VW. Scott also helped me with the master cylinder replacement in my 66 over the summer. It took an inordinate amount of time to finish, mainly due to sourcing parts. At one point Scott called my bug, garage art, and that term stuck.
Hopefully February will bring a dry day for the next meeting. I would like to drive there with Tammy in the Blue Bug for a change. The weather in February isn’t usually dry here…but who knows, maybe we will get lucky.
