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A 22 year old VWGirl... what more could a guy ask for? Someone please tell me cause I am still single!
Anyways... I became interested in VW's as a kid. No one ever dreamed it would turn into what it has, I was just an innocent child watching Herbie on the Disney channel. My whole family thought that it was cute... until about the age of 14 when I would grab the classified every morning and look for the bug of my dreams. My parents and grandparents kept taking me out to look at new cars (I really did like that brand new 2 door bright red 96 golf!) but nothing (other than the golf) ever really fit. Finally, a few months before my 17th birthday (on 02 September 97) I finally got my first car! I thought she was a hideous color (being pink and all) and all i could talk about was getting her painted... I was advised to get the mechanics worked out first... so I did, but then the pink grew on me!
When I started college full time in 1998 and I was planning on moving to Gainesville to go to UF I decided that I would buy a 2nd car to deliver pizza in... I wanted a red oxidized yet rust free 1980 diesel rabbit... well, I got a red nearly rust free, fairly decent original paint 81 diesel rabbit for $450 instead. Hey you can't always get what you want right? Well, the plan was to then restore the bug. Needless to say that never happened...
So, nearly a year goes by and I am out on a delivery when my rabbit dies... OKAY, someone can fix a diesel VW in this town right? WRONG! I spent like a month trying to get someone to repair it... the dealer wanted a fortune and the two "vw specialty" shops in this town can't be trusted. So what to do?
Well, I go to WalMart with my mom one day and happen to see this nice blue beetle sitting in the lot for sale! so, I go to look at it... it's an autostick!!! Wow! I always wanted to drive one of those! So I call up the owner and take it out for a drive... Well, a week or so later I drove it home! After going through all the receipts that came with the car I decided that I would take my rabbit to one of those "specialty shops"... needless to say BIG mistake!!! I still don't know how you rebuild an engine without replacing the seals... and don't tighten down hoses... and install bearings that are pressure fit WRONG (I dont think two bearings came from NAPA bad... I think they were installed wrong... having someone else install the second set of NAPA bearings seemed to do the trick... hmmm... go figure.)anyhow... several thousand dollars later I got my car back from that jerk... and if anyone asks (MANY do!) where to take their car in Gainesville I tell them if I can't fix it for them then they are better off just taking it to the dealer cause I have now dealt with BOTH of those so called specialty shops and neither one knows what they are doing!
Back to the story of car aquisition...
So... 2000 rolls around and I am a 19 year old with 3 cars... that is more than enough right? Well... I see this type 4 sitting in someones yard rotting away. it was a stationwagon with a roofrack and didnt look like it had been drivin in 20 years... a tree had fallen on the roof and caved part of it in. So I go knock on the door and find the guy that owned it... well, apparently he didnt want to sell it, but told me where he got it and said that there was another one. So, I go seeking out this other one... I don't see it though. A few months go by and the car appears out in the front yard of where it was supposed to be! It's a type 3, complete with pop outs, but it's super rusty. Oh well... $200 wasn't bad I thought... I wanted it and happened to have the cash on me. But how do I break it to my parents? My friend David let me keep it at his place for a while. It all worked out in the end (I need to get this car back home now, it has been sitting at a friend of my parents for over a year!)
Okay, 4 cars at 19... that is getting a bit much eh?? Well, I picked up a second job working for the US Census Bureau. Around April or May I started working out in Cedar Key FL. I go outside to my car one day and find a note attached to the windshield stating something to the effect of I have two rabbits for sale and left a #. I went back inside to call him and was leaving a message when the guy came back! So I talked to him a bit and went out to his place to look at the cars. They looked pretty nice and he made me a deal... 6 cars now! Okay, time to stop buying cars!
So I did... then in 2002 I got the urge to buy a convertible. The autostick wasn't being driven (who knows why?) and my mom can't drive a manual, so I decided to get an automatic Cabriolet. Do you know how hard those things are to find? Geez... Well, eventually I found one about 2 miles down the street in good shape and reasonably priced. So of course after driving it with the top down I HAD to buy it!
A week or so goes by and I go out parts hunting trying to find this junkyard out in Middleburg FL. Well, before I get to where I need to go I see a different junkyard and I stop in just to see what they have. I go up to the desk and ask if they have any VW's of course getting the response of what kind. I explained any kind and they just let me go out there. What do I find? TWO convertibles! a Cabriolet and a Sunbug! I asked them about so many parts on both cars that the guy just said he would sell the whole cars to me. Well I didnt have a place to keep them at the time so they stayed there... for about six months. Lucky for me when it changed ownership the guy that bought the place was nice enough to let meget the cars still... so now at 21 I had 9 cars! NO WAY was I going into double digits!
Well, Aug 02 I totalled my first car :( so at Bug Jam 02 I was looking for some nice used GERMAN fenders for her cause I am convinced that I can fix her. I couldn't find any... Until... I found a whole car! Car #10 was on it's way home!
03 comes around and I needed a new job. I thought I might get a delivery job, but that would require having a more reliable car, and my cabriolet would act up when it got hot. SO... The person I rent my shop from had this nice beetle sitting outside... I worked out a deal with her and it was mine! Now, it just needed put together... what a nice car! Well, the job didn't work out... so I have the car, but haven't even driven it. But that pretty much sums up the car history...
Now one of these days I will get around to writing about me!
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