On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 12:43:06 -0500, "Daniel J. Stern"
> wrote:

>Otherwise, they're grossly polluting deathboxes with no defogger or heater
>to speak of and *certainly* no A/C. It only seems like they were good cars
>because there were a lot of mind-altering drugs going around in the '60s.

I've got to agree with Dan here, lots of anecdotal and personal
verifications. I was told about a guy who founded a successful VW
repair station in Ohio, I think. VW bugs would be hammering west
along the interstate at full throttle and maximum speed (around 70 or
so) against the prevailing wind (almost always the wind blows out of
the west along the route south of the great lakes). Full throttle for
hours. They'd pull off at this particular exit because that's about
how far they could get on one tank of gas starting from somewhere in
NY. The valves were red hot from the exertion and warped immediately
when the driver pulled off and shut down. When the guy tried starting
after fillup, no compression, or at least no compression in the hot
cylinder, the one blocked by the oil cooler.

A personal anecdote, I was driving south to Georgia to get back to
school one rainy winter evening. I think I was in northern Georgia
when I passed a long on-ramp to the interstate that joined in a long
downhill run. I saw lights coming down the on-ramp as I approached,
then noticed something strange about them, they were rotating like a
beacon. I chanced a glance to see what the hell was going on and saw
a bug sliding down the onramp on it's roof, spinning like a top.

In order to get the car to handle at all, the front tires HAD to be
adjusted to 18 psi, and the rear tires at 32 psi, or the car was all
over the road.

Corky Scott