It’s so late, and I’m so tired, but Colds don’t Start themselves, do they? They don’t. They sure as hell don’t. That’s what I do, so we’re going to do it right now, and take a nice, hard look at a bunch of quite random ads for accessories for Volkswagen Beetles, all from around, oh, the mid ’50s to the mid ’60s or so. You know, prime midcentury!
By the way, have we decided what we’re going to call the middle decades of the 21st century? I feel like “mid-century” is pretty well associated with the 1950s and 1960s, and when and if we eventually do get to the 2050s and 2060s, I think we may want a new name for that period, yeah? Just to avoid confusion when we try to Google couches and end tables?
How about “the meat decades” as in the meat in the sandwich, which is almost always – pending your sandwich assembly skills – in the middle. Or is that too misleading? What about “dle-century?” You know, just take the remaining half of the word “middle” since the 1900s grabbed the front three letters? Or maybe “center-century?” I kinda like that one. We could shorten it to “cent-cent,” even. Let’s see how it feels: “I’d like to buy a cent-cent hover-table, please? 3,000 baht? forget it!”
Yeah, not bad.
Anyway, let’s get to these weird old ads, because they’re great. Like this one, which seems to be just a big, flat, foldable floor panel and a special seat backrest hinge system to move everything out of the way and giving your Beetle a pretty good-sized cargo floor in the back. Honestly, this seems like a pretty cool modification. But what really catches my eye is how they describe the size of it. See if you can see what I mean:
See that: 1,606 square inches! Who measures a car’s cargo area in inches? That’s ridiculous, but it sure sounds bigger than 11.15 square feet of floor space. Though that seems pretty big, too? For a little car, I mean.
Now, what the hell is this next thing:
What’s going on here? That looks like some weird cap you put over the back of the speaker mounted in the Beetle’s dash? Is that what a “Q-Liner” is? Does it really make the radio “really Hi-Fi?” And what the hell do they mean by “protects against implosion?” Were speakers imploding? I’ve had my Beetle over 30 years and I’ve never had a dash speaker implode. You know, like a neutron star.
So, these engine lid vent covers – and, by the way, this one is from at least 1973 – that you see on the Beetle’s engine lid below, these were common on Beetles when I was growing up, and I never understood them. 
Were they supposed to help with cooling? If so, they’re completely wrong – air gets sucked into the engine compartment from above, as the air flows down over the roof, where it then gets sucked into those intakes. This thing would impede that flow! You can see how to do a Beetle engine scoop the right way on the Brazlian 1600S “Super Fusca”:
See? The intakes are facing upwards, to catch the air as it flows down that roof! I think these may have included a rain guard under there, too, because these might catch some rain.
Okay, one more: look at these fiberglass hoods you could get:
I think these were mostly done for the – admittedly peculiar – aesthetics, but despite the claims of improved handling in crosswinds, I think the biggest advantage these hoods really offered was an increase in the luggage space of the front trunk. I also like these odd, somewhat tentative descriptions: “almost daring?” “Sporty to the point of being racey?” That’s some weird ad copy.
Well, the only thing that implodes in the Beetle is our eardrums.
My guess that the cone for the back of the speaker is to give it a smaller, sealed, fixed volume within which to operate. It’s a real theory often used by acoustic engineers to fine tune sound systems applied here in a loosey goosey way that likely only provided marginal improvement.
I was always told those downward facing scoops were to prevent rain and debris from entering the engine compartment where they had a tendency to catch fire. As someone who drove a VW Super Beetle in the Northeast falls, I can confirm they did indeed like to collect pine needles like it was their job.
I’ve always been bemused by the term post war, as that’s unfortunately never going to happen.
Wait, wasn’t the airflow on the Beetle engine supposed to scoop cold air from below and vent hot air from the top? I remember reading somewhere about people installing improvised scoops on Type 2 vents, and how that would upset the actual intended use of those vents… I assumed the same was true for Beetles, and that the vents on the Brazilian “1600s” (the actual model name) had some other form of trickery in them (or were just decorative).
EDIT: just checked, no trickery involved, and they were “functional” in the sense they scooped air to the engine. No rain protection whatsoever.
https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-4641269460-scoop-original-volkswagen-fusca-1600s-bizorro-_JM
The Q Liner is just using a passive megaphone effect. Have you ever placed a portable radio in a box that’s open on one side? The increase in volume is substantial. I’ve done this in the past and my radio never imploded, so there’s that.
I feel pretty confident it will be called the Civil War Era.
I was going to ask in which country, but I suppose it will be just all of them, so carry on.
I doubt the airflow is still attached at the engine compartment for it to matter, but it likely keeps the rain out. I remember those being so popular that I assumed they were a factory option. That extended height hood is better than most of JC Whitney’s other offerings.
I immediately flashed on “Nether Whitacre” as one heck of an address. English village names provide plenty of amusement.
Just beware of obsidian doorways in Nether Whitacre.
And that phone number…is there another word for a “Furnace End”?
There’s some major JC Whitney cheese here, I especially like the heart shaped Karmann Ghia grill.
https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/a1893151/1975-jc-whitney-catalog-bonanza-aftermarket-volkswagen-goodies/
I think that by the 2060s, the survivors will be referring to their period as simply the ‘second grevious age’, and will have only snippets of information about the ‘before times’.
Not “implosion” in the sense of complete structural failure, just in the sense of inward buckling. It’s essentially the same claim as the line that states “protects speaker against sudden changes in wind pressure” lower in the ad. With the back of the speaker exposed as it is, there’s some chance of its cone being affected by airflow into the luggage compartment. Protecting the speaker from this is the basis of the claim for higher-fidelity sound. I doubt it made much of a difference in practice.
I was also thinking the cone could get damaged by closing the hood, err boot lid, ehh frunk? whatever, the hinge mounted front volume cover.
“Now with the versatility of a station wagon!” And the convenience of having to cram everything in through the front doors!!
I feel like it’ll just be the mids, and they will probably feel fairly mid.
Nobody asked, but to the best of my recollection, I’ve never driven an original/air-cooled Beetle. I did own a ’79 VW camper, which was air-cooled, and spent a glorious summer driving it 12,000 miles from New York, to Alaska, then down to San Diego, finally back to New York with a pal of mine (who amazingly, still talks to me from time to time). I also remember riding in a Beetle once in the early ’90s… a fellow ILM intern drove me someplace in his (borrowed?) car, which I’m pretty sure was red. All I really recall about it is that the adjective ‘agricultural’ sort of applied, but not in a bad way.
Carvert? Is nobody really gonna go there? I’m disappointed in all you filthy animals!
The vented engine cowls are British, so it’s a reasonably safe bet they were designed solely to keep rain out of the engine rather than helping air get in.
This. We had a SuperBeetle when I was a kid, and if it was parked in the driveway and it poured overnight there was a good chance the car was not going to start until it dried out some.
But with that Brazilian hood scoop, you’d have a liquid-cooled engine in the rain.
Mid-century, just like “turn of the century” are like “Classic Rock” IMO — they cannot move from their current definitions because those eras were so formative and unique for everything that came after. They are not moving targets.
So in 30 years if I’m hearing “mid-century” to refer to current stuff, I’m going to be just as irate as when I hear “Sweet Child O Mine” on the Classic Rock station.
Stop radicalizing people like me!
No worse when you hear it in the grocery store.
One day you’ll be shopping and realize it’s Kenny G playing Sweet Child O Mine.
With vocals by Michael Bublé
Or in Japan the recorder version of baby got back.
Where do we go from here?
And nobody’s yet commented on the model’s ummmm… (maybe slightly exagerated by Jason’s cropping)?
Torch, it’s not the meat in the middle of the sandwich; it’s the cream in the middle of an Oreo cookie.
i do like cent cent though!
fluffernutter
A guy at my church has one of those hoods on his Beetle. He has owned his Beetle since the early 70s and it is now excessively modified, as it was once made into a circle-track racer and then lightly converted back for street use. The stock hood was damaged and the fiberglass one seemed easier to repair and allowed him to run a larger fuel cell up front. Since the car has no fenders he installed the headlights into the recessed areas of the leading edge of the hood. I have to admit, the hood doesn’t look good on a stock Beetle but looks pretty good modified for his purposes.
Torch is really into meat this week. Wet meat. Sandwich meat. And so forth.
As far as what to name the middle of this century, I got nothing.
HOWEVER. These past few weeks have been pretty bumpy. Lots of ups and downs and sudden stops. Therefore, this period should absolutely be named something to do with bumps. And stops.
That’s right! We’re in the Gummipuffer Days!!
I bet you people thought I forgot about that one…
“Gummipuffer Days!” is great.
I think we are currently quagmired in the cretin age, and by cent-cent will still be in the age of atonement.
Oh the glory days of getting the JC Whitney catalog out of the mailbox and flipping through it for weird accessories in glorious hand drawn black and white.
This is exactly what I was thinking – all the bizarre and unnecessary accessories one could find in the JC Whitney catalog. I got an unsolicited Jeep catalog in the mail yesterday and all the emotions and excitement of getting the JC Whitney catalog back in the day came flooding back to me.
What jeep catalog was it?
Extreme Terrain.
I bet the original Beetle gets the crown of “most modified vehicle ever”
Jeep CJ/Wrangler in second place.
Most custom paint jobs appears to be going to Tesla.
Do wraps count as paint jobs? Or is that involuntary paint jobs?
Well, just like there are varying degrees of customization you can do to a Bug, I was thinking they should all count.
Most non-consensual penis/swastika paint jobs.