Once again I’m traveling, and doing a Cold Start way, way too late at night, because, fundamentally, I’m a dummy. I’m in Houston so Volkswagen can show me their port and shipping facilities, which they’re understandably proud of, but it’s a weird sort of very small and truncated press trip. So, to keep the theme going, I’ll do a Cold Start about some small and truncated Volkswagens: these two half-Beetles.
Well, I’m not sure they entirely add up to One Whole Beetle; the rear half is pretty complete but the front isn’t exactly, so I think we’ll end up with about 80% of a Beetle, should we combine these two very different Beetle halves.
These halved Beetles are doing two extremely different things; this first one is being used for a baffling grocery store promotion:
I found this one at The Samba, and I suspect it’s from 1968 or 1969. The Beetle half being used there is interesting; it looks like it was a 1966, which you can tell from the 1300 badge on the decklid, but those taillights are 1968-1969 units. I don’t think the entire fenders were swapped out because the bumpers and their mounting setup changed in 1968, and those, with their overrider bars and their supports, wouldn’t fit.
Also, ’66 Beetles had no reverse lamps, and the ’68 lights do. I wonder how much of a pain it was to install a reverse light switch in the transmission? Or maybe they installed a simpler one at the shifter?
Really, though, the weird part is this promotion, which is for milk. They made it look like a VW crashed through the window, and the sign reads
EVEN a WHOLE
Volkswagen
can’t give you as much mileage as
1/2 A GLASS of MILK
Milk-Mileage!
The hell does that mean, exactly? Something about energy? And why so specific with the “1/2 A GLASS” bit? Was this referencing something about half glasses of milk? Why not a whole glass? What does “mileage” mean in the context of drinking half a glass of milk? A Beetle of that era could go between 27 and 32 miles on a gallon of gas, and 0 miles on milk, according to my tests. I don’t get it.
Okay, this next half-Beetle is even more interesting:
Specifically, this bit:
You know what that is? That’s an airbag! Yes, an experimental VW airbag, mounted in a 1972 VW 1302 Super Beetle, the ones with the MacPherson strut front suspension but not the one with the big, curved windshield, which was a 1303 and came out in ’73:
I mention this because I always heard that the reason for the deeper dashboard and curved windshield of the 1303 was to fit an airbag; so seeing one in a 1302 is pretty incredible. It’s also fascinating how much it appears like a pillow sticking out of the steering wheel there.
That steering wheel, introduced that year, in 1972, I think was designed to hold an airbag; there’s a plastic cover that removes to reveal a fair amount of space in the wheel, but I guess that wasn’t enough for that early airbag, hence the pillow-look. I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before.
Of course, VW never put airbags in the air-cooled Beetles, handy as they would have been in the face-saving business, but it’s interesting to see how far this got, way back in 1972.
Okay, I gotta get some sleep!
Tsk, tsk, no mention of the film The Love Bug?!?
http://pics.imcdb.org/0pb/herbie12.jpg
(Spoiler alert) Heck, that’s how Herbie won first place *and* third place in the final race, with Tennessee and Herbie’s rear half crossing the finish line ahead of Thorndyke and his Apollo 3500 GT followed by Jim and Carole in Herbie’s front half.
https://youtu.be/4XWufUZ1mxQ?si=kq2EXO4TaNJsxPjq
One of the Disney hotels has half a 15-foot tall Herbie hanging from one building, and the other half on the opposite site of the courtyard too!
https://yourfirstvisit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Love-Bug-Disneys-All-Star-Movies-Resort-from-yourfirstvisit.net-4.jpg
Something about those men in grocery management being so mod at the same time as so middle-aged makes me think it’s at least 1972/73 if not later, which the wear and tear on the ’66 Beetle carcass also points to. Hasn’t even been washed or just hosed down.
But it’s plugged in! I’d expect that’s for a light inside the (half) car so the product displays can be seen inside it, as well as maybe the taillights.
There’s not going to be much activity at the port in Houston today.
I think it’s safe to say that milk consumption produces more gas than a Beetle consumes. At least in my case.
“A Beetle of that era could go between 27 and 32 miles on a gallon of gas, and 0 miles on milk, according to my tests”
In interest of scientific accuracy, have you tested how far a human could go on 1/2 cup of gas?
A whole Volkswagen could go over 250 miles on a tank, so with a half glass of milk I could walk over 250 miles? Is this that GMO stuff they’ve been talking about?
That air bag looks like the pad in a theme-park bumper car.
I love how what you noticed was the airbag, and not the 9 year old driving the car without a seatbelt haha.
I was wondering where he got the picture of Pete Buttigieg learning to drive.
Considering that if it’s the same cutaway we see the exterior of, it has neither engine nor wheels so the only place the kid’s driving is his imagination.
Being a product of the State of Wisconsin, I love milk.
And I like Cows that get killed and turned into real food.
I don’t like or respect cows that stand around in a field and get tipped over by loaded teenagers…they are not cow heroes.
As such, it’s obvious that this ad is for a supermarket located in Wisconsin.
WI resident here, can confirm multiple parts of this.
I believe the new Super Beetle dash was specifically intended to accommodate a future passenger side airbag, and the windshield was to create more space between front seat occupants’ heads and the glass so you didn’t kiss it in a collision
I know there was a company in the 70s that was working on an airbag module that could be retrofitted into any car by clipping on to the existing steering wheel, have never seen a picture of it, but imagine it would have looked pretty similar to that
I suspect that the genius who came up with the milk ad went to junkyard and found a partially crunched Beetle from which he cut the ass end. While it was largely intact, he noticed that the tailights had been broken (or parted out), so he grabbed a pair off the nearest VW carcass that happened to be a later model.
You beat me to it! This was my thought exactly.
I noticed the outlet and cord below it. I assume the taillights have been rigged to light up when plugged in and it was easier to rig up fresh taillights than mess with the existing VW electronics.
So, all this time we’ve called them mouse belts, when we could have called them Beetle belts.
Also, I would say the remaining chunks of Beetle are the halves, while the voids next to them are the halve-nots.
Come on man. It’s way too early for this level of wit! COTDs are not supposed to come on the first article of the day, what are we aiming for now?
Greaterness?
But this is the greatestness
Getting perilously close to a tail recursion situation ness.