On the topic of VWs....

My first car was a hand-off from my dad when I was 18. He'd driven a VW 1600 fastback for a couple of years and I "inherited" it.

Okay car but a dreadful colour of orange! Mom used to joke that we should put a decal of a mug of root beer on one side and a hamburger on the other and contract it out to the A&W Hamburger bunch (don't know if this will be lost on you UK bunch...A&W is sort of like Wimpy's and waaaay better than anything McDonald's ever produced! Their corporate colours are orange and brown).

Unfortunately, under my drivership, the 1600 sooned ended up more like a 1400-1/2 as I constantly got myself into fenderbenders and managed to get my backend pushed in (to clarify, I mean the car's backend! LOL).

My next car was a vintage 1952 Valiant with push button transmission. Robin egg blue body and red leather interior. I quite liked that little car, but it got done in one winter when some fool rammed into the back of it as it was parked on the hill outside my flat and pushed it half a block down! I was really PO'd over that!!

Not being very expert on PCs did not realize the reason for the "spreadout",but its no problem and as you say we can get a good look at the picture,sure no ones gonna "winge"
-------
Don

I was in BAOR at the end of the fifties and both the army and the RAF used VW Beeltes extensively. They were driven hard by most drivers but were very reliable. People used to refer to their years of manufacture like those of wine. A couple of years after demob in 1961, I was in Germany and noticed they had all been replaced by the Austin/Morris Mini. In those early days the Mini was unreliable. It must have been an absolute nightmare for the REME & RAF vehicle workshops

Hi all,

In early 1950's most units had a VW, ours was CO's transport.
If I remember Germans could not buy them new then, so Army had them new for a few months then they were sold second hand to Germans!!
Not the best on wet cobble stones cornering faster than you should do.
The roof also collapsed when a large object was dropped from a top storey window, one of them mysteries of 40 Field Sqn "Who dropped a chair onto the CO's car" I think the culprit left the next morning on the train and demob.
Happy days.
Cheers
Tony

one cold morning in fally the MTO asked a driver if he had checked his anti-freeze,reply yes sir,result 14 days jankers,he forgot he was driving a beetle,dave.

This is something Hardrations can perhaps address, as his memory is far better than mine in such matters.... :-)

I don't recall VWs being used for military purposes with Canadian troops at all. Not sure what we sported our senior officers around in, but I suspect it was probably Mercedes, possibly 280SL's.

I know in the '70s, it was not unusual to have your average taxi be a Mercedes sedan (something most Canadian civilians respond to with a certain degree of skepticism given that Mercedes are perceived as luxury vehicles), so I'm kind of thinking they might also have been used as 'official cars.' Probably in basic shiny black....

As I think of it, I'm also getting thoughts of Opels...hmmmm.

Citrons too, but they were more used by the Belgians and French (go figure!). Cool cars. Weird looking, but cool.

I'm afraid you'll have to wait for a reply from Hardrations, he's over here in the UK at the moment, having attended a BiscuitsBrown thrash. He will recover though, I am reliably informed, and we promise to pop him on a plane for home on Thursday.

Early 60's We certainly had at least a couple of beetles use as camp runabouts but the staff cars were Ford Zephrs and Zodiacs

Well,

I know we are familiar with the SIB in the forces.............

What the Internet throws up when you least expect it!

Go to this site and read about the SIB investigation into the VW Factory.

http://www.redcap70.net/PatColson_VW.pdf

I believe Stephan from Munster will find this very interesting,(with good translation) as it is not like the usual VW car write ups or reports one often find about Major Hirst and his success.

Hi all,

A great piece of history, that few know about.

Thanks
Tony Burgess