My First Car in BAOR

Well Well its a small world

My dad on our first tour had a VW beetle (I don't recall if it was a split window or not). I remember, since I was 5 or 6 years old, being able to climb into the space between the back seats' backs and the back of the car. I suppose it was a sort of luggage hold or something, but it was a perfect fit for a skinny 6 year old feeling drowsy from long hours in the car as we headed off to where ever on a weekend trip to curl up in and drop off to sleep. Quite comfy actually!

Dad 'traded up' on the VW to an Opel Rekord. I still remember the new car smell of the Opel to this day (the VW was second hand, as I recall, bought off someone returning to Canada). My mom, bless her, and thinking she was making a joke said "bye bye little bug...." to the VW whereupon I burst into tears over abandoning our dear little buddy who had bravely taken us over half of Northern Europe by then. I was bit of an odd child..... :-)

Hi Stephen,

Some would say that the old VW was the bes ever.

Tony, not too sure of those names, but Ill ask a mate of mine, steve pavey, if he remembers them. I did work for a while in what we termed our inspection bay. if you were standing in the LAD and looking up the transport yard towards the NAAFI, then it was the first bay on the left. as well as inspecting military vehicles we also issued BFG cars with readworthines certificates. It sure was a great posting eh. i was well into motorbike trials in those days and spent many a weekend roaring around the local forests on one of your guys B40's

I loved those early beatles. so easy to work on, we could do an engine swap in a lunch time.

Hi Steve,

Cmon you being REME should have been able to do two in your lunch hour. There again did REME work afternoos?

One of my mates used to carry a spare engine in his VW Bus. His speciality piece of equipment was an Amstel Beer crate (full of course!), which went along in the bus.

The engine just slide out onto the crate. He even performed an engine change in the carpark of Dover docks.

When I was the MT Sgt in Gutersloh we had a new Tiffy posted in direct from the Factory. On his first exercise, one of the Guns (Abbot), required a Pack Lift on the Gun Position - "Fetch Bluebell", the answer came back that he would "pop over" at first light, BIG MISTAKE - he didn't realise that the Guns are our Colours - he does now!!

alan, i have heard this story before, about swaping the engine in the car park, it really was that easy though. We once did an engine swap for an officer who couldnt believe the whole thing simply hung off four bolts. he wanted us to drill holes in the bell housinmg and put in extra bolts, just to be safe. took some convincing that VW had been doing it this way for eons, and to my knowledge no engine ever just fell out. as for the older VW's the heater was a weak point, especially if the heat transfer tubes from the engine were US. I remember one bitterly cold drive back to bielefeld from hannover, there were four of us in the car, two guys and two girls, and believe me we were all in tears. The carb throat used to ice up as well if there wasnt enough heat trapped in the engine bay, so you had to make sure the fiddely tin plates were replaced on each side of the motor.