Chadessa

It was my second VM Bus. My first being a 1971. The last year they used the upright motor style. I loved that thing mostly because it was the first vehicle I ever bought with my own coin but also it was a VW bus. I wouldn’t say I was a hippie but just someone who love the idea of the freedom a VW bus would give me both mentally and physically.

That bus did it’s job. It made long trips, short trips, very cold trips. One of the cold ones that I remember was driving back from Johnstown one weekend after visiting my buddy at school. I kept a sleeping bag in my van mostly for well sleeping in but occasionally for driving as well. I would pull the sleeping bag over my body and unzip it from my bottom up so I can stick out my feet out and control the pedals. It wasn’t long before the love affair quickly started to fade. Nickel and diming turned into engine rebuilds (a story for another time). Don’t even mention the electrical problems. Needless to say the idea of a more reliable and faster vehicle was enticing. Sadly I parted with my van but something was never right. Even after I basked in the glory of a new car that actually responded when you hit the gas I still longed for the van.

With my blinders fully engaged I sought out and found what I thought I was missing, my second VW bus. Now like everything the second one never seems to live up to the first (please Gus if you ever read this in the future this does not apply to you I promise). This one was a 1973 with a pancake motor and a year that was not known for its reliability. Come to think of it does the word reliable really ever relate to a VW? Even worse this van didn’t even run. That’s right I bought a used car that did not even run.

Calls were made and a truck with a two wheel tow dolly was acquired to assist with the move. Morgan and Sell, two friends out of a group of buddies that always seemed to rally to the occasion joined the adventure. Actually it was Morgan’s mom’s truck. With all of the piece together we set off.

Issue one how to get a van that does not run onto the tow dolly? To make matters worse the van was parked face first into a single car pathway rendering it impossible to turn it around. The guy selling the van somehow convinced us that putting the van on ass first i.e. rear wheels on the tow dolly would be just fine. “The front wheels lock in place anyways so it is essentially the same” he went on to say. He even added that it would even be better since the motor was in the rear you didn’t have to worry about it being in neutral. This guy was good. Being young and irrational and tired of hearing the amount of shit I was receiving from my buddies about why I would even be buying this thing. We pushed the van on the tow dolly, exchanged money, check to make sure the front wheels were locked off we went.

Three wide in the pickup with a VW van in tow facing backwards with her rear end up in the air as if to tell the rest of the highway to kiss her ass. Morgan driving, I was riding bitch and Sell in shotgun. Things started out fine enough a couple quick turns and on to the highway we went. Quickly we were up to speed. Coming down the first big hill on Route 30 is when things started to get strange. The trucks rear end seemed to be floating then moving side to side. I never rode in a bobsled but somehow I think that the feeling is the same right before you lose control of one of those sleds.

I remember thinking that’s odd I can see the van in the driver side mirror then it disappeared only to reappear in the passenger side mirror, then back you get the idea. I have this funny image that if you looked at the cab of the truck at that moment you would have see three heads going back and forth like in a tennis match looking from mirror to mirror. What happened after that took only seconds. At the moment that any normal person would hit the breaks to slow down and reassess. Two words were spoken that probably saved our lives.

“GUN IT!” yelled Sell. Without hesitation Morgan did as instructed. After my mind adjusted to the completely counterintuitive instructions it clicked and made perfect sense. We needed to go faster than the van being towed down the hill. Had the brakes even been slightly touched that van would have shot passed us dragging both van and truck into oncoming traffic. The van and truck straighten out and once we hit the uphill we pulled into a parking lot to switch the van around.

Safely home and a nonfunctioning van in the driveway is where this story ends. Mostly because I got accepted to college soon after this and never got the van running. I sold it from the exact spot I parked it in and still have dreams of some young gun fixing it up, getting it running and driving it around wearing a sleeping bag.