I have been obsessed with beetles since I was a kid. In fact, the first car I bought was a beetle. At 14 I bought a '62 model that had been sitting for a decade's worth of New England winters. It was a rotted mess and arrived & left the driveway on a towtruck without having moved in between.

At 29 I had some spare cash, and decided I wanted another one. After not enough shopping around I bought this one. A 1967 euro-spec model. It had a dual-port 1600 engine, adjustable front beam, pop-outs and a few other nice features. I was delighted.

However it turns out that everything up to and including those special bits were in terrible shape. The car had been modified in a lot of random ways by a long sucession of random owners. All of which apparently ignored things like quality workmanship and basic mainteince. I spent the entire time I owned it trying desperately to catch up with a long list of problems that kept me from enjoying it. In that whole time I don't thik I ever managed a relaxed and fun drive without some problem cropping up, or something stressing me out.

I was honestly glad when I sold it. I want to own another bug some day (the sooner the better), but I won't miss this one.