Another year has come and gone. Another year further removed from the creation of the last air-cooled Volkswagens and as we move further away from that sad day it becomes more and more apparent that the supply of parts for our beloved antiques continues to diminish.
    I recently took the engine from my 73 Super Beetle to David “the Godfather” to begin work re-building it. While I was visiting with him he talked about the trouble he was having fi nding certain engine blocks. It made me realize that the time is fast approaching when we will no longer be able to fi nd parts for our hobby.
    “David,” I asked, “How do these people that have old Model T’s and other antique cars get parts for their cars? I mean they haven’t made Model T’s in many a year.”
    “They have them built,” he replied, “that’s why they are so expensive. They’ll pay to have them milled and created from scratch.”
    That made sense but it wasn’t something that I had ever considered and now here I am pondering what I am going to do twenty or thirty years from now when I can’t fi nd the parts I need for my VW’s. I suppose my only recourse since I will never have the money to invest in having an engine block built from scratch is to start scavenging now and trying to buy all the used parts and engines that I can find. Sort of like saving for the future.
    But while the parts for our air-cooled cars may be becoming sparse, interest in our hobby seems to be growing. Even in the face of ballooning gas prices, or possibly because of gas prices, it seems more and more people are seeking the object of our desire - air-cooled VW’s. Of course we all should try and do our part to at least increase the public’s appreciation of our little cars. For my part that means introducing VWs to the youngsters. You may recall I wrote a year or so ago about my grandson and getting him interested in VWs. Recently I’ve begun giving away the duplicates of some of my VW diecast cars to children of friends and coworkers. You should see their eye’s light up when you hand them a toy beetle. One co-worker told me that her son, who I had given a couple of toy cars to, takes them to bed with him at night. And seeing the gleam in a child’s eyes when you hand them a toy beetle is about as rewarding as seeing children open their presents on Christmas morning. Now I try always to have an extra Volkswagen toy close at hand in case I happen upon a child. But if you happen to come across a pink Hot Wheels VW bus from 1969 - hold on to it! It might be worth $75,000 dollars like the one pictured below.
-Charlton (a.k.a. “Bugz”)