Heard a story today I have to pass on to posterity.
When I'm buying tools for my Beetle at the swap meet it often happens the geezers selling the kind of "old school" tools I need ask what car I'm fixing. When they find out it's a bug, they have to stop the presses and tell me their own personal bug stories. This one I heard today from a guy named Bill is certainly the most amazing:
In 1972 Bill bought a 1962 VW Beetle from a "gypsy" car dealer in Ontario, Canada for $650. This "dealer" was a trailer set up in a vacant lot with some cars parked around it. It was illegal, they had no proper business papers. He put half down, received the car, and was going to receive the title after he made the rest of the payments. $25 a week till it was paid off. He made two payments, (which had to be physically brought to the "dealership," every week because they had no legal mailing address) but when he went to make the next one, the "dealership" had vanished, absconding one step ahead of law enforcement.
So, Bill didn't legally have title to the bug, and the people who did were hiding. However, it was legally registered to the owner of the "dealership", and he would be able to simply renew the registration (DMV doesn't care who pays it) to avoid getting pulled over for outdated tags. . He came back to the US with the plan of sending the registration money to his brother in Ontario to pay for the registration when renewal was due. But, since he couldn't prove he owned the car, he also couldn't buy insurance for it.
On the morning in question, Bill was setting out from Oakland to points south. He started his bug, but when he tried to release the hand brake, it wouldn't cooperate. He wrestled with it. The brake lever then came apart; the button flew off, the cable came loose from the lever, and the lever came loose from the body. He had no more parking brake, and was not a mechanically inclined individual, and was in a hurry, so he threw the parts in the back seat and took off. The lack of a parking brake played no part in the fate that befell him, but he now regards the incident as a bad omen he unfortunately ignored.
Once Bill was underway, the weather on Highway 5 South turned bad: cold and rainy. His heater channel was rusted away so the warm air couldn't get up to the defroster vents under his windshield. It was constantly fogged up. He rolled the window down and checked where he was now and then, and tried his best to wipe the inside of the windshield off with random pieces of paper he had strewn about the cockpit.
A car that was going much faster than him and which was pulling a trailer, passed him at high speed and sent a wash of water into his left ear. Then the car and trailer kind of lost control and began skidding. It swerved in front of him and started braking and trying to pull onto the shoulder. Bill had to pull some fast maneuvers to avoid hitting it. Both parties, though, came safely to rest, on the shoulder. The other guy asked if he was all right, and he said he was. The guy apologized and after checking his rig, took off.
Bill sat there, composing himself, and thanking his lucky stars that everything had worked out OK. He'd been very, very lucky, he thought. And felt grateful he was OK. He buckled up and started his bug. Checking his rearview for oncoming traffic, he saw a large sedan coming toward him at high speed completely out of control spinning around and around. A second later it hit the back of his bug, pushing it out onto the highway. Bill gunned the gas, trying to get traction to get back on the shoulder, but there was no response from his engine. Looking around frantically, he saw his engine was now in the back seat. Then another car came along and clipped him, and rotated him around.
He decided to forget the car and just get the hell out of it. He grasped the seat belt clasp, but it was stuck and wouldn't release. Then another car came along and clipped him and spun him around.
He remembered he had a pocket knife. He could use that to cut the seat belt. He worked it out of his pocket, but while he was opening it, another car came along and clipped him.
Luckily, he saw where the knife landed and it was in reach. While he was sawing through the seat belt, two more cars came along and clipped him. Finally, after being hit 6 times, he made it out of the bug and ran to the shoulder.
There, he encountered the driver of the first car who had hit him. She said she was on her way home from a dog show, and she introduced him to her lap dog, who had been a contestant. While she talked about the dog show, she pulled a flask from her purse and offered him a swig. He declined.
They stood and chatted, watching as 16 more cars came along and clipped the Beetle. Bill was counting. It got hit a total of 22 times that day, before it finally got pushed off to the other side of the highway. When a state trooper finally arrived, he gestured to the mangled and now unrecognizable, car and said, "I guess the meatwagon already came by and took that hamburger away." Bill raised his hand and said, "No, I'm right here." The trooper asked for license and registration and proof of insurance. Bill showed his license, but lied about the rest, "It's all in the glove box, if you can get it out." The trooper took their statements, and a whole lot of other people's, and finally said they could go. The woman with the dog gave Bill a lift to the next town, and he caught a bus. Eventually he got back here to San Diego, where he lived in a rented a room. When he arrived, his house mate said, "Boy, Bill, your phone has sure been ringing a lot lately."
Now Bill was sure the illegal status of his Beetle had been, or would soon be, uncovered and it was only a matter of time before he'd be visited by the police. He wasn't sure what to do, and procrastinated about making a decision.
A couple weeks later, he was skulking down the stairs on his way out, when a man in a suit suddenly came round the corner and saw him and halted. Bill froze, and dammed himself for not having already thrown some clothes in a bag. He could have already been in the wind. Damn. The guy asked if he was Bill ---. Bill admitted he was. The guy introduced himself as the insurance agent of the woman who had rear ended him. He said he'd been trying to call but there had been no answer. The woman's insurance company, he said, was prepared to offer a settlement of $1200.
Bill chewed that over for a while and it suddenly dawned on him, the woman's insurance company was trying to pay him for his wrecked Beetle. He thought some more, and wondered why they were offering so much. He'd only paid $650, and the only upgrade he'd made was new tires. Confused, he blurted out, "I just put new tires on it."
The insurance man misunderstood him to be saying it was worth more than $1200, because it had just been upgraded with new tires. He said, "OK, OK, we want to settle this. We're willing to go as high as $2500, but that's the limit.
Bill mulled that over, and, since he didn't have a bank account where he could deposit a check he said, "Is there any way I could get that in cash?" The insurance man smiled warmly and said, "Let's go over to the bank. You sign some papers, I'll make a call."
Bill's nightmare dissolved. The woman was considered to be at fault because she'd rear ended him, and rear ended him while he was on the shoulder. The trooper had put in his report that he'd clearly found the shattered remnants of Bill's tail lights off the asphalt, on the gravel shoulder, meaning that is where he was when first hit. All the other cars hitting the Beetle was her fault and no one was going after Bill, so no one ever got around to checking whether he had insurance or if he actually owned the Beetle.
