VolksWagen Bus Ownership Question! First Car?
Hello Yahoo! Answers Community,
Me and my family are composed of two baby-boomer parents, a 10 year old brother, and me, a 14 year old. We live in south Florida, and go to the beach a lot, so naturally, for my first car, I wanted a funky, beach-bum type car (if you will).
Today [while coming back from the beach], we saw a 1965-68 VW Bus. Beautiful, almost mint exterior!
My mom has to get a new car soon, so if she got a 1966 VW Bus, and gave it to me in two years, would that be a good deal?
– Is a VW Bus considered a “cool” car for a teen’s first car?
– Are they fun/easy to drive?
– Are they safe?
– Are they Fast/Quick?
– Also, any Current/Previous owners, please tell me of any good/bad experiences, or things to look out for.
Please answer all, or as many of the questions as you can!
Thanks so much in advance,
Harris
7
Answers
Dude, that would be so cool.
I wanna get one too, to drive around after school [my other car would be a mustang or a jag]
60′s-80′s revival’s been really chill lately, so go for it!
It think its a fair deal too.
Don’t expect them to be too fast, they’re old. And look out for car cancer [rust], it can make or break the car. And yeas, they’re pretty safe. You’ll have to learn manual driving though.
If you’re on a team or something, like cross country, you could drive them to the meets. [ My XC team wanted to do that from the meet in Florida]
Is a VW Bus considered a cool car for a teen’s first car?
-YES!! You would be the coolest kid at any school if you got one!
Are they fun/easy to drive?
-Eh. Yes they are very fun, but easy? Not so much. Most are stick
shift and it is very tough to shift a car from the 60′s.
Are they safe?
-No. No air bags, and there is almost no front end. Therefore, if you got
in a head on crash, you would lose your legs.
Are they fast/quick?
-NO!! Top speed is 70 if youre lucky, and it takes FOREVER to get it going that fast.
Overall, if your parents will let you get it, do buy it. You dont need to be going that fast, but it is a bit dangerous. Have fun in your VW!
Better for you is to approach a VW owner when you see another one and talk to them in person. VW owners are a friendly bunch.
This is where you can drool at all the pretty buses you can’t afford.http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/
I learned to drive in a VW bus, albeit a ’69. (We’d had a ’66 before that.)
They’re loads of fun, easy to drive once you get used to the nearly-horizontal steering wheel and the fact that front-crash protection is mostly theoretical, but they’re not particularly quick. That said, they’re among the most distinctive vehicles out there: you won’t have to worry about disappearing into the crowd.
well they are not really considered cool or at least there weren’t when i was in high school and they are not fast and being from the sixties that means no air bags so i would not get it you should get a mini van or a SUV if you want a larger car.
I hate to throw cold water on the idea, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to use one as a daily driver. I’ve owned one (1974 VW Camper) for a while and can report it was cool at the beach, but not great on the road.
Keep in mind that these where slow even when they were new; my 1974 Camper was clocked at 20.5 seconds from 0 to 60 and mine had a modified carburetter system which increased horsepower from stock.
Today, even the Smart Car, which according to some reviews is the slowest accelerating passenger or light truck under 1/2 ton rating, can do 0 to 60 in 14.5 seconds or nearly 25% faster than my modified camper could do in. Depending upon what year of bus you purchase, if its stock, it could be as slow as 30 seconds from a standing start to 60 mph! A stock bus might top out at 80 mph, if given enough straight aaway, but most would struggle to do 70 mph.
Keep in mind that modern conveniences such as an effective heater and defroster and power windows, locks and the like don’t exist on a stock bus. Now, its true that some items like the defroster can be modified to make it more effective and even the heater can have mods done to it, but some things like the cross wind problem (they get blown around in high winds), odd steering wheel position and a slow windshield wiper set up are problems that either cannot be corrected or aren’t easily delt with.
I drove my camper across the Bay Bridge one evening in a high wind on the way back from a camping trip (yeah, its great for that) and could hardly keep control of the vehicle in the wind. There have been other times that the wipers cannot keep up with the rain and you’re driving almost blind.
I later bought a Ford Club van with a 6 cylinder motor and 3 speed manual transmission; compared to the VW it seemed like a rocket! It had multi speed wipers, a heater and defroster that worked well and was much better in the wind, though it did drink a lot more gas than the VW. But overall, it was a much easier vehicle to live with.
Finally, the issue of safety is far more important than any of the above; there simply isn’t any! As other people have pointed out, no frontal protection at all; no door impact beams (required on cars built after January 1, 1973), no air bags of any kind, no anti lock brakes (avoid the all drum brakes at any cost or have one of the aftermarket update kits installed in the front if you purchase an older bus with drum brakes in the front), the bus also has a high centre of gravity, which means their prone to roll overs (I’ve seen more than my share of damaged buses from roll overs), no anti-skid system or traction control.
The job of the parent is to protect you at all possible costs; that’s why I think the bus is a terrible idea. It’s also why I advise parents who are giving car to their children to drive off to college or whatever to NOT give them an older car; young people are up to 10 times more likely to have a serious accident than the average adult driver. We’ll remember how someone survived an accident long after we’ve forgotten how much the vehicle cost.
Any way, that’s just my view point on the matter. I’m sure that some poeple will take issue with my point of view, but just because something seems “cool” on the surface, one needs to weigh out all the issues before making a choice.