[doodad]

I owned a 66 and a 67. My first two cars. Amazingly durable POS cars. I loved and hated those cars. Couldn't find the right spring for the throttle on the 66 so I carried a pack of thick rubber bands and when the pedal went dead pulled over and applied a new throttle "band." Hmm...thicker is sportier, but I have traffic so maybe one of the thinner ones. Oh and no heat. My friend called it the rolling refridgerator.

[goldstategop]

The Classic Beetle could be repaired on the road side. And while people complained about the heating going out in the winter and there never being air conditioning in the summer, they had great memories of the car. No wonder it become a cultural icon.

[dljordan]

I solved the heat problem in my 67 van by using a Coleman catlytic heater in the back. Unfortunately on a hard turn one day the heater turned over and caught the shag carpet that was covering up the rust holes on fire. Do you know what a fire extinguisher does to shag carpet? It was a mess. Didn't matter though, a couple of months later the engine caught fire (the old number three cylinder problem) and burned the crap out of the engine compartment. Luckily the police who followed me into the parking lot to give me a ticket for pollution put out the fire with THEIR fire extinguishers. Love those VW's.

[Kenny Bunk]

Of course the VW had heat. You had to have good heater cables and boxes, and be moving. Northern States and Canada Beetles had a GASOLINE Heater, which turned the car into a pizza oven hot enough to start melting rubber boots, in about 3 minutes.

There also was a very effective Swamp Cooler AC unit that sort of hooked to a window.