My dad had a late ‘60s-early-’70s Volkswagen station wagon (not even the beetle, this was even weirder) for a few years, through some hard western PA winters in the mid to late 70s.
Six takeaways from that:
1. We never cleaned out our single-bay detached unheated garage to put an actual car in it until we had that Volkswagen. We never bothered to put another 4-wheeler in there afterwards (except maybe his old Farmall tractor, once or twice).
2. The Volkswagen was one of the smallest cars we ever had, so it actually fit inside the “single” car detached garage. Most of our other Detroit V-8 monsters would’ve knocked the structure down. And probably not scuffed the chrome front fenders...
3. Dad placed an incandescent bulb under the hood (or maybe the boot? - I can’t remember, I was a kid, and it was a station wagon) to keep it warm at night so it would start in the morning. He may have even draped a blanket over it to keep the heat in at night.
4. Wasn’t Germany also a cold-weather nation? Why would we need to put an incandescent bulb near the motor to keep it warm?
5. We never had to treat any other vehicle we owned with such delicate warm-garage care as that finicky Volkswagen.
6. I’ve never been interested in a German vehicle ever since.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
I still use incandescents in some lamps.
They are not helping with the cold here, now; and I’m dreading this month’s electric bill :-)