Back in the days when Jefferson Airplane was still in the air and Ken Kesey and the “Dead” were driving around San Francisco with Timothy Leary, handing out free hits of acid (google it), there was a relatively new import from Europe, capturing the hearts of America’s youth. It was the Volkswagen “Beetle,” and eventually, the Volkswagen Microbus, or just “VW Bus.”
I learned how to drive, in a VW Beetle. It was basic black. As I recall, those first Beetles were offered in only two or three colors. I think it had a three-speed transmission. On the floor. I remember that much. A stick shift, on the floor. Family friend, Kenny Christensen, bought what had to have been one of the first Beetles to arrive at a dealership in Minnesota, and Kenny, offered to teach me how to drive. Which I did. Right into a cornfield.
As the years went by, Kenny continued buying VW’s, a couple of Beetles and eventually, a Microbus, which he converted into a camper and never let me drive. No fool was he.
Others, were also fond of the new imports from Germany. The VW Bus in fact, became a vehicle of choice for the flower power “Hippie” movement that swept the land as young men of draft age headed for one of two places, either the drug addled fields of the “Summer of Love” or the battlefields of Vietnam. Which by that time, were also addled by drugs.
The flower power Hippie “peacenik” movement was in full bloom. As Hunter Thompson put it, “They were fast strange times and we moved in fast strange ways.” Or something like that. It was a long time ago, and the old VW Bus was central to it all, on its way to becoming iconic.
And now VW has something new. They’re bringing back their old “bus,” in an EV version and calling it the “Buzz.” Clever play on words if you ask me, updating the vehicle’s name without giving up on its considerable youth culture heritage from the 60’s and 70’s. Thing is, younger folks, many of them delivering the news, don’t know any of this and are calling it a Volkswagen “van.”
This became apparent while watching coverage of the Los Angeles fires, when what appeared to be a vintage blue and white VW Bus, somehow survived the Palisades Fire, while everything else around it burned to the ground. The local newscasters were calling it a “van.” “NO!” I shouted at the screen, “It’s a VW Bus! Not a damn van!”
Just one of the older folks splitting historical hairs, I suppose, but in matter of fact, VW always called it a”Microbus,” which the youth culture shortened to VW Bus. And now we have an electric “Buzz” as well. Good for VW, for keeping it going.
None of this matters much, I suppose. For many of us, though, it will always be a VW Bus. Maybe you had to be there to understand. Thought I might pass this along before we’re all gone. Hopefully, I got most of it right. It was a long time ago.