Westward Bound: From Florida to Oregon in a 1977 Volkswagen Bus
Posted by Sloan Schang
Here is the first big difference between a road trip in a new car and a road trip in an old car: Preparation. In a new car, maybe you have the oil changed a few days before you leave. You might even kick the tires and change the windshield wipers. In an old car, like the 1977 Volkswagen Westfalia camper I’m driving from Florida to Oregon over the course of February and March, I first called a mechanic in Tampa two months before my departure date. I actually found him in the local newspaper archives, because this is the best way to find a reliable VW mechanic in an unfamiliar city. If there’s one nearby, he’s likely been working on them since he was a teenager and the local paper will have invariably written an article about him. An article with a title like “Love Bug” or “Life in the Volkswagen Lane” or “Eccentric Recluse Makes Living Raising Alpacas, Fixing Old VWs.” This is how I found a mechanic in Tampa. The article was called “Two Generations Welded to Classic VWs.”
I asked him to give me the works, the best odds at not breaking down outside of civilization in the wild desolation of the Nevada desert or worse, rush hour Dallas. He responded as any good mechanic would, with a punch list worth $3,000 in parts and labor. I responded as any good classic VW owner would, by claiming I could do half of those things myself and setting a ceiling of $1,000. A month later I had new CV boots, spark plugs, tires, a small army of fresh hoses, cables, belts, filters and bushings, and a fighting chance at making it all the way to Oregon without incident.
Yet here is the second big difference between a road trip in a new car and a road trip in an old car: Sometimes, despite all due diligence, you will turn the key and nothing will happen. So, hoping to coax any imminent lapses out of the VW while I was still close to home, I took a mini-trip around the state. Two weeks before heading northwest, the camper and I recorded a respectable thousand-mile loop from Jacksonville in the north, down through the sparkly winter beaches of Daytona and Miami, across the windswept seven-mile bridge to Key West and through the back roads of the Everglades en route to Tampa. And halfway through this trip, at a busy Friday night Shell station in Miami, I turned the key and nothing happened. Just click. No matter how many times I run through this drill, the feeling of dread, my heart sinking in my chest, never lessens. I climb out of the bus, because step one is to wiggle every visible wire in the engine and try again. Click. Step two is to tap the solenoid and starter with a hammer and try again. Click. Step three is to answer the questions of people starting to wander over, asking if everything’s ok, and demonstrate that everything is not ok by turning the key. Click. Step four is to ask someone to help me push the bus across the gas station lot, while a slack-jawed onlooker cracks wise about Little Miss Sunshine and my girlfriend Amy pops the clutch in second gear. The engine rumbles to life for at least one more ride.
In this case it was the twenty-year-old starter that was to blame, situated as it is near the exhaust pipes and overheated from the stop and go routine of Miami traffic. Next time it will be corrosion somewhere in the electrical system or a blown fuse or a failing relay.
Once we were back in Tampa, my mechanic was happy to hear from me again. We both spent a few minutes marveling at the advanced age of the greasy old starter before he handed me the bill for the new one. That hurt, but everything felt better when I turned the key on the surprisingly cold morning of February 14 and the engine roared into motion for the first day of driving to Oregon.
We have been moving for almost two weeks now, first through the corporate wonderland of Atlanta, to visit family and tour the headquarters of Coca-Cola and CNN. We have successfully evaded winter thunderstorms and tornadoes on our way to Memphis, where we marveled at the gaudy excess of Graceland and dined on the best BBQ in the world. We averaged a respectable 25 miles per gallon on our way to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where we warmed our heels in bathhouses built at the turn of last century. The VW has been running beautifully, as good as new, despite the ever-looming specter of breakdown.
Here is the third big difference between a road trip in a new car and a road trip in an old car: You really appreciate the days when everything goes well. I feel connected to this creaky old van and the road it rides in a way that I’ve never felt with a new car. I know which rattles should be there and which should not. I know that when a truck passes me on the left, going a full fifteen miles an hour faster than me, the cushion of air will push me towards the shoulder. But I also know that when we roll through a small town on a back highway, like Moulton, Alabama, we feel like a one-car parade with kids running alongside us to ask questions and yell encouragement. And when we pull into a state park campground for the night, retired RV’ers from Canada will stop by to marvel at our compact lifestyle and tell stories of old VWs they’ve owned.
But first we have to make it through the day. And get it started again in the morning.
–Sloan Schang