THE BUG: LIFE AND TIMES OF THE PEOPLE'S CAR Exclusive Car Classic Documentary 🎬 English HD 2024

the folks vagen Outward Bound to the highways of the world this is the story behind folks vagen a household word in a 100 languages the car that built a company and changed an [Music] industry it was so Omni presentes on every Road in every place of this world you see saw a you grew up with one if you didn't have one your neighbor had one or your grandma or your friend they were everywhere they were ubiquitous they were Beatles in every little town and they were the car that stood out they were the ones with the engine in the rear they were cooled by Air instead of water they did everything a little bit differently everybody has a story with a Volkswagen everybody tells you oh my first car was a Volkswagen I learned to drive in Volkswagen it has become an icon it's part of the human story just the contrast that a car could began in Nazi Germany and then end up in the summer of love it struck a cord in a really deep way with me it's not a perfect vehicle by any means it's a car that they people accepted the flaws as being a part of the personality globally it's something that brings people together they seem to make people happy to see when you're driving past somebody there's something about being in this little car that's really is one of my favorite places in the world it is the way everybody knew Volkswagen they were the honest car [Music] company when I met my husband we bought a VW Bug we moved with a newborn baby a dog and and a three-year-old to Montana brings a smile to your face my husband restored vws just for fun and it was time to do another one and we happened to be in town shopping and saw this one for sale the reason he bought it right away was because looking at it you could tell it had never been wrecked so we we brought the car over here to the cabin planning to build a shop here in the near future he started working on it you know life was good we retired we were enjoying doing what we wanted to do and so he did obviously he must have done this primer work yes he had it right down to Fair metal yeah when the doctor diagnosed him he said I will not live like this make a long story short in 38 days he was dead it was very quick very unexpected so the bug was in The Barn at the cabin here um and it that's where it sat for the next 20 plus years it just left me kind of in a days for a long time you got to understand he was not only my husband but he's also my best friend we were extremely close so then it took a long time to get over that and the car sat here and well that turns that's surprising right after my father passed away we wanted to do something with it I felt like it would almost be disrespectful if I tried to take over at that point because I didn't have the experience or the knowledge that he did and and it was always going to be something that happened it just never it never came to fruition that's a good sign it was time to face reality it's silly to let it sit there and ride when he passed away it was in the the stripped down form where all the parts were wrapped up in paper and kind of labeled and stuffed in boxes and he had started some primer work um and that's as far as he got so for the last what is that 20 something years it's just been sitting in her Barn disassembled probably very sentimentally attached didn't want to let it go I could kind of tell that it meant something to her on that level she's again a little choked up telling me the story so finally she decided just go ahead and let it go I just want to out of here are you willing to pay 500 for it I'm your guy I'll give you 500 for it I'll come out with a trailer and all it back home I'll keep your number and keep in touch somehow there's some comfort of having a certain number of things that are his yeah that's another fun thing about but I've got all the memories and then count one two amazing daylight 22 years right save that Ro nice nice pack R Nester there careful not to breae any of [Music] this and this is a book on how to how to keep your Volkswagon alive the classic that is the Bible right there and there's he's got all kinds of notes in it and everything and I don't know what's in here license plates oh the license we bought him a license plate for Christmas that year here that's the license oh my God that's going on there that is awesome what's the date on this thing October of 1990 is the first entry in this book yep he purchased it for 250 bucks I thought he paid 350 for maybe that's what he told you nothing teasing yeah that's so cool oh that's cool that's the original manual that's the original manual to that 1960 Beetle how neat is that yep see August 1959 that's the production date oh quirky you made my day oh good well it's getting a whole new lease on life now yes and I'm anxious to see it when you get it done I want to be able to restore this bug and drive it out to her and surprise her with it and show her Cory this is what your husband started and I finished it and I just want you to see it and I want to take you on a drive in it so it means a lot I've never had took on a project that had this kind of a story behind it and so I'm really excited to uh do it justice [Music] here in La everybody uses their car like another room in their house you know they're doing their nails and texting and on the phone and drinking coffee and pastries and driving to work and in this you just tend to be driving your car that's it okay all right I'm going to attempt to do left hand turn good luck with that the SUVs look pretty fake when they the rear view little window like a tank there's a tank behind us play with what you're heing you're doing fine they don't feel like little cars to me when I'm in it it doesn't feel like a little car somehow but then you realize you see one parked up next to some SUV you know some monster car that they build here in the states and it is a little car try looking at a Volkswagen this way it's the only small car with a sealed steel bottom that leaves nothing exposed beneath it and the VW is built to take a little punishment in fact the VW is so well put together it's practically airtight now what other car gives you this kind of quality at this kind of price there's a certain nobility about it there's a certain honesty about it which I think is what people respected about the beetle it's always been a really rugged kind of trustworthy car I the Volkswagen seems to have a personality that some other cars lack and it it's hard to put a finger on but to look at it and try to analyze it there's a softness to the design it's kind of homely it's kind of cute I love the way they look it's got a little smile on its face and you approach it from every angle it's such a pleasing shape and the beetle I think is friendly all around it has a nice face but it's also nice B the car is very feminine in a way but it's also a tomboy it's very tough you know the car has these very nice curves I mean it comes from the whole idea of streamlining but it also has a a curve that's a very natural and organic curve that you can see in many different forms of nature even its nicknames all over the world are usually of animals or creatures of some sort there's always this organic connection to this car and I think it looks like it just created [Music] itself curval linear forms in general are things people react in a warm way to if you think about the the things that are comforting and don't hurt us remember we're babies breasts you know things are round and soft uh rounds soft things when you're a baby it's built into us this is something that provides sustenance it's warmth it's friendly it touches people in a childhood way you know it's it's round and it's like something you want to play with a round form has these connotations spiky angular forms are things you can get hurt you know Corner a cactus spike a hard surface you can try to explain it through like Form and Function this car was tested for 20 years to get to the absolute minimum of what was needed and necessary I mean that's that's what nature does and so for something to feel natural it's actually just fulfilling its function with the least amount of work you know and I think this car does that and for whatever reason that gives us a sense of its life it feels like it's alive that's kind of the feeling you get with the Beatles And I always say that the beetle is the member of your family that sleeps in the garage I'm sure that's why the harby films came about because it really it really does feel like that when you're driving them there's little quirks and all of them they all have they speak to in slightly different ways it almost has good days and bad days in the same way that I do and I think that companies like this n did a good job making people sing that this car's life I tell you there's more going on here that meets the eyes you know they life come but you wish they were the first movie I ever saw as a kid was uh Herby Go Bananas it literally is one of my first real memories and basically just being completely fascinated and enamored with the fact that this car could be a friend most people think of a car as being just Transportation but this was a concept that a car could be one of your best buds and that's something that stuck with me my whole life for me it was important to find out what had happened to the original cars during the filming that was going to be my new dream car I had to have an original Herby I had to find an original stunt car so this is exactly what the car looked like when I got it it was interesting to research how many cars were used for each film um obviously when you're a kid you think there's just one you know there's one Herby that did it all but the reality of it is is there were 10 or 11 cars for the first movie and as many as 26 for hery goost bananas and this is um Expendable car rig to toe driver listed release over the cliff by the Apollo [Music] this particular car was number 10 for the love bug I left all of this stuff exactly like it was when I got the car I didn't want to do a restoration on this car I basically wanted to preserve what was here um and make the car functional again the last scene that this car was involved in is sort of what sealed its fate for the love bug you see the car catch air and it goes down a ditch um Cliff whatever you want to call it and it's basically never seen again now in the movie they cut to a tree and the car is hanging from a tree but that's not this car my car completed its last stunt when it went over the side of that Culver seeing the movie as a child and then revisiting the movie as an adult it makes you realize how much of a children's movie it's not there's very serious darker sort of underlying issues with the movie I mean herry tries to commit suicide when you think of a Disney movie you don't generally think of a character wanting to kill [Music] thems no Herby don't her back up hery come on baby it's going to be a beautiful day [Music] tomorrow and I think everybody loves the underdog aspect of it the Plucky Underdog that comes out on top and who doesn't love that story but I've seen the movie more times than I care to admit but this is how we packaged everything so when we picked it up um and what was neat he put out all the windows in these burlap bags this vent Wing window was wrapped in this newspaper which is dated Sunday June 14th 1992 the spokesman review and Spokan Chronicle $700 74 bug missed those prices 67 bus 1,200 bucks wish I had a time to change this is just a hobby for me I mean I'm a I'm a garage hack and I I just learn as I go I'm a team by Nature I love to take things apart and try and put them back together it's just a lot of fun it's a way for me to kind of get out of the stress of day-to-day life and just get out to the garage and just work on something and the Hunt is a big part of it you know there's always that treasure hunting side of you that's uh that it's just you know takes you back to a kid when you go Easter egg hunting for Easter it's the same scenario you just get excited when you start finding them so anyone got 30 bucks on them and even if they're a complete basket case it's still fun fun to find them and try and extract them and I'm always on the hunt looking Palm Green pal I call it more of a resuscitation than a restoration I'm not trying to get a show vehicle here I want to get it back to where it's in good drivable Condition it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle because that's ultimately all it is you're just trying to put all the pieces back together and make them fit and work so you got a 20,000 piece jigsaw puzzle it gets daunting real quick and if you let your mind think like that you get compl completely overwhelmed and it's very easy to lose sight and that's why you see a lot of Unfinished projects out there one thing I've learned over the years is to take one component at a time my wife's great she always kind of giggles and and smiles whenever I'm pulling out some Hulk from God knows where and she loves seeing them too my wife is from Brazil and she's grown up with beetles and buses her entire life but she she's used to it enough now so she knows I mean once the parts start infilt trting inside the house then we got a real problem and I hope it's gone soon do you everything tends to stay out in the garage and out in the back back of the house and whatnot and she's okay with that and she knows that you know it's it's a hobby that I enjoy in the 50s in America the slur against the beetle often was that this is Hitler's car there's this little guilty part of me that was always there like my car that's my favorite car is the one that the Nazis Champion is like it's a hard thing to reconcile if you see movies today about second world war you see German soldiers driving you see them in a Shan or in the Beetle and just burned into the mind of [Music] everybody not only Volkswagen but germanson as a whole home have a bit of a problem with the second world war and what happened the chancellor Hitler at the time wanted a car for the people there was a new autoban system all over Germany and they wanted a practical cheap family car that people could afford to and that would have a good sort of fuel [Music] consumption start first the thing about the beetle is that it's had its story told possibly more often than any other car it's supposedly a well-known story but the problem is it's been mold vastly more often than anything accurate has been told there's the misinformed side of the people who think Hitler designed it which of course that's not true at all Hitler wasn't an automotive designer as you may or may not be aware of he had another line of work that he was quite involved with the people who are a little more informed uh usually will say Ferdinand Porsche designed it which is not inaccurate as such yes the actual final design that became the beetle did come from fergan Porsche and he you know refined it to be the most recognizable Auto design in the world but that answer is missing a huge huge component cars had become the big question of the future you know after the first world war so you had many people talking about it writing about it thinking about it in the University in the newspapers uh all over Europe in America at the time Henry Ford had invented the Model T which was a people's [Music] car the idea of what was happening in America this Mass motorization where normal people working normal jobs could afford a car that was a huge change a car comes off the end of the line every 10 seconds people were talking about that in Europe on many different levels hoping that somehow they could create a car that would do what the Model T did in America Ferdinand Porsche did not come up with this concept of the car that became the beetle just out of thin air there were number of designers experimenting with various pieces of this he's actually working within kind of a collective school of thought a general set of ideas for what could make a great people's car and there were some very key players that arguably did more to develop what the beetle became than Porsche did himself some of these people have been almost erased from the hisorical record there was a motor journalist at the time named Joseph Gans he wrote for a magazine called motor critic he was a Jew you have a very important person yoseph gan's writing about it quite a lot and making a big stir about Germany needs a car needs a needs to motorize a population like America and this is the future he himself was contracted by companies to make cars as well to design things and when he started designing cars on his own he would use a backbone chassis again something that you'll see later in the beetle swing axles also the later of Beetle engine behind the driver and streamline bodies and if you think about what the early Beetle was it was all of these things and he actually called this car the maybug so we even get enological names the seeds of what became the beetle were there this was a pool of ideas and one of the biggest people who input into that pool was Joseph Gans he was incredibly vocal um and he was unabashed and in going for this idea he was had a lot of passion for it gans's biggest success was a car called The Standard Superior and the standard Superior if you look at it now looks a hell of a lot like a very very early Beetle the standard Superior was a little Beetle like car it was twodo it had a backbone chassis rearm mounted engine and this car was sold it was sold and it was sold under the name Volkswagen in the generic sense of the name there's ads from that era you know standard super Superior and it cost like, 1600 Reich marks and it was one of the cheapest CS you could get in Germany at the time you can trace the roots of the beetle back to Joseph Gans as much as you can Ferdinand Porsche I believe many of those people were Jewish as it turned out and were persecuted when uh the Nazis came to power so a lot of their stories have sort of gotten lost he was eventually forced out of his position in the magazine motor critic because of pressure from the Nazis they were taking away his livelihood he was actually imprisoned um they just made life tolerable for him and these people used his status as a Jew as a way to basically just eliminate him as uh any sort of credible threat and in the end you know they won Joseph Gans was effectively erased from the VW [Music] story it's a relief in a way that seminal in The Beetles design may have actually been a Jew himself it's like this thing wasn't entirely you know born out of these horrible circumstance ances by this madman Germany was partitioned after the war and the Allies each took a zone so you had the British Zone you had the American Zone you had the Russian Zone and the French Zone and the Volkswagen factory happened to be in the British zone so it's a kind of difficult thing to stomach the idea that that Hitler was involved so I focused more on the British army going in there and teaching the bloody Nazis how to behave you know that's what I like to focus on part of the reason why the British were so eager to get it up in production was so the Russians couldn't have it there was also a big economic need because a lot of Germans now were suddenly destitute without jobs without anywhere to go the British really kind of fell in love with the car there was a man named Ivan Hurst who uh was a British officer who found himself um in control of the plant at the end of the war and also unexpectedly sort of fell in love with the car in a way that would forecast the way millions of people would fall in love with the car it was largely due to to his efforts that the car survived the occupation of Germany and eventually was in the position to become a mass marketed vehicle the FKS F in general is very very important for the Germans because it meant to forget about uh the sadness of the war and begin a new economic life again so the beetle was like this a refugee it should have been in this timeline that died off there were so many times it could have just ended there the beetle would be this weird thing in cm museums they built a few of these Beetle cars in the 30s and these were the bases for the German jeeps and wasn't that strange but that's not what happened the beetle jump ship it got into our timeline and instead of dying off here it [Music] thrived you know working in the food industry my job is considered art but it but to me it's a craft because it's a learned skill whereas I guess art is something that's more inherent Daddy can I have chocolate you want chocolate yeah a little bit just a little bit the original color of this Beetle was all black but what I'm thinking it would be nice because we want to put the logos on there to really make them pop if we do two-tone and do white on the lower and black everywhere else that'll pop really nicely the Posh logos what do you think I want Posh can you pull that logo off yeah it's going to be a magnet so we could take it off and we don't need it it looks like he's painted exactly that's nice we can do a Posh Surfboard on top that would be neat I'd love to make a posh surfboard so we could either do it like this or we could do it like this it's going to be tough I can definitely match that paint Daddy yeah [Music] yeah [Music] the painting is is the fun part once you got all the prep done and everything's nice and straight and you can finally lay on the color and see the color finally coming to life that's when the actual gratification of the hours and hours of hard work come into play every time I paintt is a learning experience and what I learned from this experiences I really don't know there's no end to what you can do when you own a car no longer locked on the land the farmer's wife can get away from the farm for a while and take the baby down the road for a visit humans have the desire for two things and that's freedom but also control and those two things don't necessarily go together you can't have Anarchy and structure but when it comes to Mobility we have a way to look at it in a different way we are always trying to be free which means we want to see more and do more and experience more and have the chance to do what we want and Mobility is a reflection of that you know we find ever new ways to explore first you know the bicycle the motorcycle the car air airplane these are all ways of us extending our feeling of freedom and and power and also control because on the train you don't have any control I mean you have the control to buy the ticket and then someone takes you from point A to point B with the automobile you have this direct relationship between your freedom and your control because you're in control of the car and you're free to take it where you want to take it but you also need rules structure stop lights all that stuff and that comes through control with autonomous cars and self-driving Google vehicles and everything else you know I feel like we can still sort of hold on to that romantic idea of having the power to go out and drive your own car however fast or however slow you want to go go where you want to go it's an extremely therapeutic thing for me you with all the stress of society and and work and everything else some people like to go play sports some people go to the bar to unwind I just get behind the wheel of an old bug and drive my first car was a beetle you know your first car is it's a life changer isn't it when you when you're a teenager and you have a car that's yours that you've worked for and it it's the first time you have Independence like that and where I lived in Scott it was so beautiful there you know and I I could go wherever I wanted and I'd been sort of limited to places that I could cycle my bicycle to and now I could go much much further you know I could drive it into Edinburgh I could go to Glasgow and go to big cities I remember the I had a stereo in it and had orchestral maneuvers of the darks album there some music now that when I here I'm just back in that green [Music] beetle it's just perfect it's perfect I've reflected on why do I love this car so much and I've looked back and I've and my parents had them in the 70s when I was just growing up um there's a picture of my mother holding my brother as a baby who's 2 years older than me in front of a red beetle in Glasgow I think and then there's a picture of me as a school boy like 5 years old standing in front of an orange Beetle that we had I'm sure that's why I ended up buying when I was 16 because I I I love them I love the shape of them and I I'm I've known them since I was you know nothing really I guess my goal is to get the interior done and then work my way out once the interior is completely done then it's focusing on the Mechanicals like brakes and shocks suspension engine wiring and then boom turn the key and see what happens hopefully it doesn't that's where we're at curved glass is remarkably strong compared to Flat glass because of the curve adds strength rigidity when we do the windshield it's a completely different story I find that getting yourself in the right frame of mind to do this work is essential and the windshield on these ear bugs are flat glass and the flat Glass is very delicate to work with and I've broken enough of them installing them to know that it's something you just got to take your time with i' usually when I split them that's usually right when I get to the end and right down the [Music] middle [Music] just want to pull this cord through it that scared the out of me for a second nice all in it was 1949 and the Cold War and everything was getting bigger including automobiles that's when we arrived and they couldn't even spell our name right the whole thing seemed like a comedy because were they actually going to try to sell this in the US man named Ben Pon who was instrumental in the creation of the boss the type two wanted wanted to see this car come to America so in 1949 he loaded up a couple of the cars on a ship and they went to America uh with great hopes that you know everyone would fall in love with this car and the opposite happens the custom officials laughed at the car and said are you trying to sell this here you know like are you crazy like good luck you know well they got some people to go along and they sold two in 1949 people thought the car was ugly they called it the Baby Hitler all the Press was bad you know it couldn't have been worse to be honest it was just a disaster so the car was definitely not embraced by America at first vacation that wonderful American institution of going new places and doing new things in the 1950s in America it was a boom time and cars became very big and it was all about sort of the Glamour and the ornamentation and the bigness so you can see how the beetle didn't fit into that at all it was sparse and you know the opposite of all of that but then you had another generation that was growing up and they looked at what their parents were doing and all this uh consumption and big houses and keeping up with the Joneses and they didn't really want that there were people in America who were getting a little sick of these massive thirsty cars and so you had a countercultural movement in the 60s like all countercultural movements it's basically doing the opposite of what had come before more towards Simplicity and freedom [Music] somehow the beetle was finally at just the right point point to ride that wave it was really a matter of timing because it couldn't have worked before this exact moment Mr Jones and Mr krempler were neighbors they each had $33,000 with his money Mr Jones bought himself a $3,000 car with his money Mr krempler bought himself a new refrigerator a new Range a new washer a new dryer a record player two new television sets and a brand new Volkswagen now Mr Jones is faced with that ageold problem keeping up with the crampers here was a car that was being marketed as different as honest as meaningful and that was St contrast to all other cars that were out at the time and that's what they they sold themselves on these very humble ideas of what a car could be and a lot of this came from the advertising campaign that Doyle Dame burbach came up with in the late 50s and early 60s that was most Americans first real introduction to Volkswagen and it was an idea that stuck with them a concept and a and a a cultural identity uh that stuck with them for [Music] decades I think they've sort of gotten away from that philosophy of what you see is what you get um there's an honesty about that that you don't really see anymore they would have been happy to tell you it's not beautiful but they would have given you half a dozen reasons why the look made sense and why it was the right thing to do and it all would have worked Nobody Does that anymore you can't get that Honesty in a car company anymore just doesn't happen Monday we're going to pick up the motor it's coming FedEx and uh since I'm a resident they can't get it here because it's on a pallet so we're going to go pick it up and that's going to be fun cool so just uh right on out over there yeah the uh ramp right right I'll get my best guy on it thanks man right on that tailgate there on you going to hold it we'll find out oh yeah that's no problem there no problem at all if that'll actually fit right in there oh oh there is Notch on there oh man that's a lot of sure is I would I'm going to put inside oh yeah it's going to be perfect it's like threading a needle you got 3 in on each side go this way here here okay go back that way here okay you're in had half an inch on each side at most getting it out to whole another matter that's going to be breaking it out of the crate it was going to get in my bus one way or another and it did this is my very first turn key motor it's pretty nice to meet you that very very cool bathroom drink coffee I'm good right now you're good I'm assuming you probably want to see your car kind of a lot you kind of waited a little [Music] while look at that very very very very cool cool piece of History oh I'm I'm dying to get it in the light there and really check it out this is a 19 1950 and it uh was one of the first beetles that was officially imported into the US and I think it was a total of like 163 Beatles that he brought over in 1950 and this is one of those cars here's a copy of the the birth certificate shows where it was produced where it came to Hoffman in New York but this shows the the motor number which 219 42 7 right there so 219 427 so that's the original engine for this car that's such a rarity to find one that hasn't had the motor swapped out it's just that's really really really cool the car has a story to tell so it's not just another 50 Beetle it was one of the first beetles that came into the US and the US is a major market for the beetle throughout the the history of Volkswagen I mean these first few cars as they came over were the drop in the water that turned into the the waves that U took it so huge the beetle became this Mass Market phenomenon more cars of any model of the beetle have been made than anything else I love those pictures of the factories when you just see hundreds of beetles lined up or loading onto double-decker trains and I love all looking at all those pictures it's like a I feel like a kid in a sweetie shop I wish I could get in there and take a few you know have a few just for myself they're produced all over the world world and assembled in many different countries the biggest Factory is Germany Mexico and Brazil but Parts being assembled in Thailand and Indonesia South Africa I always feel like that when I look at them I like the older ones I like the newer ones I'd like to have a 70s Beetle again you know let have one from every year that's not asking too much is [Music] it [Music] [Music] [Music] they're really nice these are really really good quality horsehair padding so I'm excited to use these and these Springs are in great great shape doesn't look like any work to him it been done fingers that looks good the original manufacturing of the coconut fiber for the seaan was done in India the materials that Volkswagen used in the in the' 60s um especially in the Interiors as they age they soak up smells and they create their own smell and they're something about that Volkswagen smell that is brings you back it's maybe uh the trademark of a of a video you know it's the smell it's it's amazing the petrol Tank's not very far away from you it's right in front of your knees which is not a great place I supposed to have one but anyway there it is so you're getting a little whiff of the petrol and you smell the oil from you've got an you've got all of the mechanical smells that I love and are in there it's a little on the musty side it's probably from the horse hair padding no matter how much you vacuum you're going to have the horse hair padding falling apart and underneath the seat he's losing some horse hair I feel like it's a combination of whatever that weird straw horse hair of seat fill gasoline and rubber and then all cooked all gradually cooked by the the driving of your car I mean it's so airtight in there all of those smells are just creating this great Volkswagen Beetle smell that when you open the door and get in you you're enveloped by and uh smells good for me the Volkswagen smell is my childhood my mom owned a very nice low mileage 66 bug this was a car that my mother picked me up and dropped me off to school in every single day and that was the highlight of my day was getting picked up in that car the moment I would sit in that car and I would smell that everything was okay in that moment it's just an incredibly nostalgic smell and I recently lost my mom and that that smell is really going to remind me of her more than [Music] anything and that's what was so remarkable about this car that I just bought that has 19,000 Mi on it because that car instantly transports me back to my childhood my parents would take me to Volkswagen shows when I was eight nine 10 years old I mean I didn't even have a driver's license and they would drive me eight hours one way to go to a Volkswagen show [Music] I go to a VW show and it's like walking into the bar at cheers and hey Norm you know there's something that's really cool about that when I'm with the VW crowd it's home you know I know if I've got a problem today I was having mechanical problems with the car and I knew if I broke down somebody would be there to help me I didn't have to worry about it people do come together it's a it's a neat family of people it doesn't really matter if it's a beetle or a bus or a Type 3 or whatever it is there is a real Volkswagen camaraderie and and it's it's quite nice and also it's not even just people in Volkswagen you know you get waves from other people and I I forget even when I'm not at driving my Beetle if I'm driving another car I'm always waving to beetles and they're like why why is he waving at me you know it's always fun it's always there's always a turning head with a smile you know everybody looks at you everybody Smiles everybody uh says hello it's very [Music] nice it's a relatively inexpensive hobby to get into for one so if you're going to if you're going to restore a car so to speak or or build a kiit car or Baja Bug or go for the cow look or just to go stock it's compared to other cars that you could get into it's still relatively inexpensive the beetle pan itself the engine transmission Wheels body pan of the beetle was an independent unit you could lift the body off a beetle and have a drivable chassis they weren't just economy cars people would have a lot of fun in these things too the Myers m the first dune buggy that we think of as a dune buggy fiberglass body on a beetle pan and you had a good time and it was cheap that opened up an entire industry of kit cars the likes of which we still have never seen replicated today like you could have you can make a beetle pan look like almost anything it's kind of neat seeing the beetle in particular being able to take off on so many different platforms that on that ch chassis you can come up with so many different configurations it's almost like the Mr Potato Head cuz you can put so many different pieces together on it and it always works no matter what they always tend to fit and you can turn it into something really cool you can go buy a Volkswagen for 1,000 bucks and have something in common with some rich dude that just spent $200,000 on a Volkswagen the Volkswagen has now really spread across so many different levels of people from basic trans to highend collectible it's a 1949 Hipp the beetle was classless in a way that we don't really have anymore nowadays status is such a big deal when people buy cars that wasn't the case with a beetle everybody knew how cheap a beetle was a Beetle cost like half of what a average American compact car cost in like the 60s and 70s you could be a rich person driving a beetle with no shame you could be someone famous in a beetle and it was like cool it's a force that kind of holds everybody together and I like that a [Music] [Music] lot fore foree [Music] fore [Music] speech [Music] [Music] so this is the clutch brand new sacks clutch alignment tool goes in through that pile of bearing that we just replaced got it y damn it okay a [Music] I have no words well there are moment moments that you get so incredibly frustrated that you want to just basically light light a match and walk away they all teach you patience to a certain degree just when you think that you turn a corner for the better uh something else will set you back and you just got to sometimes you just got to learn to walk away and sit down in a quiet place and think about it for a [Music] bit the word came as a quiet announcement yesterday sales have been declining and prices rising and the standard Volkswagen Beetle will no longer be imported into the United States more beetles have been sold than any other car in history 19 million worldwide 5 million in the US and late 1974 VW started sending fewer of the old sandby over so that more of the new rabbit model mechanically completely different could be produced but the original model which created the market for economy cars has ended its 28 year run on these Shores Japanese Imports were coming in that were about as cheap as the beetle about as efficient could hold more people were just more modern designs and the bug had been making these incremental improvements for a long time and all of a sudden found real competitors for the first time to Volkswagen was realizing this is what we've got Subaru the economy car for today's economy frankly VW just hadn't kept developing aggressively enough to really keep you know with the times when the Japanese Market came in and started to take the wind out of the sales the beetle that killed the beetle to a certain extent in the US market you know in 79 it was done you know the fact that they stopped making it I mean they made them for so long can imagine our car being produced for that length of time it's unrivaled isn't it it's it only adds to its preciousness you know the fact that it's not being built anymore in that form I me Mexico continue to crank out beetles until 2003 they continued longer than any other Factory around the [Music] world [Music] VW went into Mexico pretty early into the ' 50s the beetle was extremely well suited to Mexico in particular Mexico had that combination of a population that needed good cheap Transportation uh Road and working and living conditions that tended to be a little more difficult which would kind of weed out some of the more fragile cheap cars that would have been out there [Music] [Music] volag you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a beetle in some capacity be it a taxi or a civilian used car Beatles were Everywhere Beatles are what made Mexico function you know it's a big country big hot Dusty roads so not having to fill a radiator was kind of a big plus so with a combination of simple accessible rugged common part swapping between the various years all of these things outed up to something that works really well for an emerging country and you know that the same reasons why it was successful at all is why it made sense as a cab if you're driving it every day and you want to you want parts available like why would you pick something exotic for a cab and it makes so much sense that they even Overlook some of the flaws in the Beetle for a cab two door is not an ideal cab but they always took out that front seat and you just climbed in piled in the back and however many people can cram in there and it worked and it worked for a really long time [Music] the vittles are disappearing from the Mexico City street I cannot remember a time with no VW taxes in Mexico the emissions problems in Mexico City were completely out of control and also safety reasons the fact that they weren't four-doors um and there were some sketchy things going on in the taxi cap the government's answer to all of this was we need to to Outlaw twoo taxis passengers need a means of aggress if something goes wrong so four-door taxis are in twoo taxis are out it's a shame to to see all these taxis here they are waiting for the for the deadline for the [Music] Doomsday there was a lot of bad feelings about the the Mexico City Taxi many of these taxis were used to commit crimes 20 years ago the chances to get robbed or maybe raped in a taxi Beetle was very high there were a lot of incidents they are known as Express kidnappings and that's basically where you would hail one of these cabs they would go a couple blocks turned down an alley somebody would get in they would put a gun to you and take you to ATMs that would basically empty your account as long as you cooperated you lived at the end of it there's no chances to run away when you are a passenger in a taxi Bel the driver locked the door and you are there it had to come to an end it's I guess part of our story you know it's so sad like you had lines and lines and rows of these beetles that were cars that any of us up here in the United States would gladly own that we could if nothing else use parts from and these cars were being crushed and stacked there were rows miles long of these cars that that are piled three four five beetles high and as long as the eyee can see and it just broke my heart by this point obviously they're all off the road they've already been outlawed you know all of the licenses have expired they're they're all gone basically which has really changed the landscape of Mexico City there's a certain charm about going down there and seeing all these little Beatles you know buzzing around and I kept going back and looking at these pictures of these cars getting crushed that were stacked up and I I had to do something about it I think back to like the 50s and 60s and I'm always questioning why people didn't think to save more of these cool cars these significant cars and so when an opportunity comes up in present day that I would think years from now we look back and think why didn't we save any of these cars these were an important part of History I don't know I think it's it's another one of those big Collectibles like Herby that just sort of sits in the garage but I get a certain satisfaction from knowing that I was able to save one and that there's one less Beetle that got [Music] crushed [Music] I'm getting nervous about firing this thing up for the first time your initial startup on this can go in so many different directions you got to understand every single system in this bug was disassembled so that's a lot of variables right there hopefully we won't need that all right put the battery in crank the engine until fuel makes its way here and it's got a ways of travel I mean it's got to travel from the front of the Beetle all the way to here at 3 and 1 12 PSI that'll take some time before it gets there and then it's one of these then once it fires then I got to start got to run it at a high RPM and then I'm going to listen for expensive noises this is it this is the first startup in over 20 years okay bit oil pressure a little green light went [Applause] off it sounds like my uh battery is starting to wear down [Music] too [Music] [Applause] that's just cuz that was the first time it had ran in 23 years that's an incredible feeling to know that you just brought something back to life you you uh you put another one back on the road it's a it's a really good sense of accomplishment some of them will fight you every step of the way some of them will get back together and get on the road quickly this one definitely fought me putting it back together but uh we're working out the Kinks slowly together it took enough of my skin and blood and pride for sure VW used to be extremely conservative technologically basically they had one fundamental platform that they worked with and they stretched that platform to everything it's sort of like there was a split in Volkswagen technologically that happened in the70s and this is the split that most of us understand is when VW went from air cooled rear engines to water cooled front engines and from that moment on that's the break from that moment on technology and Innovation took on a very different role at [Music] Volkswagen 98 the new Beetle came out and all of a sudden Volkswagen was in the eyes of America again even though they had been here during the the 20e Gap you know dealerships were closing it was not a real happy time for volksvagen in the US but the new Beetle was really the shot in the arm that they needed a lot of people rushed out to buy them thinking they were going to feel those same feelings and smell those same smells and when they realized it was just like every other car out on the road I think they a little disappointed the new Beetle may look a bit like the old one but it's not the same car nowhere near the same it was still a neat car uh and it still made people smile like the old be did they added a diesel option on the new Beatles and it's a good option but you know I mean they're a completely different car company at this time in a completely different car scandal and the Fallout over Volkswagen's cheat in of emission standards grew today the EPA alleged there was deceitful software in half a million cars today Volkswagen raised that number significantly and tried to restore consumer [Music] trust the way everybody knew Volkswagen their original reputation was they were the honest car company when it was found that Volkswagen was cheating on their diesel emissions there's a lot of interesting things going on there for one thing they sold the cars under the guys that you're doing something good for the environment you're using less fuel you know they were selling these things as clean diesels that was specifically what they called them the person who's going to be interested in such a car is someone who gives a damn about the environment about the economy and vws lied to them there's no way around it they were lied to by a company and that's a really hard thing to recover from our company was dishonest with the EPA and the California air resources board and with all of you and in my German words we have totally screwed up what you've got your three goals are power efficiency and cleanliness of exhaust and you can't have all three of those so the question is why did VW feel like they had to have everything you can TR back y to a reaction against what VW used to be the old ideas of slow refinement making everything perfect for what it was even if it's an archaic design and from there we get into what modern VW became which is a much more technology oriented company there's a lot of arrogance and pride associated with this this hold Scandal feels like something that came out of this arrogance but I imagine there was pressure from the very top like we have to be the best we have to provide a diesel that gets insane mileage and insane power and nobody else can touch it and the thing is they just hit up against the wall of physics and engineering and reality and they couldn't quite get there this can be a chance to really reinvent themselves in maybe a way that they've needed to since before this even happened since everyone's conducting a mileage test we at Volkswagen thought we'd conduct one so we modified our body and our engine and use someone who didn't weigh much to drive and we got 84 MP gallon ridiculous nobody normally drives like this that's precisely our Point nobody normally drives like most of those [Music] tests oh dude these magnets turned out perfect man I use the leftover white paint from the door to paint the the magnet itself and then we match the black in [Applause] vinyl yeah it's beautiful looks awesome the number you dialed has been changed is connected or is no longer in service so I want to find corki because now I want to get back in touch with her so I can set up a time to to meet up with her and show her the bug and show her the finished product and I'm not exactly sure why her number would be disconnected unless she moved so I got to try and figure out a way to get in touch with her or a family member I can try Facebook if you feel you have reached this recording in error please check the number and try your call again [Music] there goes a hubc we got to get that [Music] not bad and when I first saw it it looked like it had a big old Dent inside of it but a little bit of road rash just some character to it all right so moral the stor is keeping at 63 65 hubcaps go flying [Music] off the sad truth of this whole thing is that you don't see them anywhere worldwide they're disappearing at alarming rate it is sad that as time goes on there's a limited number left and because of that and because of more and more people fall in love with this car then to own one actually becomes something which feels competitive I think that's the word that bothers me is that you should feel like you have to snatch up this car and put it in your collection you know because then the story gets lost you know and if you lose a story then I do think you're losing the heart of the car something that was so common is now incredibly unique how crazy is that in just 40 years in recent years scrap prices have gone up a lot so you've had a lot of the older junkyards in the midwest especially and up north basically cash out on these [Music] cars we found an old crappy looking car that looked like it had been in an alley for most of its life and uh put it back on the road and I love that I love I love sort of the idea of um saving them you know the beetle started out as a as a tool as a mode of transportation it was like any other product that's out there in the world but it's endeared itself with people that have experienced it through their life and now collectors that want to relive those memories and and have that emotion back are holding on to these things tightly even in the last since I bought mine here in America like the prices of them are going crazy this car maybe 3 or 4 years ago might have been $30,000 or something like that and now it's probably double that right it's extraordinary and and what what happens I suppose is encourages people to drive them less I mean I think if you're if you're paying that kind of money for a car then it does become something that sits in a collection or in a collector's collection and and and maybe doesn't get driven very much I I like to drive mine I like I like to get mine out and give them a blast you know there's something about being in this little blue car that's really is one of my favorite places in the world it is I love the the Simplicity of it all and it's so it's so very beautiful I think it's got a lot to do with not growing up somewhere in me is still that 16-year-old boy who got his first car and never kind of got over it I don't like that sort of lie that were fed by that sort of capitalist the idea that you need the new phone you need the new stereo you need the new car every year they bring out a car which is like last year's but it's they've done this to make you want the new one and make you also feel bad about having the old one and I don't like to live like that I don't I don't think that's important cor Lord there she is look at that on the beach retired so through Facebook I was able to connect with her grandson the good news is Corky is happy and healthy and made arrangements to meet up with them out at the cabin so next weekend we're going to drive the bug out there so even though we're in Montana I'm going to put the uh classic Idaho 1960 bug plates on that her grandkids bought for Bob for this Beetle I think that'll be a nice little [Music] touch I really hope she likes it I'm not exactly sure what her expectations are if she has any expectations I'm excited to take it out to her and follow through on my promise it was a beautiful fall day the Sun was shining you know it was a finally uh first real opportunity I had to get it out on a long drive and gave me a lot of time to really reflect back on the the year leading up to this moment [Music] [Music] oh my gosh here it comes same no it doesn't hey even the lights work all right come here Mom oh wow she hey stranger on go un believable what do you think unbelievable it's been about a year to the day almost now wow so I tried to reuse everything that Bob put away everything that he stored for this is all original to the beetle you see you know it's got the it's got its little marks in it and yes it's got fresh paint but it needed that AB the rest of the stuff fresh paint if he live but if if you if you do one of those restores where you know you put everything brand new on it and everything you you bury the history of that car you bury the history of where it's been I think it was great for my mom in a lot of different ways to be able to see it restored and brought back I think it gives her a sense of closure a sense of we completed what you started we were able to find someone that did that and so I think that just closes that door for my mom I was feeling nervous about the bug breaking down but uh it didn't it it actually end up being a pretty remarkable day the reaction from Corky and Jerry and their family on on this Beetle and what what it meant to them was worth every bloody knuckle with all the challenges all the frustrations went away the minute that I saw the reaction on their face it's far better than I anticipated I don't know what I thought but I'm amazed just a beautiful car they pretty cars aren't they amazing daylight 22 [Music] years knowing my dad my dad gave out very few hugs uh he loved me and I loved him and that that wasn't a question but he wasn't he was old school he wasn't that you know always hug your son kind of like we are as fathers um I think Jason would have gotten a hug from my dad [Music] L nuts and bolts you know that's that's what a car is it's nuts bolts it's rubber it's all of these things put together an inanimate object and somehow this car was able to get into all of our heads it was able to touch our soul it's something that we take to heart it's it's a special thing I don't think I don't think there will ever be another car made like that VW today feels so removed from the car that got them to where they are the character of the original beetle is not going to be hurt by what's happening now it's unimpeachable a lot of ways the Beatles already established itself it's such an icon it's no longer affected by almost anything VW can do today and if you look at it of course it isn't it came from the Nazis if that wasn't enough to smear the character of the car a diesel Scandal sure as hell isn't going to do that the be the beetle is always going to be above that crap I don't think that there's a spot in the world that hasn't been touched by a bug it definitely brings people together in a really amazing way I mean they call it the people's car and and it holds true today it's not about the car the car is just a medium to bring these people together but it's the people everyone wants to be a part of a story especially a continuous story and this car gives you a way to to be a part of that story and it's a story that started with dark the worst of us as humans is a part of this car's initial Beginnings it goes on to Champion the best parts of us we feel that we're part of that story and we feel that we're part of something that should never have happened and wasn't supposed to happen then was impossible but then became possible that's an important thing about this car is that we can be reinvented that reinvention is possible that we can change our [Music] story [Music] [Music] n

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Keywords: car documentary, 2024, car, car movies full, english, car thriller, car documentaries 2024 full movie english, car movies 2024, new car classic movies, full car classic movies, full car movies English, Hollywood car classics, car classic documentaries, car movies full movies, Classic Car Cinema, Iconic Movie Cars, action movie, exclusive car movies, car thriller movies, Car Film Classics, Car Stunts in Movies, Cult Car Movies, The Bug, Life And Times Of The People's Car

Id: oCE2eAyKS74

Length: 80min 20sec (4820 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2024