A bus and a bug on Highway 1...

We saw these guys on a drive a few weekends ago parked in what looks like an abandoned house right on the water. If you look closely, I think those are Porsche 365 taillights on the bug! EP has become quite good at finding VWs on our adventures. I credit these to her...

A drive around Petaluma...

A few weeks back, while EP was at her yoga class and I had some time on my hands, I grabbed her new fancy camera and headed out around town in search of VWs. There was the "Holy Trinity" of abandoned VWs that I knew about, but I thought I would drive some of the streets in my area looking for others. I wasn't surprised to find all these. I was surprised to find them all in an hour or so.

First up is one of the 3 VWs in the trinity. This bug is parked on top of a container at a local repair shop. Why? I have no idea. What I didn't know was there is another bug - a '67? - parked under that bug.





The 2nd car in the abandoned trinity is this guy. Parked in a storage area exposed to the road, I have driven by this many times and wondered the car's story. From a distance, it looked in great condition, but once I parked and hiked over the railroad tracks to get this shot, it seemed a little rough. Still a cool bug. Note that the bumper is inside the car...



Further along, I saw this and had to stop. A Bus Bus, rare to this city. I had never seen this one before, and this is one the few Bus Buses to use a later model Bay Window as it's lookout:

The Bus Bus.

I wonder if anyone ever bothers to hook up the wipers...

Down the road, this guy has a bug and a Ghia. I like the "Formula Vee" graphics on the Ghia...




Right around the corner from the Ghia...


The third, and final, VW in the Holy Trinity of abandoned VWs is this guy. Sitting atop a storage shed in a wrecking yard (which is full of old interesting cars!!) is this baja bug. It sits above the fence, so while you can't see anything in the yard, this bug stands out like a road sign.


I parked and walked as much of the perimeter of the wrecking yard as possible. It looks like they have been out of business for quite some time. Many of the shots I had to take were done while climbing on various objects to try to see over the fence. I did see one more VW tucked in there.

Can you see it?

Back across the river, I drove past this guy and turned around to take some pics... See the dog hanging out inside?



A few more bugs in the neighborhood just south of where EP was taking her class. These I shot just driving to pick her up...

A 68? 69?

'67?

This last one is on the way out of town to the west. Little Blue and I zip by it every morning we take the back way to work. I like to think they say hello to each other...

The Bug Van! From Hot Rod magazine, February 1974.

You can click on the image to make it bigger...






From Hot Rod magazine, February 1974.

Rust, um... removal! from Big Blue....

There are 3 major spots where Big Blue has rust trouble.

1. Under the windshield rubber
2. The battery box area
3. The rain gutter above the passenger side door

I decided to try to get rid of the rust on the rain gutter by grinding it off, priming it, and then using some matching blue touch up paint that I had ordered a while back. The thing about it is that where the fiberglass top met with the rain gutter, there wasn't enough room for twigs and leaves to wash out. I guess that over the years, this collected rain water where it just sat, rather than running out. You should have seen some of the crap that came out. Here was the worst of the rust:


So as I got into it, I quickly realized that the rust went all the way through the gutter:


And it wasn't long until I determined to just cut the piece out...


A little further back and the metal was fine underneath...


So after all that, I primed it...



and then hit it with blue paint from a rattle can that I ordered from Express Paint. I was shocked at how close it was to the original color...

Touch up paint added!

Here is the missing rain gutter area.

In the end, I was really happy with the results (other than losing a little metal). In the world of dreams, I will have this fixed when the body gets to a spot to take it in to have the whole thing gone over and painted. For now it looks just fine (and, hopefully, I have stopped the rust for a while).

You can barely see the change in shade in the left side of this picture...

The final rust... removal...


NOTE:

Mike asked (in the comment section) about the paint from Express Paint, so I want to post the receipt here:

68? 69? on the 101 south of San Rafael...

I had to race to catch this guy...

Random VWs at the Alameda antique show...

We were at the Alameda antique show a few weeks back and walked out to see 2 Ghia convertibles in the parking lot. Both were very nice, although the black '63 was perfect. Good to see people using them as drivers.