Dan's Papers - April 4, 2008 - Classic Cars with Bob Gelber

In my last article, I wrote about how there's a small car revolution going on everywhere in the world, especially in Europe. Very slowly, a buyer's trend toward smaller and more fuel efficient cars is happening here in America. Finally.

Anyone who has been reading my weekly automotive commentary in Dan's Papers for the last seventeen years knows that I've always been a proponent of small cars, even when fuel was inexpensive. A lot of my enthusiasm for smaller vehicles comes from the fact that I've always been a sports car enthusiast, and as we know, two seat sports cars are, by design, some of the smallest cars on the planet. At the risk of giving away my age, I'd like to discuss some of the smaller cars I've owned and driven over the years.

The first small car I was ever in as a passenger was a Volkswagen Beetle. I was a junior counselor at a summer camp in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. An older, college-age counselor owned a new Beetle. We drove around the hilly and curvy roads of rural Massachusetts in that little car, and I was constantly amazed at its tenacious grip on the road. It certainly made a different sound than my parents' 1955 Plymouth Station Wagon. It was a whooshing sound that emanated from behind your head. I vaguely remember my older and more mature driver mentioning that after he graduated from college he wanted to get a car called a Porsche. I didn't know what he was talking about.

Never having owned a Volkswagen Beetle, when I was finally old enough to know the difference, I bought a little Porsche Speedster. This may anger any Porsche owner reading this story, but there really wasn't that much difference in driving an early Porsche or Volkswagen. Sure, the Porsche handled a little better, and certainly had sexier lines but it felt and sounded the same. Another surprise, the early Volkswagens were as well built as those much more expensive Porsches. For some strange reason, lots of mechanics could repair and tune up a Volkswagen motor but everyone I knew was scared to death of that very similar Porsche engine. Perhaps the main reason a lot of people, like myself, owned an early Porsche was because it was one little car you could swagger away from when parked. Try that with a Beetle!

One day, a salesman friend of mine who worked at Pray Porsche-Volkswagen in Greenwich, Connecticut called me and told me a really nice Corvair Monza coupe had just been traded in, and did I want it? It was a $500 wholesale bargain, and I had to have the car. I didn't even know the car was supercharged until after I owned the buzz bomb. I used it as a beater for several years, and enjoyed every minute of it. It sounded and handled a little like a Porsche, but it was many miles from being a Porsche. I've always felt that the Corvair, especially the supercharged Monza, was one of General Motors' most inventive automobiles. It's a darn shame that GM let Ralph Nader, a guy who didn't even have a driver's license, bully them into taking the Corvair off the market.

The one Volkswagen I did own was a 1971 Westfalia Camper bus. You know the square box with the fiberglass roof that could be raised? I really liked that vehicle. It was fun to drive because you sat high, virtually at the foremost front part of the thing. It had the same visibility as a Greyhound bus. The camper, with the right shocks and tires, actually had acceptable handling. Certainly much better than a Greyhound. It had a high roll center and leaned quite a bit on the curves, but if you knew its limitations, you could have a lot of fun with it. By today's minivan standards the old Volkswagen was a very small vehicle, but in those days it was considered huge inside. The main failings of the camper were that it had the same engine as the much lighter and smaller VW Beetle, which meant the heater was inadequate and the truck was sluggish in acceleration. Other than that, it was a trouble free bullet-proof family hack. For the record, today, vintage Westfalia campers are very valuable on the collector car market.

I've also owned two original Minis, a 1961 Countrymen and a 1968 1275 Cooper S hot rod. Much has been written about the original Mini and it's all true. You owe it to yourself to drive one. They are that enjoyable. I'm outa space this week, more on small cars in the next article.

Bob Gelber, an automotive journalist living in the Hamptons, appears regularly on television as an automotive expert. You can email him at bobgelber@aol.com