Subject: RE: VW Micro Bus
Here's a VW bus story for you....
Over the last 30 years, I've probably owned 100 VW's. I used to buy and sell
them on a regular basis, (back in the day) when I lived on a high visibility
highway. I still have a '63 Ghia, and a '63 Type III Notchback.
Anyway... years ago, when I first got married, I covered a fairly large
geographical sales turf via car... on average, 300 miles a day. I drove
either Volvo's or LandCruisers. I had a water cooled VW Vanagon as well,
that my wife (now ex) used to drive. Nice vehicle... but, it occurred to me
that the frontal impact protection was suspect at best... (brilliant, eh?).
Here I was driving a "safe" Volvo, and she was boppin' all over town in this
potential deathtrap. So, I found a used Volvo wagon at the local Chrysler
dealer. That morning, the wife & kids and I went to pick it\t up. We drove
my old Volvo, which would become her car. She dropped me off, and headed
home, while I went on to my bank in the new (used) Volvo to sign some
paperwork. (Remember the days when you could just say "hey.. I need some
dough!" and they's say "sign here" and send you down the road with pockets
full of cash?).
Anyway... I'm sitting at my banker's desk, when he gets a call. He passes
the phone to me. Its the police. "Mr Thompson... your family has been
involved in a serious head on crash on Washington St. They've been taken to
St. Therese hospital... condition unknown."
I flew out of the bank, and drove as fast as I safely could to the hospital.
While doing roughly 50 mph, on a 4 lane road, with a large concrete curb
divider, a woman coming the opposite way, apprently tried to turn in front
of my family, maybe in a rush, and clipped the curb, launching her Jetta
airborne, and her car landed front to front, well up on the Volvo. The woman
suffered a broken leg. Turns out she was the wife of a cop in that very
town, which might have contributed to the fact she was not given a
breathalizer test. it was 11 AM in broad daylight.
My wife had some chipped teeth, and bruising from her seatbelts. My daughter
Emily, 1, had some bruises from the belts of her car seat. Kate, 3, despite
being in a car seat, suffered a torn eyelid, as her he face must have struck
her own arm or something as a result of the impact. There was broken glass
everywhere at the scene, and the doctors, unsure of what had caused her
injusry, suspected there might be glass in her eye. She was such a little
trooper... "Daddy... the Volvo's broke... but you can fix it". The wife was
hysterical. Only when Kate was going to be loaded into a big cat scan
machine did she become upset. I held her in my ars, trying to soothe and
comfort her... her bloody eye covered by a large gauze pad. They gave her
enough sedatives to drop a horse, yet it took nearly an hour an a half for
her to calm down enough to undergo the scan.
Tests showed no glass, and an opthamologist was called in and did some micro
surgery to repair the eyelid. 15 years later, the scar is only visible if
you know what to look for.
Needless to say, the timing of getting them out of the VW buss and into a
safer car was quite fortunate.
Check out the new British Cars Forum:
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