Fenix's story
My part of this story begins shortly after my 16th birthday, would have been around October of 2010. Having gotten a driver's license, I decided I wanted a car, as is typical for American teenagers. Even well before this time, I'd thought of getting an older “beater” car that I could work on and learn to repair myself. It was to be both an educational tool and a means of transportation, which I would get in poor condition and restore to usability. All my life I have been a tinkerer, enjoying messing with mechanical things of all sorts, prior to that point mostly bicycles. I was ready for a new challenge with a car. Most modern cars are far more difficult for an amateur to work on, as they require special tools and are mostly run by computers. I wanted to avoid all that, wanting something far more basic and easier to work on. Something without computers, instead having everything being mechanical and easier to comprehend – no “black boxes” that do something without me being able to understand how. I'd thought of various types before that, but at that point, after a small amount of research, decided on a classic Volkswagen Beetle, as they are well known for their simplicity and being very easy to work on. They are also fairly common and quite cheap for a car in the range of 40 years old. My mother and I spent a couple of weeks scouring Craigslist and travelling all over Denver to look at various Bugs of various year, version, condition, and price, though the planned budget was $2,000. They all had various problems with them, and we often referred to them as “the one with the bad brakes” or “the one with an oil leak” or “the one with pretty much everything messed up.” In the end we decided on a very faded red '73 Super Beetle with a minor oil leak, a car which would later become known as “Fenix.”
Fairly little of the history of this car is known. The following is assumptions based on what the seller said about his situation, and physical evidence on the car. It was built in fall of 1972 or spring 1973 [CITE!], it's not known where as the builder's plate is missing, and origionally painted Robins-Egg blue. Over the next several decades, the car was painted a scarlet red color, what appears to be a moderate-quality paint job done right over the original blue paint. It was involved in at least one collision, as some buckled metal and Bondo repairs are visible in the front end area. At some point the stock exhaust system was replaced with a noisy quad-tip “Sports GT” muffler – stock exhausts (or reproductions of that style) are now quite rare as they are noisy, power robbing, and expensive – many aftermarket options available now are superior in every regard at a lower price. The story can really be traced back as far as two owners before me. Based on the condition of the car when I bought it, and what the seller said, a fairly detailed picture can be determined. It started with a teenage girl, who probably thought the iconic classic Volkswagen Bug would be a very fun car to own and drive as a first car. Lured in by the low price, she bought this one. Initially she probably enjoyed it, decorating it in her style by adding Disney Princess stickers to the side window and a large Hello Kitty sticker to the back window. Not used to driving a stick, an aftermarket tachometer was added for her. But what she and her family hadn't anticipated was the requirement of constant upkeep for such an old car, very different from a modern car. If a mechanically inclined owner wants to do their own maintenance and repairs, as I do, this isn't insurmountable, but for someone not prepared for this and unable or unwilling to learn these skills, taking the car to a shop for such things will get very expensive very quickly. The final straw was likely an oil leak, repair of which would require removing the engine. Deciding the car to be too much of a money pit, they sold it as-is at a major loss to a friend of theirs. This friend was far more mechanically inclined, and had hopes of restoring it, but over the next year or so he found he was more interested in other projects – I seem to recall motorcycles – and decided that he probably would never get around to the old Bug, which was just taking up space. Thus he decided to sell it, offering it on Craigslist for $1,800. It seems he wasn't particularly concerned about maximizing profit from this, just wanted it gone, as he sold it with the paint completely oxidized, one could wipe their hand on it and their hand would come off covered with orange dust. A couple hours of washing and waxing and he could have asked far more for it. I decided on this one, as it seemed to have the fewest issues of all the ones I looked at.
Fairly little of the history of this car is known. The following is assumptions based on what the seller said about his situation, and physical evidence on the car. It was built in fall of 1972 or spring 1973 [CITE!], it's not known where as the builder's plate is missing, and origionally painted Robins-Egg blue. Over the next several decades, the car was painted a scarlet red color, what appears to be a moderate-quality paint job done right over the original blue paint. It was involved in at least one collision, as some buckled metal and Bondo repairs are visible in the front end area. At some point the stock exhaust system was replaced with a noisy quad-tip “Sports GT” muffler – stock exhausts (or reproductions of that style) are now quite rare as they are noisy, power robbing, and expensive – many aftermarket options available now are superior in every regard at a lower price. The story can really be traced back as far as two owners before me. Based on the condition of the car when I bought it, and what the seller said, a fairly detailed picture can be determined. It started with a teenage girl, who probably thought the iconic classic Volkswagen Bug would be a very fun car to own and drive as a first car. Lured in by the low price, she bought this one. Initially she probably enjoyed it, decorating it in her style by adding Disney Princess stickers to the side window and a large Hello Kitty sticker to the back window. Not used to driving a stick, an aftermarket tachometer was added for her. But what she and her family hadn't anticipated was the requirement of constant upkeep for such an old car, very different from a modern car. If a mechanically inclined owner wants to do their own maintenance and repairs, as I do, this isn't insurmountable, but for someone not prepared for this and unable or unwilling to learn these skills, taking the car to a shop for such things will get very expensive very quickly. The final straw was likely an oil leak, repair of which would require removing the engine. Deciding the car to be too much of a money pit, they sold it as-is at a major loss to a friend of theirs. This friend was far more mechanically inclined, and had hopes of restoring it, but over the next year or so he found he was more interested in other projects – I seem to recall motorcycles – and decided that he probably would never get around to the old Bug, which was just taking up space. Thus he decided to sell it, offering it on Craigslist for $1,800. It seems he wasn't particularly concerned about maximizing profit from this, just wanted it gone, as he sold it with the paint completely oxidized, one could wipe their hand on it and their hand would come off covered with orange dust. A couple hours of washing and waxing and he could have asked far more for it. I decided on this one, as it seemed to have the fewest issues of all the ones I looked at.
Thus began my long adventure of repairing and restoring this car. It was driveable right away, and I began using it to go to school on days the weather was too poor for bicycling, and during the time we were stuck in a far-away apartment due to a household disaster, but it's condition wasn't the greatest. I gradually gathered tools and picked up the skills of working on it, sometimes getting help from experienced professionals, but mostly teaching myself. I didn't have any mentors, as my mom is fairly mechanically inclined but not up for this task, my father, though he would have been very good at this, is hardly present in my life – I still want to show him this car and all I've done with it, but have not yet had such an opportunity. We had no close friends capable of this either. I had several books, most importantly the Official Service Manual by Robert Bentley, and John Muir's famous How to keep your Volkswagen Alive, a manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, generally known among the community as the “Idiot's guide.” My mom has since said she was quite worried that I would struggle with this task, and we would suffer the same fate as the aforementioned teenage girl, but I picked it up quite well. Another factor I hadn't considered, but fortunately turned out quite favorable, is that parts are readily available and surprisingly cheap, not a situation that can be expected for most older cars.
Over time, my experience and confidence grew and the car's condition improved. Gradually I switched from day-to-day survival to restorations to my own customization. Many major repairs and modifications happened over the years. I've replaced the engine twice, the first time because it was pretty much worn out when we bought it and it died not long later, the second when I improperly installed a filter sump which damaged the oil pickup and starved the engine of oil, a condition it ran surprisingly long in. That saga is quite a story in itself. I completely rebuilt front and rear suspension, and converted the originally drum front brakes to disc, which actually work after driving through a deep puddle. I replaced the rusty quad-tip “Sports GT” muffler with a merged header and “quiet pack” muffler. I found that the original door panels, padded Naugahyde over particle board, were disintegrating, and replacements were fairly expensive, so I replaced them instead with home-made varnished plywood, which turned out quite nice. I later replaced the dashboard with a custom-built plywood one as well, along with wooden sunvisors, shift knob, and various other interior fittings. The beginnings of my customizations, modifying the car to make it "better" in whatever ways I saw fit. Throughout all this, I used the car as my regular “daily driver,” even using it to deliver pizza for Domino's for a few months – the very tight turning radius and good snow handling characteristics made this an excellent car for this job, despite her age. Many of my high school and college memories were and continue to be forged in this car, ranging from various misadventures to working to repair sagas to dates.
Over time, my experience and confidence grew and the car's condition improved. Gradually I switched from day-to-day survival to restorations to my own customization. Many major repairs and modifications happened over the years. I've replaced the engine twice, the first time because it was pretty much worn out when we bought it and it died not long later, the second when I improperly installed a filter sump which damaged the oil pickup and starved the engine of oil, a condition it ran surprisingly long in. That saga is quite a story in itself. I completely rebuilt front and rear suspension, and converted the originally drum front brakes to disc, which actually work after driving through a deep puddle. I replaced the rusty quad-tip “Sports GT” muffler with a merged header and “quiet pack” muffler. I found that the original door panels, padded Naugahyde over particle board, were disintegrating, and replacements were fairly expensive, so I replaced them instead with home-made varnished plywood, which turned out quite nice. I later replaced the dashboard with a custom-built plywood one as well, along with wooden sunvisors, shift knob, and various other interior fittings. The beginnings of my customizations, modifying the car to make it "better" in whatever ways I saw fit. Throughout all this, I used the car as my regular “daily driver,” even using it to deliver pizza for Domino's for a few months – the very tight turning radius and good snow handling characteristics made this an excellent car for this job, despite her age. Many of my high school and college memories were and continue to be forged in this car, ranging from various misadventures to working to repair sagas to dates.
Out on a delivery, spring 2014. Fenix was actually an excellent pizza delivery vehicle, especially thanks to her very tight turning radius - could pull a U-turn basically anywhere. Good snow handling was a major plus, but the lack of an A/C and somewhat feeble defogger were at times problematic - nothing steams up a car faster than a hot, fresh pizza!
One of the most important of these stories took place the fall of my senior year of high school, in fact the incident occurred on 30 October 2012 – a date I could remember without having to consult my journals. On that day, a Tuesday, I was driving to school on an otherwise ordinary day, though in the midst of my high school's preparation for their significant Halloween festivities. As I drove, I began turning but hesitated due to a car of unknown intentions. In this a van struck me from behind, crushing the engine lid, and damaging many components in the engine compartment. The two men in the van were very kind, in fact they were on the way to pick up food to deliver from the local food bank, and felt very bad about damaging this classic car. Their insurance was thankfully very helpful – State Farm if I remember right. The car was taken to a shop to be repaired, leaving us with a loaner car for the next month or so. As the damage would be fairly expensive to repair, it was feared it might be totaled, which was bad news to me as I'd already formed somewhat of an attachment to it by then. To our surprise though, the insurance company valued the car at a much higher value than we'd originally paid for it, even crediting the then-unfinished wood door panels. Thus it was repaired by the shop, taking frustratingly long. Eventually the car was ready to be picked up, I found it was covered with a fine dust, I'm guessing concrete dust from some nearby concrete plants, though it looked a lot like ash. As this was a car emerging from seeming death, for the second time (I'd already replaced the engine once), it's scarlet exterior covered in what looked like ash, it became very clear what this car should be known as - “Phoenix.” In years since, I have decided instead to spell it “Fenix,” the Spanish spelling of that word, which is more unique, fewer letters (I may someday create 3D printed name badging to attach to the engine lid where it had once said “Volkswagen”) and matching the Mexican origin of the fuel injection components.