We had a bug when I was a kid, but I was an only child. But, me and my friends spent plenty of time riding on the back of pickup trucks lol. For peewee football, we had a 30 mile drive to practice and the dads would take turns taking us all. We would meet at one place and pile into the back of a pickup and ride to practice! Most of rode home with our parents, but this allowed for only one parent to have to take off early from work each time to get us to practice. And living way out in the woods back then, trick or treating also ended up occurring via piling kids in the back of pickups and driving from house to hosue, which many times were each a mile section apart.

 

Anybody remember the Subaru Brat? It actually had factory seats in the bed of the pickup.

 

Yep! Someone down the dirt road from us had one. It was always parked out by the road because I am pretty sure it could not make it up and down his driveway, which basically went down a huge ravine and required his bronco to navigate lol. So I saw it everyday.

I am fairly certain those seats came from the same reason the VW truck had them. There was a big tariff on importing non USDM pickups in the US. By placing seats in the bed, it was no longer considered a pickup. I think most tore the seats out not long after buying them but the one I used to see still had them, but they were pretty much baked from the sun.

 

 

 

 

I missed a few weeks so here are a few for your degustation.

 

A friend of mine had a VW van. We would pile into that and go backpacking halfway down the Baja Peninsula to the Sierra San Pedro Martir range. 8K foot elevation close to the Mexican observatory. In order to get the van up some hills (all dirt roads in those days: late 60s/early 70s) we had to put it in reverse as first gear was not low enough. We could only back up the hills!

 

I had a '63 Bug and at the time I was delivering parts for a Chevrolet dealer. One of my stops was a one man body shop. I asked him if he would paint my ugly brown bug, he said sure and gave me a great price. He did it in British Racing Green and added extra sparkles to the paint. Came out really nice. I also put a special exhaust on it, so it sounded great too. Sorry I ever sold that car.

 

Never had a VW beetle, when I was a pizza guy I did deliveries in one, one night. I remember the pedals threw me for a loop I wasn't aware that they were hinged differently as are 911's.
There is one down the street from me that had a for sale sign on it I have been tempted to ask how much.