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T3,
Well, on the last Squareback roadtrip, I ended up NOT going to France from
Finland, but from Finland to Poland (via Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and
Belarus). Quite a trip.
Everywhere we went, I could see the same words being spoken by people when
they saw my car, "T R A B A N T ?"! Pointing and laughing at what they
thought was a large sized Trabby station wagen. I wasn't impressed.
Anyway, at each border stop, we had no trouble. The Customs Officials in
Latvia seemed most impressed and didn't even want to look at our luggage -
just wanting instead to check out the odd looking Volkswagen. Many did not
believe that it was a VW!
Total distance was just over 2,500 kilometers with extra driving here and
there. I managed to find leaded gas (98 or 99) just about everywhere and
the economy was good - 8.1 liters per 100 kilometers. Much better than the
12.5 liters/100km I get in the city.
The road conditions on the Via Baltica Highway (if you can call it that -
this is no Autobahn) were hard to believe. At times impassable and having
the front end of the Square lowered 10cm with a full tank of gas made
matters worse. The snow and ice didn't make it much easier, but new
studded snow tires did the trick. Anyway, I survived and the Squareback
had only one problem - the windshield wiper motor decided somewhere in
Estonia to work on intermittent mode even when turned off completely.
This, plus a lose wiper arm, actually proved quite hazzardous a few times.
Thank heavens for Rain-X ...
So I am now off to Kiel, Germany, via Sweden & Denmark. On the return leg,
I will take a boat from Copenhagen to Oslo. I will do some skiing at
Hafjel (Lillehammer) and then drive back through Sweden to Stockholm --
boat over to Turku, Finland. This trip looks to be about 2,300 kilometers.
The only bad side to driving in Western Europe vs. Eastern is the price of
a liter of gas. It is about US$1.15 per liter ($4.35 per gallon).
After the excursion last month, I now have installed a new master cylinder,
new rear brakes, new clutch assembly, new T/O bearing, new throttle cable
and did a small tune up. The Square is (knock on wood) running better than
ever. Hopefully it will be a little more pleasant to drive on the roads of
Scandinavia than that of the former USSR. Lets see.
More news later.
Patrick
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P A T R I C K J O E L M O R T O N
Owner of, "Helmut", a 1963 Pearl White,
Resto-Cal Custom Volkswagen Beetle &
"Urs", a 1967 Baltic Blue Squareback,
which will eat all of my money for years to come ...
E-mail Address:
patmor@utu.fi
GSM/Text: +358 40 502 2654
Fax: +358 2 469 2671
Kasken Linna - Kaskenkatu 1E, 44
FIN - 20700 TURKU
S U O M I F I N L A N D
"In my opinion, America is the greatest planet
on the face of the earth."
-- Dan Quayle
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