[T3] Bug shifters and trailer hitches

[DGaries808@aol.com]

I just got back from Longview, Texas and here's what I found out that I 
didn't previously know for sure. Bug shifters were all straight thru the 
years up to 1955. In 1956 they changed to the curved type. Then they went 
back to straight shifters about 1968 and remained straight thru 1979. The 
curved shifters changed slightly over the years, the 1956 being thicker and 
the 1967 being thinner.

In Longview, I delivered a cargo carrier for the Type 3 pickup, and I picked 
up a trailer hitch for my 1955 Oval window. The hitch looked very much like 
the one I had seen for a 1968. I inquired and found out that Charles' dad 
once owned a Volkswagen junk
yard and had salvaged about five or six hitches from bugs on hand. He 
convinced me
that although bugs weren't designed for hauling stuff, one could easily do 
so, provided
the load was not too great. I asked, and Charles told me that he had hauled 
one bug
with another (I forgot to ask how that worked out). Charles reasoned that 
bugs were designed to haul four people averaging 130 lbs. (520 lbs. total), 
so if only one person
were driving the car, it should easily handle the 175 lbs. that I'm talking 
about hauling. And, it confirms the load of a one wheel trailer I saw a 
picture of being hauled by a 1956 Oval window. At any rate, I'm gonna try it.

Meanwhile, I picked up a re-chromed front bumper from Sho N' Go of Garland, 
Texas.
I inquired and found out that Sho N' Go does, in fact, restore old-timey 
license plates.
For Texas plates, they powder coat the plates the background color and have a 
painter paint the numbers and letters on it. For a pair of plates (not bent) 
his price was $50 - slightly less than the $75 I previously quoted. 
Presumably, Jane's plates
weren't exactly straight.

Don Garies
dgaries808@aol.com

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