1973 Volkswagen Sports Bug Flashback

These are not photos of my former Sports Bug, but do look almost exactly like it.  

In 1973, after owning a white 1966 Bug as my first car, followed by driving a couple trucks from my dad’s cable TV construction company (Western Cable Services) and a handed down 1954 tan Cadillac, I was then the happy owner of a tricked out former Southern California Edison GMC van and a 1957 Bug that I foolishly turned into a Baja Bug and painted black/brown/amber camouflage (it actually looked pretty cool).  

One day I stopped by Masterson Motors in Ventura, Calif. to pick up a couple things for the Baja Bug.  There on the showroom floor was a beautiful Sports Bug.  The look of it, the metallic blue color with the black and red stripe, the tricked out steering wheel, different exhaust pipes, the Recaro seats, the Hurst shifter—I was friken hooked.  With the down payment I could make, it was a $44.35 monthly payment.  An easy swing for me even back then.  

I think I’ve got photos of it I can eventually post.  Until then, these are substituting in. 

I was dating a young lady (Karen Grahek) when I bought my new Sports Bug to replace my converted surfer van (I think her father was very pleased I sold the van 😉 ).  Shortly afterwards she started hand embroidery as a hobby.  She embroidered this on the back of one of my shirts.  She wasn’t finished with it when we stopped seeing each other, yet she still finished it for me.  We eventually went our different ways in life, I sold the VW later, but I always held onto the shirt.  About 25 years ago, I cut the shirt up and my wife framed this for me.   I still have it.  

The antenna on the roof was for a CB radio.  They were the thing to have.  Even without running my 300 watt linear, back then you could easily talk with someone 30 miles away.  Too much modern radio interference screwed that up.

I loved that car, and stupidly sold it three years later for a new yellow 1976 Chevrolet LUV pickup truck I really didn’t need.