Placed just aft the rear axle is the horizontally-opposed four cylinder engine of the Beetle. Over the years, the engine grew in size, this 1967 model is powered by the 1498cc unit, which made its debut in the Microbus in September 1961. This boxer engine develops 44 bhp at 4000 revs and 10.8 kgm of torque at just 2600 revs. Not much, you think, but somehow it works wonders. Usually, the Beetle loses steam up inclines, but with this enlarged engine (and even a heavier body), the Microbus climbs up without missing its distinctive beat. The four-speed gearbox is a heavy-duty unit, and it does a great job of extracting power from the engine... and for a person like me who’s cagey about classic/vintage gearboxes, it shifts perfectly.
Driving around the streets of Mumbai, I am thinking about how practical the Microbus is, and that I wouldn’t mind owning one to complement my Beetle. Other than its length – about as much as a D-segment car – there is no reason why the Microbus can’t be used on a day-to-day basis. It’s spacious, manoeuvrable, reliable, good-looking, comfortable, offers immense headroom (the sky’s the limit!) and is full of character. Now which modern car/SUV/MPV can fit that description? The Microbus rides just as well, it has a fully independent suspension set-up at both ends, with transversely placed multi-leaf torsion bars at front and a swing axle with twin solid torsion bars at the rear, and telescopic shocks all around. Whether it’s fully loaded or nearly empty, the ride quality of the Microbus stays the same.
It’s perhaps due to this egalitarian nature, or simply the Beetle’s rub-off effect that the Microbus came to be associated with hippies and the like. If there was one automobile that exemplified the heady 1960s, it was the Microbus. Done up in psychedelic colours, it was a perfect complement to those Flower Power and Free Love folks. In 1960, Volkswagen introduced the camper version, which was fully equipped for living in (yes, it also included the kitchen sink), that turned out to be a raging success. The open road turned out to be people’s homes. The Microbus was mainly associated with Jerry Garcia and his band, the Grateful Dead. They covered many miles of the US highways in his psychedelic van and toured the country, giving concerts. In fact, the association with Garcia was so high that when he unexpectedly passed away, there were posters of a face of a mournful Microbus with a silent tear emerging from one of its headlamps. Yes, it was also a loving, dependable friend...
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