Chris Colby has been an addict for more than 13 years. It's not drugs or alcohol, but something much more addictive. His poison: Volkswagen.

 

Chris has owned seven Volkswagens over the years, both air-cooled and water-cooled. He has driven without heat during a bone-chilling Michigan winter, and without air conditioning in the humid Florida summer. He has gone through more sets of wheels than he can count, and more repairs than most people make in a lifetime. He has also made friends with people from around the world who share his addiction.

 

"It seems like there's something VW related every weekend," he said. "If I'm not working on my car, it's my friends' cars, a show, a cruise, a get-together, or another event. My life really does revolve around these cars."

 

 

The 1967 Beetle:

 

It all started when Chris was only 15 years old. The 1967 Beetle was his gateway. Once he discovered that '67 was a changeover year for the Beetle, the obsession began.

 

"The 1967 Beetles had many one-year-only parts, and mine was one of the 10 percent that came with a factory crank sunroof," Chris said. "Some of the parts that were unique to the 1967 were the window cranks, the rear bumper mounted reverse lights, the door lock knobs, the oil bath air cleaner, the hood, the rear deck lid, and the dash knobs. There were also changes to different aspects of the 1967 that made it unique: it was the first year for a 12 volt electrical system, the first year for thin exterior trim, and the first year for upright headlights on the U.S. models. The 1967 was also the last year for the steel dashboard, low-back seats, and for the large 'towel rail' bumpers U.S. Models."

 

During the seven years Chris owned it, he restored the Beetle to its original showroom condition, with the exception of the CD player and speakers he added.

When most high school guys were buying fast cars to try and impress their girlfriends, Chris was busy restoring a car that originally sold for less than a thousand dollars. "I just had a passion for the design and handling of such a small, inexpensive car, that was a dime a dozen in its day," he said.

 

Chris was amazed that someone had taken such good care of a car that was just cheap, honest transportation to many people.

 

"Owning and driving an antique Beetle was never about impressing anyone," he said. "It was something that I was into, something that only one other friend was into at the time. It did get a lot of attention though, just because it was pretty rare to see one in Michigan in the late 90's. I loved to cruise out to the Lake Michigan beaches in the summer, and it was the perfect beach cruiser. To this day my friends still reminisce about the car that they would lift up and push across the parking lot while I was in school. I would come out of class and find my car across the parking lot from where I left it!"

 

While he was at college, Chris didn't have anywhere to keep the Beetle during the winters so it stayed in his parents' garage. Eventually, they needed their space back and he had to sell his baby.

 

"I found this really nice old lady who was looking for a fun little car to drive in the summer," Chris said. "I was sad that I had to sell the Bug, but I knew that she would take great care of it. Plus, she told me that if I ever wanted to buy it back, she would sell it back to me. To this day, we keep in contact and she sends me emails, letters and pictures of the car."

 

The '67 Beetle, redux:

 

Chris also bought another 1967 Beetle as a project car. He kept it in his friend's garage so he could work on it on the weekends, even removing and rebuilding the entire motor.

 

"I originally wanted to fully restore it, but due to "lack of funding" I wasn't able to do that," Chris said. "I sold it to a surfer dude that moved here from California. The guy just owned a moped and was looking for something else to drive during the rainy season."

 

 

The 1986 Jetta:

 

Chris bought a 1986 Jetta to drive during winter, so he could keep the Beetle in good shape while he owned it. His father kept the Jetta in the side yard during the summer.

 

One August, while the Jetta sat in his parents’ yard, thousands of bees made its engine bay their home. Luckily, Chris realized they were there before he got too close.

 

He dug out his snowmobile suit, gloves and helmet and bundled up on a sweltering summer day, so he could try to start the car without getting stung. The car didn't start when he tried to turn it over. But that wasn't the only problem that day. Chris got out of the car to inspect it a little closer, and found that the wheels were rusted solid to the hubs and animals had chewed through the fuel lines.

 

"Needless to say, the cost to fix everything was far more than what the Jetta was worth," Chris said. "I got my money's worth out of that car, but I had to let it go after that. I stripped it for the good parts, which found a new home on a friend's 1990 VW Golf."

 

A year later, Chris met his girlfriend. She owned a 1995 Ford Taurus station wagon, but she soon fell under the influence of Chris' addiction.

 

 

The 1995 Golf:

 

Chris tried for a few years to get his girlfriend to give up the station wagon, and the last straw came when he spent four hours outside in the snow to replace the spark plugs.

 

“That thing cut me up pretty bad, and I almost froze my hands off trying to squeeze them around the engine block to get the plugs swapped out. It was a nightmare!” he said.

 

He convinced her that a Volkswagen was going to be better on gas and easier to fix, so they started looking around. They found a 1995 Golf in Gary, Indiana and took the train from Kalamazoo, Michigan to pick it up.

 

Chris got to drive the Golf for a few months because his girlfriend didn’t know how to drive a stick.

 

“I taught her how, but it took her a while before she was comfortable driving by herself,” he said.

 

Chris and his girlfriend moved to Florida in April of 2005. They drove the Golf down, and as soon as they crossed the Florida state line, the air conditioning stopped working.

 

“Of course, when we really needed the A/C it stopped working!” Chris said.

 

He spent many hours and a couple hundred dollars on parts, but never got the air conditioning back up and running. He took it to several A/C repair shops in the area, and they all claimed that the system "just needed to be recharged." After two different shops over charged the system and destroyed the expensive new parts, he gave up.

 

Shortly after they moved to Florida, Chris’ girlfriend was driving home from work on the freeway. She got to their exit, and the Golf just died. She coasted down the exit ramp and a motorist helped her push the car out of the way. Chris met her by the car, but he couldn’t immediately see what was wrong with it.

 

Just then, someone drove past in a 1960 Volkswagen Single Cab pickup. Chris recognized the truck as one of their neighbors’, but didn’t think anything of it until the driver turned around and came back. The neighbor just happened to be a Volkswagen technician, and after checking out the situation, he told Chris that the timing belt was broken. Luckily it had broken at idle, saving the valves and the motor.

 

They had the Golf towed to the neighbor’s house, and Chris agreed to help the neighbor paint his house in exchange for replacing the timing belt.     

“After we sold the Golf, I spotted it at one of the many car shows I go to every year," Chris said. "I talked to the guy who bought it from the people we sold it to, and he told me that the A/C worked when he got the car…go figure!”

 

 

The 2001 GTI:

“When we bought the GTI, it worked out perfectly,” Chris said. “We picked it up on the same night we sold the Golf.”

 

Unfortunately, the GTI’s previous owner took the factory stereo, six disc CD changer and the amp, leaving Chris’ girlfriend with no music for three weeks. After they installed a new amp and stereo, they noticed an interesting quirk.

 

“My girlfriend was laughing when she got home from work one day," Chris said. "I asked her what was so funny, and she told me that she got cut off by a rude driver. When she honked the car’s horn, the stereo started blasting.”

 

Apparently, one of the door speakers didn’t work until the horn was honked.  

 

“That was a fun car. I drove the GTI as much as I could because I knew my girlfriend wouldn’t drive it the way it was meant to be driven," he said. "The GTI's 1.8L turbocharged 4 cylinder engine got 170 hp from the factory. After we had the car "flashed" with REVO Stage 1 software, it was up to 225 horsepower."

 

Of course, the software also triggered the GTI's Check Engine light, because of the different readings being sent to the oxygen sensors. Many of Chris' friends also have the Check Engine light "problem."

 

“It’s almost like a special club," he said. "If you see a Check Engine light in someone else’s car, you know they’ve got a modded VW.”

 

They also had to run premium gas in the GTI. The expenses got out of hand in the summer of 2008, when gas prices were at their all-time high. Chris decided to look for something more economical. 

 

The ideal solution: the same car, but with a turbocharged diesel motor.

 

 

The 2001 Golf TDI:

 

Right when everyone in the country was looking for a smaller vehicle to offset fuel costs, Chris was on a mission to find a TDI to replace the GTI. He searched every single automobile website several times daily, and even had alerts set up to notify him when something he wanted became available.

 

The trouble was, every one was sold by the time he called. “I must have made 50 phone calls every week!” he said.

 

He got lucky one Friday night. A 2001 TDI was traded in to a Toyota dealership in South Florida, and it had been sitting on the lot for a week before the sales person put it up on the website. Chris called and put money down to hold it until the next day.

 

“We were lucky we put the hold on it, because when we got down to the lot the sales person said that he had gotten more than 20 calls about the car," Chris said. "He obviously had no idea what he had, because it was priced way below anything else out there. People were willing to have it shipped across the country!”

 

When Chris took the car for a test drive, everything ran perfectly, but he noticed that the stereo was missing.

 

“What is with VW owners taking the stereos out of their cars!? I had the sales person contact the previous owners, but they never called back,” he said.

 

His girlfriend still drives the TDI, and even though it's not as fast as the GTI was, they appreciate being able to get more than double the miles on one tank.

 

 

The 1998 Golf:

 

Chris bought his current car, a 1998 Golf, from the original owner. Amazingly, the previous owner had kept all the maintenance records.

 

“That’s how I knew it was a good buy,” Chris said. “I could tell that the car was taken care of, and I could see everything that was done to it, all the way down to the oil change schedule.”

 

The car was in perfect condition: the Suede Silver paint looked great, the seats and carpet were immaculate and everything was completely stock.

 

“It’s been a great little car ever since I bought it,” he said. “But it does have one odd quirk. I think it gets jealous when I go out of town for a few days.”

 

Chris went to Michigan for a wedding in the summer of 2008, and he was gone for about five days. He left the car in the garage, and when he came back from vacation he noticed a big puddle of coolant underneath. It turned out that the water pump needed to be replaced, however it wasn't apparent until it sat unmoved for a few days.

 

On another occasion, Chris returned home from a business trip. He got in the car and barely made it out of the driveway before the clutch cable snapped.

“Apparently the car misses me while I’m gone, and just wants to spend some quality time with me when I come home!”

 

The addiction lives on...

 

Although he's had his fair share of problems, repairs and headaches, Chris will never give up his addiction. He gets pleasure from the pain, and he thinks that the good outweighs the bad when it comes to owning a Volkswagen.

 

"I truly love the brand," he said. "There are a lot of diehard car guys out there who stick with their brand through thick and thin: Ford guys, Chevy guys, Honda guys. I'm just a Volkswagen guy at heart."

 

Chris hopes to get back to the roots of his addiction, and buy back his original '67 Beetle some day.

By Megan Lynch

Megan Lynch is a freelance writer and photographer, specializing in creative copy and artistic images. She has marketing and audio production copywriting experience and she has work published online and in newspapers such as CM Life and the Tampa Bay Times.

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