Cora & Double Cab
Model:
1962 Double Cab Bus
Name:
We just call them by their model names.
Color:
It’s the original color, Dove Blue, maybe repainted once.
Mileage:
76,900
Motors:
Two. The first motor is now in my ’58 Bug.
Owned since:
2005
Owners:
Before me: My friend Rebecca—it was her daily driver—and before that a female doctor.
Location:
Nevada
Favorite driving song:
“Wish You Were Here” by Incubus.
In the nineties, my brother was into the Volkswagen scene in Reno. I became friends with some of those folks, but I wasn’t terribly into Volkswagens. He ended up in a divorce and came to live with me. I had just bought my first house with a three-car garage. After he moved in, I started getting more involved with the VW scene.
I was working fifteen-hour days and weekends and needed to change my lifestyle. It’s funny how work can become your life. I thought, I’m not doing this anymore. I went through some pretty crazy health scares, and they changed my perspective on how to spend my life and how to balance it. One of my doctors likes to say, “Harmonize your life. This is a choice.” I’m choosing not to work all the time.
We all smell something, hear something, see something that triggers a memory like the smell of a Volkswagen.
Several years later, my husband and I replaced the transmission, upgraded the motor. We got new hoops and the canvas. She’s pretty au naturel when it comes to most things. It’s the original color. We think it’s been repainted once, but everything else is original.
My dad and I lived in the same neighborhood and he kept telling me about a guy around the corner who had a twenty-three-window Bus on a rotisserie. He said, “You should go by there and ask him if he wants to sell it.” I didn’t. A couple weeks went by, and my dad calls: “Hey, that guy’s home. His doors are open. You and your brother should go over.” So we went. This dog greeted us, we knocked, and heard “Come in.” I thought, That’s weird, he doesn’t even know who we are. We walked in hesitantly. Mitch comes around the corner with a towel on his head—he’s dressed but he’d just taken a shower. I introduce myself: “I’m Cora, just wondering if you wanted to sell the twenty-three-window Bus.” He’s like, “Oh, I’m working on that for a buddy.” Mitch owned over twenty Buses.
It was very much a friendship at first, and then one day he asks, “So are you dating somebody?” I’m like, “No.” Families met, moms loved each other—they are the deciding factor. Within six months together, we bought a house, moved in together, and it took off from there. My dad loves Mitch, and he still takes credit for our meeting. Now we have twenty-eight Volkswagens together.
I went to my first Bugorama with my brother, and ended up buying a ’63 Bug. It just spoke to me and I took it home. That’s how it all started. I had found my hobby. We built a 1200-square foot shop in the backyard, and soon I owned eight Buses.
We grew up on planes, trains, and automobiles. My dad was disabled, had been hurt on the railroad when I was a baby. He raised my brother and me—he was Mr. Mom. My mom worked every day. So complete opposite roles. We grew up chasing steam engines. My dad used to fly and we would go to the airport and watch jets take off. He collected old American cars. We grew up with Studebakers, old fire trucks—and honestly, I love that stuff. Dad used to give me a little taste of beer when I was growing up. So hence why I like beer. I’m not a tomboy, but I definitely like doing what you could say is typically more masculine.
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In 2005, a close friend of mine was moving to Alaska, and the wife had owned her Bus for over fifteen years. They “selected” me to buy it from them. People don’t just sell their Bus to make money, they want it to go to the right home. They want somebody that’s going to cherish it for the same number of years as they did. The fact that I was female, I think, meant a lot to them too. They said, “Cora, we’d like you to buy it if you want to.” I wanted to buy it, so I scrounged up all the money I could get together. I was still working my way up in the corporate world and didn’t have a whole lot of money. But I figured it out and bought it.
Gen Xers have a memory of being in the back as their parents were driving. Now we’re creating new memories in them.
We live a really, really good life. We’re coming up on fourteen years of marriage, seventeen years together, and it’s pretty awesome. Every weekend it’s camping, friends, parties, weddings, trips to VW shows. I love driving. I don’t even care about who is behind me or next to me. I’m just kind of like—there. They can just go around me. I zone out. We get the music on, and I really look forward to the trips. It’s long and hard. It’s a different kind of driving. I am full—this is really fulfilling for me. And I think because I’ve had literally a near-death experience, it changes your whole perspective on things.
I turned fifty this year and was hell-bent on driving the Shasta Snow Trip. I went one year as a passenger, but this year I wanted to drive, and so my husband was really happy. He likes me driving. It was quite a snowy adventure. It’s the most snow they’ve ever seen on a Shasta Snow Trip, and it was the twenty-fifth year.
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We had to chain up and chain off a lot. It takes a lot of teamwork and making sure you’re not losing your cool. You need to keep your head together because it’s a lot of pressure and it’s a lot of hours driving too—twelve-hour days. This is not a vacation. It’s proving yourself to yourself.
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​The first day, there was so much snow. We headed four hours up a pass, but there was too much snow. Our leader, Lance, along with Craig, hiked up the hill for two miles, and the snow was above their knees. They came back down and said, “We’re not going to be able to make it over that.” We drove up for four hours to now have to turn around and go back. Really?! We went back down and had to find another route. There were forty Buses when we started that day, and thirteen Buses went home. Many of these guys have done it for years, but this year was too much.
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The next day we headed out, and our Bus just started sliding down this really steep hill like we were a pinball. Left, right, left, right. I went over a log, even with chains on. My husband finally penetrated through my concentration and said, “Let your foot off the brake.” I’m like, “Okay.” I took my foot off the brake, and it was instant control. My brain was like, “No, no,” but my copilot snapped me out of it. I’ve driven Volkswagens all my life, even in the snow, but when you’re in that moment, you forget. I tried to kill us, but we’re okay. It was crazy how much we slid. We helped people get unstuck a lot that day. It was a gnarly day.
Then the river crossings, which we normally do, they were roaring. Usually the river crossings are six or seven inches of water, more like a stream, and this year it was a full-on rushing river. We couldn’t cross them. We couldn’t go high, we couldn’t go low. So this year, we did more concrete. We drove through the Avenue of the Giants and just made the best of it.
My stomach was really upset, and I finally figured out it was stress. I’ve never experienced stress in my stomach before. Whether I felt it or not, clearly it had an impact on it being my first year of driving. For twelve hours a day, you’re punching the clutch, pushing on the gas pedal—my hips and my knees started hurting. It is a workout, using all of my arm strength for the steering—you’re going around corners, grabbing the whole steering wheel, but I love it. I love that I get to be a part of those adventures, and I totally want to drive it again. This is the year for me to prove that I can still do this and more.
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Our wedding cake topper is me driving a Bus and him as a passenger. Mitch is very nervous about something going wrong, and I think that’s kind of part of the territory. If something goes wrong, we’re not going to die. We’re just going to have to get it towed home. We like to say, I’m the glass full and he’s the glass empty. And together, we make a full glass of water.
