Heather & Annette
Model:
1969 Beetle
Name:
I named it Annette because that’s my mom’s middle name.
Color:
The prior owner painted it navy blue, but its original color is Savanna Beige. The beige is still in the interior and in certain parts of the exterior.
Mileage:
32,570
Motors:
Two
Owned since:
2020
Owners:
I’m not certain, but a medium once told me that an older gentleman’s energy was attached to the Bug and he wasn’t happy with the paint job the previous owner did.
Location:
California
Favorite driving song:
“Gin and Juice” by Snoop Dog.
When I was a kid, my dad bought a beige ’64 Bug for a hundred bucks, and I helped him rebuild the engine. How many ten-year-olds can you fit in the back of a Bug? I remember cramming so many of my softball teammates into the back of it. I think we fit at least five in the back and a couple in the front passenger seat. When we went over the railroad track, we all had to learn forward so we wouldn’t bottom out. I thought it was the coolest car, and I knew when I got older I would own one. Finally I found Annette in March of 2020, right when the pandemic started, and have been working on restoring her ever since.
I don’t know a lot about Annette’s previous owners, but when I first got her, weird things started happening in the house, like our fire alarm going off and lights flickering, so we hired a medium. She said there was some vintage item that was brought into the house that had a negative energy to it. Through the process of elimination, we concluded it was the car because we had brought it into the garage just a week prior. Plus, our dog always went through the garage to her doggie door outside, and while the car was parked in the garage, she wouldn’t even go in the garage. The medium said if I just sat in the car and told this energy that I would take very good care of the car that it would solve everything. So I did, and we didn’t have any funky stuff going on in the house after that.
I love retro stuff, and driving around in Annette gets me the closest I can feel to being back in time. I’m driving a car from the sixties! It is not a car that you speed around, you just cruise—once you get into that fourth gear, that’s it. When people see you, there is always someone who says “Oh, I had a Bug . . .” and then you have a little conversation.
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Although I love the style of the fifties, I would not want to go back to its values. Society still sees women as very dainty. We are the passengers. The guys are the drivers—they handle the machinery. That’s not the reality. The reality is we like to get under the hood, we like to see how it’s working, we like to drive it, we like to do the tune-ups; we like having something that we can show off. This is mine, I drive it, I take care of it, I maintain it. I think it involves getting over societal norms.
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One thing I’ve noticed in car enthusiasts groups, every time I’m around something with men, there’s a lot of mansplaining going on. But in the VW groups, when I ask a question or talk about something, I get straight-up answers. They don’t talk to me like, “Hey, little girl, let me tell you how it is . . . ” They give me their professional answers. That’s what I like about being a part of the air-cooled community.
I love that I was finally able to fulfill my childhood dream of “I’m going to own a Bug one day.” The biggest thing Annette has taught me is patience, especially when you’re restoring it; it’s not going to happen overnight. Enjoy the ride. Literally and figuratively.
