Laura & My Thing
Model:
1974 Thing Acapulco Edition
Name:
The license plate is primo. When John found it, that was its license plate: “My Thing.” I paid a lot of money to keep it.
Color:
Blizzard White with blue accents.
Mileage:
Wait . . . you expect the odometer to actually work? Bwahahahahaha!!!
Motors:
It left the factory with four cylinders and 48 horsepower. The previous owner swapped that out with an aftermarket fuel-injected motor that has me cruising the highway at seventy.
Owned since:
2022 / 2017—it’s complicated.
Owners:
At some point My Thing made her journey from Mexico. In 1991, the previous owner, Randy, purchased it for his daughter. In 2017, my then-husband acquired it. I drove it for the first time in the spring of 2022.
Location:
California
Favorite driving song:
“Sexy MF” by Prince, blasted at a scandalous volume!
When John, my husband, and I first met, he asked me, “If you could get any car, what kind of car would it be?” Without hesitation, I said, “A Volkswagen Thing.” There is nothing cooler. It’s demonstrable. You can’t be cooler. He is a car guy, so he took that to heart.
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Flash-forward about fifteen years. Old guys give him their cars because he loves cars and these guys can sense that he loves them, and he is constantly meeting old men who have project cars that they never finished. This was similar to that. A guy up in the Santa Cruz mountains had fixed up the Thing for his daughter. She drove it as a daily driver, but then she left the Thing behind when she went to college and it just sat there. He was going to get it going again, but it just didn’t happen. So John told the guy, if you ever feel like parting with it, just give me a call. Very low-key, no hassle.
My Thing is one of four hundred Acapulco Type 181s ever made.
Maybe one or two years later, he got the call. So he went and got the Thing. It was inoperable. It literally took him five years to get it done for me. Now I’m able to drive it and it has brought me such much joy.
That’s the love story of the Thing. That’s how the Thing came into my life. Now the poignant part of this is that we just separated after twenty-five years of marriage. It’s my decision for multiple reasons.
The Thing is my car, and I won’t leave it behind. Finally, after twenty-five years, I got my car. Correlation is not causation on this. To me, it’s very symbolic of our relationship together—all of the best parts of it. It’s the most emotionally connected I have ever been to a vehicle. So I am going to keep My Thing. I just turned fifty, and now I’m ready to start my next life, and it will be a great reminder of what was a great twenty-five years together.
They are fabulous cars. You can take the whole thing apart with a wrench. It’s a magically straightforward vehicle, but it’s delightful and makes people smile. They love it. I love driving something that makes people point and smile and wave as I go by. It’s non-fussy—it’s just the coolest.
I love the rarity of it, and it has such personality. It really does. Mine is the Acapulco, which was created in Mexico. Designed for a hotel as excursion vehicles. I love the colors, I love the interior—the original interior is intact. It just adds to the careful sensibility of the Thing. You don’t worry about shit when you are driving a car like this. You can’t be sad. I love the wood slats in the floorboard. The license plate is primo. I paid a lot of money to keep it. When John found it, that was its license plate: “My Thing.” Of course I had to keep it. I am not mechanically inclined, so when we separate, I am going to have to retain his services so he can fix it.
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One of the ways John and I grew apart is he is so car centric that he has started spending all of his time with cars, as car guys are notorious for doing. I want to do things that don’t have cars related to them. I want to do more adventure travel—that’s where I want to put my time and my money—and he is just not interested. He would go along, but he wouldn’t love it. I mean adventure where you are off the grid. That’s the future I’m looking at. That’s what I am hoping for.
My mom instilled in me a love of experience. My Dad died when I was two-and-a-half years old, and she had to make a conscious decision to raise her kids. She could have gone one way or another. One way could have been to try to keep a really tight grip on us and the other to be fearful of the world. She went the opposite way in that she always encouraged us to explore. To see the world, to live with experience and through experience. My Thing could get wrecked and then it’s done, but experiences can never be taken away from you. That was always a guiding philosophy of my childhood.
My Thing, she cleans up pretty nice. I think she’s beautiful. Now let me see if I can get her started.
It took him twenty or so years, but he did eventually get me the car I always wanted. I’m glad I have it today. Not only does My Thing bring me deep, unadulterated joy, but it also serves as a reminder of the best bits of our twenty-five-year journey as a couple.
