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Chattanooga area residents have big affection for the little German cars

By: Clint Cooper
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Ellen Geeslin of Red Bank has been married for 21 years, but she has been carrying on a love affair for much longer.

The object of her love is a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, which was a present from her grandparents on her 20th birthday on Dec. 22, 1972.

Mrs. Geeslin is one of many area residents who are or have been entranced by one or more products of the German automobile maker which decided to locate its United States plant in Chattanooga last week.

“She’s been a lot of places,” the Red Bank woman said of her VW. “The dings and dents are part of her personality.”

Along the way, Mrs. Geeslin’s marina blue Beetle was a brief resting place for a dead skunk whose carcass she was sure a seasonal naturalist at Fall Creek Falls State Park would be interested in.

“Its scent gland was busted,” she said, “so for several years, every time you turned the heat on, you could smell it.”

On another adventure, while searching for a Christmas tree near Fall Creek Falls, Mrs. Geeslin got it stuck twice in the same trip. The first time, in snow, she backed into a ditch at 30 miles an hour. The second time, it fell through a sheet of ice into mud and required sheets of wood from a former outhouse under the tires for traction to get out.

After the death of her mother and prior to marriage to her husband, she said, it afforded her and her dog “deep soul-searching trips” to Wisconsin and along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

After Mrs. Geeslin married, with two small children in car seats, the VW became impractical as a family car but stayed around. It still remains largely her domain, she said, because her son’s size-15 feet are too big for the gas pedal and her husband “can drive a fire truck but can’t drive the Volkswagen.”

Nevertheless, she said, wherever she drives the car, which is on its third engine and second coat of paint and has 179,000 miles, somebody wants to tell her their VW story.

“She’s a real conversation starter,” Mrs. Geeslin, 55, said.

JUST FOR FUN

Dottie Gunkel of East Brainerd never got over her first VW love.

For more than 35 years after she sold her early 1960s Carmen Ghia, she reveled in its memories.

Staff Photo by Shane McMillan
Red Bank resident Ellen Geeslin smiles from the driver’s seat of her 1973 Volkswagen Beetle. Mrs. Geeslin says she has had the car for almost 36 years, and it’s on its third engine. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

“I loved that car,” said Mrs. Gunkel, a Realtor at Crye-Lieke Realtors. “I put little yellow daisies on the hubcaps. I drove like crazy back and forth from Atlanta to Chattanooga (during junior college). I even broke my key in the ignition and could still start the car with my half of a key. I had some great times in my little (car), and the gas mileage, of course, was wonderful.”

The car, she said, had a battery-operated fan mounted on the dashboard. Once, when the windshield wipers broke during rain en route from Atlanta, she said, she had to hand wipe the windows as she drove. Another time, she said, a duck she was bringing her younger sister sat on her shoulder the entire way back from Atlanta.

Mrs. Gunkel sold the car, which she had for about three years, around 1970. Then, after she married in 1971, she and her husband bought a 1961 Beetle, eschewing the expense of her husband’s Corvette.

Still, she said, “I always wanted (another) one. I kept talking about it.”

In 2006, Mrs. Gunkel said, her father surprised her by giving her a 1971 Carmen Ghia he had restored. Although she drives another car regularly, she said she still drives the VW “for fun.”

“It looks just like my old one,” she said, “except for the color (bright blue).”

‘VW, WHEN VW WASN’T COOL’

Terry Reynolds can’t remember life without a Volkswagen.

His family had two when he was growing up, it was the make on which he learned to drive and he now owns his sixth and seventh models.

“I am one of those folks,” said Mr. Reynolds, an employee of Arcadis, “who was VW when VW wasn’t cool.”

His first Volkswagen, he said, was a 1979 Rabbit diesel.

“It had only 48 horsepower,” Mr. Reynolds said, “and you had to drive it aggressively to merge into high-speed traffic, but it got 45 miles per gallon around town and 60 mpg on the highway, even with the air conditioning on, and it handled like a dream. I put more than 100,000 miles on it over the next nine years.”

He bought his second VW, a 1967 Campmobile, with more than 100,000 miles on it.

“I did a complete restoration on it,” Mr. Reynolds said, “and we took it camping numerous times but used it mostly for commuting to work. It ... was a lot of fun to drive and was not too uncomfortable in the hot summer, as long as you were moving, but could be really cold in the winter. I wish I still had it.”

A boxy, used 1980 Vanagon was his next purchase. In retrospect, he believes it was a lemon.

“I had a love-hate relationship with it,” Mr. Reynolds said. “It had tremendous space utilization and was way more powerful than my previous one. It was smoother, more comfortable, had great fit and finish, and had much better amenities than my Campmobile, but it was always breaking down and the heater was complicated and never worked well.”

He traded the 1980 Vanagon on a 1985 Vanagon, which was more powerful and “better in every respect” than the previous one. “I would have kept it,” he said, but the previous owner’s lease precluded his long-term ownership of the car.

Mr. Reynolds’ fifth VW was a used 1985 GTI, which was more powerful than his previous Rabbit diesel and was “a typically great handling car.”

“It was the first U.S.-made VW I owned,” he said, “but a lady ‘bought it’ one afternoon at a downtown intersection.”

A new Mustang nearly replaced the wrecked GTI, Mr. Reynolds said, but the dealer made him “an offer I couldn’t refuse” on a red 1989 GTI, his sixth, that looked like his previous one. He said it was one of the last U.S.-made VWs before the Pennsylvania plant (that immediately predates the upcoming Chattanooga factory) closed.

“It was tight, smooth, solid-feeling, very powerful and handled like a real sports car,” he said. “It has been my primary transportation ever since and now has more than 250,000 miles on it, still (has) the same engine, transmission and even clutch, and hasn’t been wrecked or re-painted, so it is pretty original and still looks great. It gets 30 mpg around town and up to 35 mpg on the road.”

The seventh VW Mr. Reynolds has owned is a 1990 Vanagon, which he bought new in Atlanta when Chattanooga did not have a dealership. His only automatic, it is “relatively powerful and more smooth and refined than any previous one.”

Until last fall, he said, it was his family’s primary transportation. Now, with 350,000 miles (and a second engine) from numerous vacation trips throughout the South, toting children to school and daily errands, it “deserves a slower pace of life.”

Yet, said Mr. Reynolds, echoing his thoughts on VW in general, “it is still solid and tight and responsive, and I still really love to drive it. It has been a pleasure to own.”

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