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Civil War Relics
My First Car
My first car was an old Volkswagen Beetle. For years I thought it was a pre-WWII civilian car but later found it was actually a 1945 military Volkswagen similar to the one pictured above. The main difference was that mine was not a convertible and the fuel it used was propane that was in two large propane tanks on the roof.
I bought the car in Frankfurt from a soldier who was going home. The cost was a whopping $75.00. It was extremely reliable. I never had to do anything but give it an occasional tune up, replace the brakes once and replaced the tires.
It was a very rough ride even on the autobahn. It was also noisy. But, it was great transportation and a good conversation piece.
When I got transferred to Bordeaux France, I took the car with me, but ended up trading it for an almost new Vespa motor scooter - quite similar to the one pictured above, except mine was older, was painted black, had a sidecar and a backrest instead of the passenger seat. I loved that Vespa. I was a court reporter on civilian component duty and lived with a captain, a chief warrant officer, and another enlisted man in a suite in the Hotel Bordeaux. We rarely had anything to do. In fact we only had one courtsmartial in the 28 months I was stationed there. As a result we did a great deal of traveling on our scooters. I traveled from Spain to Germany and up as far as Belgium. All four of us had either Lambretta or Vespa scooters and the other enlisted man and our Captain both had cars, but we preferred to travel on the scooters. We had planned a trip to Portugal, but only got as far as Madrid, Spain because there was so much to see and do on the way.
The scooters got close to 100 miles per gallon. Bolted to each side of the front wheel we had racks for gas cans for extra fuel. Two of us had sidecars and two had luggage racks on the back. In a holder that was bolted to the inside of the wind deflector we each had bulky military walkie talkies and a headset that we used to talk to each other while driving. That was hard to use because when we wanted to talk we had to reach down, take the radio out of the rack, and press the talk button. We carried all of our camping gear in the two sidecars. Occasionally we would remove the side cars and would put our gear in a tiny trailer that the Captain had.
Whenever we traveled, we rarely used the major highways, but rather preferred to travel along what we call the "blue lines" in the US. That is by far the best way to travel. The people are far more friendly and you get to see things the average tourist rarely gets to see.
When traveling we rarely stayed in a hotel, but rather stayed in one of the many campgrounds across Europe. I don't recall many of the specifics about individual trips other than what we saw, but I do recall that we made a one week trip to Bruge, Belgium from Bordeaux and my total cost including food and fuel was less than 200 deutschmarks or about $50. We used several types of currency...Military Script, US Dollars (illegal to use these), French Franks, and German Marks. Dollars were hard to come by but would buy much more. Other than the Dollars, Script and Marks were the most popular. In many areas, American cigarettes were valuable barter - with one cigarette worth over $1.
The food was outstanding. We never ate at traditional restaurants, but rather in small gasthouses along the roadside.
When I left France for the States I wanted to bring the Vespa back with me but could not afford it and the military would not ship it because I didn't have enough rank. I ended up selling it for about $150 to my replacement.