From the 'Wayback' Machine.....

                                                        '58 Beetle in Baja

I wish I had some pictures to go with this snippet.

I got married at 24 in 1964. We took a trip to La Paz a few years later in a 1958 Beetle. The extent of the modifications to the bug were trimmed rear fenders and 8.20/15 tires on the rear.

 They were just beginning to work on the paved road. I remember south of Mulege that I'd gotten onto the road that they were working on by mistake. We found ourselves driving in among Catapiller tractors and earthmovers. To say the least, we felt out of place.

 It took us 6 days to get to La Paz. We drove till midnight on the last day to get to La Paz and a hotel room. It turned out to be Easter weekend and there were no rooms to be had. We drove back out of town and took a dirt road out into the desert. It turned out to be where people dumped their trash. The city dump was where we slept for our fist night in La Paz. That was a new low.

Halfway down Baja the clutch had begun to slip badly on the more difficult hills. It was peculiar that that clutch slipping didn't get any worse, but we/I was worried about the car's clutch dying. I think originally we were going to drive back up Baja to home, but the clutch issue changed our plan to catching the Ferry to Mazatlan and dring the Mex mainland the 1160 miles home.

 I think we missed our first chance at a ferry by it being sold out, and had to wait 4 or 5 days for the next one. We had to make this one as we were running out of money and time.

We went out to load onto that ferry but had to wait till they loaded all (maybe 50) of the cotton trucks and anything else that was big. We could see thru the loading door that the hold was filling up. We thought that we wouldn't get on as the last cotton truck used the last space for a vehicle.

At the last moment they waved us on and we drove onto the ramp and half the car was on the ferry. We got out of the car wondering WTH. That's when a dozen men came over and lifted the VW up and set it sideways. in the last 8 available feet.

We had made it. That was a Friday. The ferry left the harbor at about 5pm for a 17 hr crossing. I had to be at work on Monday.

We'd got on the ferry and left the harbor in the early evening, Whew! Next was a trip to the bar to let off some of the anxiety. There were some other folks doing the same. Soon there was a party that continued thru dinner into the evening.

Along about 11pm we were partied out. Of course, we didn't have a room. There was a room with theater type seats bolted to the floor. That was where we were supposed to spend the night. The weather was nice for our whole trip and so it was for our crossing as well. We tried to go sleep some on the deck, but were run out of there. We spent some time in the booths of the dining room.

All in all, after the party it was a miserable night, but we were young. We survived it. Finally, we saw land in the distance.

We were last on but first off. We were out of Mazatlan by noon as I remember. We decided to drive straight thru the night to get home.

In those days there weren't any toll roads that we probably wouldn't have taken anyway. It was all 2 lane roads with a lot of small towns to slow us down.

The Bug was running good, all 36 horses were working their hearts out for us. The clutch wasn't slipping. If we could average 50 mph we'd be home in 24hr.

The back seat was piled high with camp gear. If we spread the sleeping bags out on top of that a person could lay crossways of the car and sleep....that did not include any stretching out of legs. :)

We had a 5 gallon gas can to get us thru the night as there were no all night station. When we gassed the last time at 10pm we had enough gas for 450 miles....maybe.

We were switching drivers ever since Mazatlan. Sometime around midnight, we started taking 1 hr naps in the back seat, while the other one drove.

We were running 55 to 60 mph out there in the Sonoran mtns and making good time. It was about 3 am when the engine suddenly died. No warning, no nothing, just dead as a doornail. Hummmm.....what could the matter be?

That area pf Mexico did not have any towns nearby. It was maybe 250 from the border still. If I couldn't fix whatever was wrong this was going to be a disaster.

With my flashlight and tools in hand, I opened the engine compartment. Did I mention how lonely it was out there?

At that time I didn't know much about VWs as my VW days came later when I started racing them.

The engine hadn't made any catastrophic noises so the problem was either a lack of fuel or spark. It turned out to be fuel. A pin had come partway out of the fuel pump which stopped it from pumping fuel to the carburetor.

I was able to take the fuel pump off and work that pin back in to its place. I put a small c-clamp from my tool kit over both ends of the pin to keep it in place. Viola, the car started right up.

In a couple more hours the sun began to peek over the eastern horizon. The morning light raised our spirits as we approached the USA border. If we could just keep it together for another 5 hours, we'd be home.

We both thanked our lucky stars as we pulled into our home's driveway that next afternoon. We were pretty tickled to be finished with that adventure. Little did we know that there would be dozens more sketchy trips into Baja.