I'm in the midst of restoring a '60 Bug ragtop and so had the car stripped down to a shell and am now putting it all back together again. Whenever I tear one of these cars down I am amazed about how simple they are and how "biodegrable" the car is compared to modern cars. Leave your average vintage VW out in a field for a hundred years and not much is going to be left other than a few scarps of brittle vinyl, a crusty engine block that might actually burnup in a wildfire and the knobs. The steel, the carboard door panels the horse hair seats will all rot away returning to the earth whence it came and leaving just a small footprint. Now leave your average new car out there and what will be left? In some cases, complete panels made of plastic, definately most of the interior and miles of wire and most of the engine components. We live in an age where resources are getting scarcer yet we build cars that consume far more in the way of materials than 40 years ago when natural resources were far more plentifull. Seems as usual humanity has it all ass backwards. Instead of coming out with more complex, resource hogging vehicles, we should be using more austere vehicles which less of what the planet has left. Just a few random thoughts sparked by the news of the demise of the old Beetle and the breathing in of too much contact cement while installing sound proofing...
--Dan E