From Car & Driver, 6/03:
"Ten thousand years from now, some archaeologist will declare that the most enduring life forms on earth are sharks, cockroaches, and the Volkswagen Beetle. Novato is infested with old beetles. Like the Mustang, the Vee-Dub was an event in the popular culture. "Beetles may have been taken seriously in Germany, but they made us laugh. The night before my first Indy 500, in 1965, I was in the party crowd outwide the speedway. Georgetown Road was a two-lane that ran just outside the main grandstands and right through the heart of the party. Like the track's front straight, Georgetown was long, narrow, and had no exits. Traffic that night barely crept along. A favorite prank of the Hoosier hooligans was waiting until a Beetle got almost to the end of Georgetown, picking it up, turning it around, and setting it back in the lane going the other way. "It's the laughs that made those little round cars lovable enough to keep around. I rarely see the sensible cars built to replace the Beetle--the Rabbits and Sciroccos and the competing models from Toyota and Datsun--but the old Bugs crawl on."
--Jim Shane, writing on the old cars he sees parked in the weeds and back yards of Novato, California