I started my VW oddessy in '88 when I bought a '70 transporter when I lived in Baltimore. (My dad had a "74 when we were kids) It needed wheel cylinders, a battery and some love. I gave it all, but had to sell it before I got it registered. Wish I'd hung onto it. Then, still in Baltimore, I bought a 74 transporter with an automatic tranny, which I kept for a while and sold when I moved back to Jersey. Before I left Maryland I picked up a 75 Westy for $800, which was my pride and joy. But the shifter fork broke on it and I, for reasons of youth and ignorance took it to Aamco to have fixed. Well, they "fixed" it alright. I'm pretty sure they just welded it up, and they failed to reconnect my voltage regulator, to bolt up my driveshaft, connect my vacuum hoses; the list goes on. When I went back to them they just told me "it was like that when you brought it in". $1100 down the tubes because a few months later... you guessed it, the shifer fork broke again, so, being poor and broken hearted I sold it to a local VW guy for a few hundered bucks, swearing to never but another VW.
But then, maybe 10years later my wife spotted a tatttered 79 westy for sale in a neighboring town. I talked to the seller, (who turned out to be a good friend of some cousins of mine; good omen) and I paid him $1300 for it, and drove it home. It was at the point of deterioration where it would have to be saved or scrapped, so I pulled all the glass out (all rubber rotted) and had a friend of a friend do a boatload of body work for $550, and another f of an f paint it for three hundred. Put it together and have had, despite a few engine battles, the coolest daily driver I've ever had. Right now it's got a 74 1800 motor in it I got on eBay for $85 bucks.
My kids will never let me sell it; we camp as often as we can, which ain't nearly often enough.
