VW Engine

As I recall, it was the fall of 1960. In those days all the auto manufacturers released their new models at the same time. Although I was only 12, I was really into cars and could tell you the make, model, and year of every car we passed on the road. (FYI – my grandson Isaiah can do the same thing now.) On that weekend each year my father and I would travel around to many of the dealers in the area so see all the new cars coming out.

This particular year the local VW dealership decided to do something special in order to get people like my father to stay longer – and thus increase the chances of people buying a VW instead of something else. So, they arranged for a demonstration. They not only advertised it in the paper but mailed invitations to the VW owners in the region – of which we were one as my father had bought his first VW the previous year.

My father and I thus were at the VW dealer – first just looking at the new cars in the showroom, then, when the sales manager announced that the demo was going to start, going out into the shop area of the building. They had totally cleaned the shop, so there were no vehicles there and the floors had been newly painted. At the appointed time, one of the garage doors was opened and a new VW Beetle driven in – the purpose being that we could see that this was a running vehicle. Parking it in the middle of the small crowd who had gathered, the shop manager announced what would be happening. Two of their lead mechanics moved to the back of the car and opened the door of the engine compartment. They also brought over a tool box – in which they naturally had all the tools they needed and all organized appropriately.

Upon a signal, they began quickly moving to disassemble the engine. First, they removed all the electrical components (spark plug wires, distributor, battery, etc.), then took off all the other easily reached items (v-belt, pulleys, carburetor, etc.) While doing this, one of them put some pans underneath and drained the fluids from the transmission and engine. One got underneath and removed the muffler. Then the two of them disconnected the engine from the transmission and lifted the flat-4 engine out of the compartment.

Setting the engine on a drop cloth, they then proceeded to disassemble it – taking off the heads, removing the cover over the crank shaft, disconnecting all the pistons, removing the valves, etc. Meanwhile the shop manager was keeping up a running commentary about what they were doing so that those of us standing around the car in a large circle understood the various steps. They only thing they did not disassemble was taking the rings off the pistons.

I should also note that since the flat-4 VW engine is air cooled, there is no radiator and no coolant to drain. This eliminates several components that you find on other engines.

Now we had spread out in front of us, and neatly arranged, a disassembled engine and the Beetle sitting there without an engine in it. They gave us a few minutes to walk around and see all the components. Then, working just as quickly, the two mechanics began to put the engine back together – following all the steps they had just completed in reverse.

Adding back the fluids that they had drained – or more accurately, adding new fluids to replace the ones they had drained, they then put a small amount of gasoline in the carburetor, one of them got in the driver’s seat, and they started up the engine, opened the garage door and drove back outside.

Total time for the complete disassembly and reassembly – less than one hour! It was quite an impressive demo. Of course, the purpose of doing this was to not only show potential VW buyers not only how easy it was to work on these cars, but to showcase the skills of their mechanics and thus make everyone want to use the dealer’s services in the future.

As a 12-year-old, and the youngest member of the audience, I know that I was impressed. My father had just bought his first VW the year before and it was the first of a few that he bought there. And in 1973, after I had married and while I was living in CT for a few years before my wife and I moved to PA, I also bought a vehicle from that same dealership – in my case a VW Dasher station wagon, which I bought sight unseen as the Dasher was a brand-new line and they didn’t even have any in stock yet. So, I guess their “demonstration”, at least in my case, paid off.

These days, with all the computer-controlled parts of the engine and all the emissions components, it is far more complicated to work on vehicle engines. Doing the work yourself is all but impossible and they even color-code those things that the vehicle owner is allowed to touch (adding oil, adding coolant, changing/charging a battery) and everything else is off-limits. But in 1960, the air-cooled VW engine was a thing of great simplicity and enabled the demo that I had the pleasure of witnessing.