This 1976 Type 3 VW was my second air cooled VW. I bought it sometime probably in spring 1977 as a replacement for my '64 or '66 6 volt Beetle. At the time I was still at the PSU Wilkes-Barre campus near Lake Lehman. Unfortunately it was more often in the shop than on the road. It had an early fuel injection system as I recall.

One winter day when at the PSU main campus I was tooling around snow covered dirt roads somewhere in the nearby hills showing it off to two companions how it effortlessly handled snow without needing snow chains since the engine was in the rear. On descent I encountered an ice covered switchback so I slowed to a crawl and hugged the left edge of the road. Unfortunately I was on the outside of the road near a small embankment as the switchback turned. My friends and I watched in slow motion disbelief as the station wagon rolled down the embankment and stopped when it hit a small tree. A little shaken but unharmed we were forced to hoof it for miles back to town since there were no cell phones then. As a poor student I had no AAA and no hope of getting a tow truck out onto snow covered dirt roads in the country so I had to wait for days until the snow melted.

Circa early 1978. Prob. near Tussey Mtn or Stone Valley.

(Click the pic for a full size version.)