Girlfriend’s Anti-Semitic Mother and why VW Beetles Sound Like They Do
April 23, 2022 10:57 AM Subscribe
Jason Torchinsky writes in The Autopian about How My Teenage Girlfriend’s Anti-Semitic Mother Made Me Learn Why VW Beetles Sound Like They Do.
My uncle used to have me help him replace the exhausts on his '67 because my arms were skinnier than his and could reach places his couldn't. I open the hood on my current car and I can identify two parts: the battery and the engine. Everything else is either shrouded or unidentifiable. I miss the old days.
posted by tommasz at 12:17 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 12:17 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
This just makes me realize how common that distinctive sound used to be, and how uncommon it is now. What a weird twinge of nostalgia it's making me feel!
posted by 2N2222 at 1:09 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 1:09 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
I’m not a car guy but I do love these deep dives into cars’ mechanical quirks. Like this earlier article by Torchinsky for Jalopnik: This Is Why You Can't Unlock A Car Door If Someone Is Trying To Open It At The Same Time
posted by ejs at 1:18 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ejs at 1:18 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Autopian is starting out to be a pretty good site. I was contemplating a post about this write up explaining the jets of flame coming off this bus that has been making the social media rounds (often misattributed to a battery fire).
posted by Mitheral at 1:39 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 1:39 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Autopian is starting out to be a pretty good site
How…..how are the commenters? I remember Jalopnik from the Spinelli/Lieberman/Murilee Martin days, before it got Kinja’d.
posted by hwyengr at 2:41 PM on April 23, 2022
How…..how are the commenters? I remember Jalopnik from the Spinelli/Lieberman/Murilee Martin days, before it got Kinja’d.
posted by hwyengr at 2:41 PM on April 23, 2022
IDK. I just sort of assume all open forum sites will have horrible commenters and don't read the comments.
posted by Mitheral at 3:40 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 3:40 PM on April 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
One or two trivializing comments about dating Jewish girls whose Mom's had rules about them, nothing terrible. Mostly appreciation or Bug talk.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:48 PM on April 23, 2022
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:48 PM on April 23, 2022
From the headline (especially the phrase “made me learn why”) I was expecting that the girlfriend’s mom sat the writer down and harangued him about why VW engines were designed to have that particular sound and what it meant for him to drive one.
I’m glad that wasn’t it, but I was waiting all article for a “to what end” why rather than a “how come” why.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:28 PM on April 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I’m glad that wasn’t it, but I was waiting all article for a “to what end” why rather than a “how come” why.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:28 PM on April 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I had an awesome Bug experience in 1971 when I rode from Austin to Denver and back (2000 miles), in the backseat sandwiched between two dudes. Minor canoodling was achieved but I will never forget the sound of that engine that was only a few inches away. It is a fond memory.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:42 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:42 PM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: Minor canoodling was achieved.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:20 AM on April 24, 2022
posted by Paul Slade at 1:20 AM on April 24, 2022
I open the hood on my current car and I can identify two parts: the battery and the engine. Everything else is either shrouded or unidentifiable. I miss the old days.
All you have to do is pop the shroud off the top of the engine. I changed my spark plugs myself because the dealership wanted $400 to do it.
Cars are more reliable than they’ve ever been before. I do not miss the old days.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:06 AM on April 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
All you have to do is pop the shroud off the top of the engine. I changed my spark plugs myself because the dealership wanted $400 to do it.
Cars are more reliable than they’ve ever been before. I do not miss the old days.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:06 AM on April 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
More reliable; less owner-repairable. But we're headed that direction anyway with electric cars.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:22 AM on April 24, 2022
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:22 AM on April 24, 2022
A bit of a counterpoint to the OP’s experience of Bug-related anti-Semitism:
I grew up in VW Bugs (I was born to ex-pats in Germany; they went over with a Chevy and came back with a Bug, soon supplemented with a 1962 VW Bus), so the sound of its engine (and the similar one of the Bus) was the sound of my childhood. I didn’t own one myself until my late twenties (my first car, though, was a VW Squareback that was a family hand-me-down.) Easy to work on, which was fortunate, as, e.g., I had to replace a rust-snapped accelerator cable on more than one occasion. It also had a dodgy ignition switch, so I developed the habit of trying to always park on slopes so I could do the push-start, jump in and kick it into gear trick… But I digress:
At 19, I had a girlfriend who had a yellow early-70s Bug, and I remember we were coming out of a movie one evening (I’ll date myself by naming it: “The Sting”) and crossed paths with an older Jewish woman who offered an unsolicited comment when she saw what kind of car we were getting into: “I could never drive one of those!” (Hitler’s “People’s Car”) “I like my Jewish Canoe!” (her Cadillac)…
Well, lady (I didn’t reply), I understand your feelings (little did she know I was born ten miles from Dachau and knew the history of the Nazis - and their car - quite well, and had friends, growing up in Amurka, who’d lost entire branches of their families to the Holocaust), but sometimes things get repurposed and acquire entirely different associations and connotations…
posted by Philofacts at 8:46 AM on April 24, 2022
I grew up in VW Bugs (I was born to ex-pats in Germany; they went over with a Chevy and came back with a Bug, soon supplemented with a 1962 VW Bus), so the sound of its engine (and the similar one of the Bus) was the sound of my childhood. I didn’t own one myself until my late twenties (my first car, though, was a VW Squareback that was a family hand-me-down.) Easy to work on, which was fortunate, as, e.g., I had to replace a rust-snapped accelerator cable on more than one occasion. It also had a dodgy ignition switch, so I developed the habit of trying to always park on slopes so I could do the push-start, jump in and kick it into gear trick… But I digress:
At 19, I had a girlfriend who had a yellow early-70s Bug, and I remember we were coming out of a movie one evening (I’ll date myself by naming it: “The Sting”) and crossed paths with an older Jewish woman who offered an unsolicited comment when she saw what kind of car we were getting into: “I could never drive one of those!” (Hitler’s “People’s Car”) “I like my Jewish Canoe!” (her Cadillac)…
Well, lady (I didn’t reply), I understand your feelings (little did she know I was born ten miles from Dachau and knew the history of the Nazis - and their car - quite well, and had friends, growing up in Amurka, who’d lost entire branches of their families to the Holocaust), but sometimes things get repurposed and acquire entirely different associations and connotations…
posted by Philofacts at 8:46 AM on April 24, 2022
I sometimes get nostalgic about the perceived repairability of old cars, but I think the real problem is just that cars have changed so quickly over the last few decades that the average shade-tree mechanic's tools just haven't caught up. And perhaps the mechanic themselves.
There's no future in which a car doesn't contain a buttload of electronics. It's just not happening. (The alternative would be a whole bunch of analog feedback-loop control systems, and they're not much fun to work on, either.) As a result, there is no future in which a shade-tree mechanic's toolkit doesn't involve a computer and probably a bunch of other electronics-repair junk. That's just table stakes for really understanding what's going on in a modern car and having any hope of fixing it.
But as electronics go, they're not that bad. Although it's shitty that OBD messages aren't open source—it's nice that Congress mandated all cars use the same connector, and later on a standard protocol (ISO 15765 CAN), the messages should be standardized and documented as well, and the SAE can go fuck themselves through the nose with a dipstick for opposing that—it has been pretty thoroughly reverse-engineered at this point. You can buy a neat little development kit for $75 if you are so inclined.
We're probably looking at another decade or two of rapid change as electric vehicles take over, after which I'm hopeful things might calm down a little bit. But in the interim, wrenching on cars is going to look a lot more like hardware hacking and reverse engineering.
(As an example of how the automotive world hasn't quite caught up with reality, my favorite is how many states conduct emissions tests not with an exhaust "sniffer" anymore, but instead with a computer that plugs into the OBD-II port under the dash. This is enormously stupid. If I was so inclined, it would be absolutely trivial to create a little OBD "shim" that sits in between the under-dash port and the car's actual CAN bus, and modifies all the messages related to emissions, like a little Iraqi Information Minister screaming "everything is fine!" as the car blows black smoke and flames out the exhaust. In my state, that car would pass emissions. Why the fuck do you trust the car under test's electronics to tell you anything about the vehicle? That isn't a reliable source of information. It only works because most people who tinker with cars are still stuck in the 1960s.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:50 PM on April 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
There's no future in which a car doesn't contain a buttload of electronics. It's just not happening. (The alternative would be a whole bunch of analog feedback-loop control systems, and they're not much fun to work on, either.) As a result, there is no future in which a shade-tree mechanic's toolkit doesn't involve a computer and probably a bunch of other electronics-repair junk. That's just table stakes for really understanding what's going on in a modern car and having any hope of fixing it.
But as electronics go, they're not that bad. Although it's shitty that OBD messages aren't open source—it's nice that Congress mandated all cars use the same connector, and later on a standard protocol (ISO 15765 CAN), the messages should be standardized and documented as well, and the SAE can go fuck themselves through the nose with a dipstick for opposing that—it has been pretty thoroughly reverse-engineered at this point. You can buy a neat little development kit for $75 if you are so inclined.
We're probably looking at another decade or two of rapid change as electric vehicles take over, after which I'm hopeful things might calm down a little bit. But in the interim, wrenching on cars is going to look a lot more like hardware hacking and reverse engineering.
(As an example of how the automotive world hasn't quite caught up with reality, my favorite is how many states conduct emissions tests not with an exhaust "sniffer" anymore, but instead with a computer that plugs into the OBD-II port under the dash. This is enormously stupid. If I was so inclined, it would be absolutely trivial to create a little OBD "shim" that sits in between the under-dash port and the car's actual CAN bus, and modifies all the messages related to emissions, like a little Iraqi Information Minister screaming "everything is fine!" as the car blows black smoke and flames out the exhaust. In my state, that car would pass emissions. Why the fuck do you trust the car under test's electronics to tell you anything about the vehicle? That isn't a reliable source of information. It only works because most people who tinker with cars are still stuck in the 1960s.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:50 PM on April 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
I appreciated the article since I've wondered about that distinctive sound.
I grew up in VW Bugs ... so the sound of its engine (and the similar one of the Bus) was the sound of my childhood.
The sound of my childhood, also. (At least, that was the sound when it was running, there was a lot of time spent in the parking lots of auto parts stores, too.) I also have memories of sitting in the far back of a VW bus and having to alert the grownups that there was a growing cloud of black smoke coming out of the engine compartment.
It feels like I see way fewer of the old VWs on the road now than only 10 years ago -- it's something unusual now, rather than a background part of the street.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:16 PM on April 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I grew up in VW Bugs ... so the sound of its engine (and the similar one of the Bus) was the sound of my childhood.
The sound of my childhood, also. (At least, that was the sound when it was running, there was a lot of time spent in the parking lots of auto parts stores, too.) I also have memories of sitting in the far back of a VW bus and having to alert the grownups that there was a growing cloud of black smoke coming out of the engine compartment.
It feels like I see way fewer of the old VWs on the road now than only 10 years ago -- it's something unusual now, rather than a background part of the street.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:16 PM on April 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
The only newish cars I can pick out from engine noise alone is the ones equipped with Land Rovers late-90s inline-5 turbodiesel, as I had one for years in a Discovery 2.
But I would like to know why Toyota's starter motors for the D4D diesels has a really distinct sound. Does not have to be explained through a slice-of-life tale about casual racism, though.
posted by Harald74 at 1:59 AM on April 25, 2022
But I would like to know why Toyota's starter motors for the D4D diesels has a really distinct sound. Does not have to be explained through a slice-of-life tale about casual racism, though.
posted by Harald74 at 1:59 AM on April 25, 2022
there is no future in which a shade-tree mechanic's toolkit doesn't involve a computer
One nice thing about wrenching on modern VWs (even though they are much more complicated and everything is more difficult to access in the engine bay) is that aftermarket diagnostic software (VCDS) is available at a reasonable price.
I'm still using the wired interface connected to an old laptop, but they also make a wireless interface that works with a smartphone/tablet app. Unlike generic OBD readers, it allows reading proprietary VW diagnostics and also changing settings in the car software.
posted by fogovonslack at 8:40 AM on April 25, 2022
One nice thing about wrenching on modern VWs (even though they are much more complicated and everything is more difficult to access in the engine bay) is that aftermarket diagnostic software (VCDS) is available at a reasonable price.
I'm still using the wired interface connected to an old laptop, but they also make a wireless interface that works with a smartphone/tablet app. Unlike generic OBD readers, it allows reading proprietary VW diagnostics and also changing settings in the car software.
posted by fogovonslack at 8:40 AM on April 25, 2022
The only newish cars I can pick out from engine noise alone is the ones equipped with Land Rovers late-90s inline-5 turbodiesel, as I had one for years in a Discovery 2.
There’s a guy somewhere around my neighborhood that must have a sporty Audi, because an I5 is also the engine I can pick out best by ear. Never seen it, but I’ll stop the admire the shriek when I’m in the back yard.
posted by hwyengr at 1:54 PM on April 25, 2022
There’s a guy somewhere around my neighborhood that must have a sporty Audi, because an I5 is also the engine I can pick out best by ear. Never seen it, but I’ll stop the admire the shriek when I’m in the back yard.
posted by hwyengr at 1:54 PM on April 25, 2022
I would like to know why Toyota's starter motors for the D4D diesels has a really distinct sound
I know some performance starters use 'gear reduction' instead of the normal setup (smaller, lighter) and supposedly you can hear the difference (don't know it to describe it though).
Here's a GMC version in a 6.5L diesel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:15 PM on April 25, 2022
I know some performance starters use 'gear reduction' instead of the normal setup (smaller, lighter) and supposedly you can hear the difference (don't know it to describe it though).
Here's a GMC version in a 6.5L diesel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:15 PM on April 25, 2022
I would like to know why Toyota's starter motors for the D4D diesels has a really distinct sound
It's been quite a while since I heard a D4D (since they weren't sold in the US), but yes, it is a distinctive sound.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:00 PM on April 25, 2022
It's been quite a while since I heard a D4D (since they weren't sold in the US), but yes, it is a distinctive sound.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:00 PM on April 25, 2022
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