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electronic fuel injection in my squareback back in the 70s,
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You had one of these that worked? That is amazing.
Did you do much work on you VWs, or just drive them? Or perhaps the haze of time has made you forget...
The people I knew with a squareback had to cut a hole in the engine hatch cover of the car in the back so that they could put a carburetor on it. The air filter housing came up in the back of the car. All this was because when the FI "computer" got flakey the parts to fix it were huge money in those days.
Then there were the studs for the exhaust header tubes that broke off in the head when you had to change the muffler..
A zero to 60 time of what, 19 seconds? Spark plugs you change by feeling around, since you cannot see them. Wheels that were mounted with bolts not studs, so you had to hold the wheel up with one hand while moving the hub around with the other hand, and then the third hand put the bolts in. That superb windshield washer system that was powered by air from the spare tire, and which would slowly leak all the air out of the spare.
And the lack of any significant heat in winter seperated the teutonic men from the boys.
It was almost enough to make me swear off wearing leather shorts.
Some masochist has made a slide show to help those poor souls that had to work on these things relive the nightmares. Not for the faint of heart. There is not even room for a dead cat in the engine compartment, since every nook, cranny, and orfice is filled with the filth that collects all over the engine in deep, crusty deposits.
http://www.vwtypethree.com/myvws/rebuild/slide1.html
No, I'm not partial to VWs. Why do you ask?
