STORIES

"The Stone VW"

Not so much a story as a photograph.   This image first appeared on the site maintained by the Air-Cooled JunkYard of Richfield, Ohio (now defunct).

I was fortunate enough at the time to be able to contact the individual who took the photo as there was no historical info on the web site.

Brad Bolton (the photog) sent me this information in 1998;   apparently it was taken in 1995.

"It's on a back road about 20 miles north of Ithaca, NY. Can't recall the road name, though.   It's near a house, so I assume the homeowners built the thing.   It's real folk art - no sign, no path to it.   In fact, we saw it only because it was winter.   If there were leaves on the trees, we would have never seen it.   Uncanny how the stone windows have the same shape as the real windows.   I didn't get much time to poke around - there were a couple nasty dogs running loose in the area."

I've tried, without luck,  to contact Brad to get explicit permission to re-post the photo,  but he has given permission to all-comers in the past. (If anyone knows Brad, let me have his current e-mail.)

      Click here to see the photo   (300KB)

More recently, I received a tip from Jean Brandenburg  that led me here:

The whole episode of the construction of the Stone VW is revealed by the owner in a book titled simply "My Bug".   The editor, Michael J. Rosen, has collected the stories of dozens of VW owners.  Stephen Gibian was the builder and the year was 1976.   There was a rusted hulk of a 60's Beetle in the field and, nearby, the remains of a stone foundation.   Put them together, and...voila!   The book has additional photos of the construction stages as well as descriptive text, e.g.:  "The windows were slabs of stone found at a local quarry..."

You can find the book at Amazon.Com.   The other stories contain lots of memories of Beetles long-gone, but it's worth getting just for the Stone VW story.

The book is ISBN 1-57965-135-6

Incidentally, there is a Brazilian site with more VW pop-art and Brad's photo appears there (though the image quality is not as good):
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Lane/7972/Photo238-Details.htm