The Aging of the Dawn of Aquarius: From Baltimore to Woodstock in a 2013 Volkswagen Turbo Convertible

   

Say nothing!

Whatever you do, don't mention the war. I did once, but I think I got away with it. Fortunately, Volkswagen is more circumspect. Despite the 2013 Beetle Turbo Convertible having been inspired by VW’s 1949 Type 1, the company draws the line at mentioning the war – or even the decade in which it was fought – in its retro line-up.  

This means that while buyers can get their new VW cabrios done up in '70s, ‘60s, and even 1950s fashion, any trim-level suggesting a German staff car as pursued by P-47s down a forest road in the Ardennes is verboten. 

Overrunning countryside, postwar style: The 1949 Type 1

Of course, imposing retro designs on a car that began as one tends to confuse things. Truth to tell, the Beetle and its fastback forebears have always been retro. Even the ‘49 model that served as our test car’s design buck was barely distinguishable from its 1935 prototype; and if that weren't enough, both models' deco-era lines did the hustle into disco-era times as a result of VW’s mid-century antipathy toward cosmetic model-year changeovers. 

Fashion it Again, Tony: The 2012 Fiat 500c

The new Fiat 500 is a solid update of the late-Fifties Fiat Cinquecento -- that 18-year exercise in mouse-eyed adorability that once served Americans as a source of low-cost transport, and -- in the case of its larger sibling, the Fiat 600 -- ruinous fan-belt consumption.

As one delivered intact through the 1960s in a rosso 600, I ought to know. Wherever this little runabout ran about, it left behind bits of fan-belt like so many mouse droppings. Thus, I couldn't get my kicks on 66 or anywhere else along the vast Aquarian Plane unless equipped with new belts with which to repair the Fiat's 633-cc motor. This parts-changing ritual yielded nothing in the way of sublime insight. It wasn't Zen and the Art of Incline-four Maintenance or anything like that. In fact, it shred knuckles like the belts they labored to replace. Still, it was a small price to pay for a car that your standard hippie gamine could just hug to death.

The Fiat 600