Actually, Justin had more to do with it than me. I was just there when it happened. It started about a month earlier after a trip to World of Wheels. Justin and I had rode to WoW with a friend of mine. On the way home he started talking about seeing something on the news about the upcoming release of the New Beetle. After a short coversation on the subject, we decided we would take a trip over the VW dealership and see if they had any brochures on them yet.
So we walked into the showroom . . . and there were NO VWs anywhere!
We mentioned VW and almost got thrown out. The VW dealership had moved from Brainard Rd. a few months before, but the sign was still there. We were told by one of the sales guys that if they didn't get that sign moved soon, they were going to take it down and throw it in the dumpster (They made good on part of that promise . . . they took it down, but it got salvaged before it made it to the dumpster . . . one lense got carted off in one direction and the remaining part got sold to a local VW enthusiast a couple of years later . . . and several years later, both pieces were reunited and are displayed ont he Bug-A-Paluza stage) . . . . but that's another story.
So, we left the Brainard Rd. location and went to the new dealership off 153. There we met the sales manager, George Edrington. As my friend Ricky and I were talking to George about the New Beetle, Justin was bending the ear of a salesman telling him all aobut his 74 Super Beetle we had put together for him to drive a couple of years earlier. George overheard Justin talking about having a Beetle and he started telling us that he wanted to sponsor a VW club and had been trying to find some people with old VWs that were interested. We set the date for the first meeting, I made a post on a now defunct VW forum, The VW Archives, telling anyone that was interest where and when to show and the rest is, as they say, history.
The only sad part to the story is that the person who put all the wheels into motion to get the right people in the right placed at the right time, my friend Ricky Durham, never bought a VW. He died of cancer before Bug-A-Paluza made the move to Camp Jordan. He never got to see what his wanting a brochure on a New Beetle turned in to. :'(
