Fifty Three: Chasing Adventure In A Sixty-Year-Old Volkswagen Baja Bug

Hi, my name is Ralph Guillaume of Ren Volks Garage, Santa Cruz, California. Driving 1965 Volkswagen Baja Bug, number 53, Herbie the Love Bug. Just having a great time with that car. Driving through the woods on a nice, like, wet, cold day. The air-cooled engine is just so happy. You can really feel all double-digit horsepower when the air is cool and crisp. Yeah, it sort of feels like that's where the car is happiest, mainly because that's where I found it. It was sort of hidden way up there in the woods. It's very loud, it's very real, it's very analog. You can feel every bit of feedback. It's a big kid's go-kart that you can drive on and off-road. It's as close to the most analog feel possible, other than, like, a handbrake in an old 1930s vehicle. Absolutely terrifying when the driver's door flies open, which is a super known issue with early Beetles. They changed the door latch in a certain year to fix that. The driving experience is just pure adrenaline, and then you look down, you're going, like, 42 miles an hour. You can wind out each gear until you get that sweet sound, and then still barely be doing the speed limit. Getting passed by soccer mom minivans waving at you. Like, okay, at least they're waving at me with a smile. So, foot through the floor, I would say, and you're having the best time of your life. So, the garage I'd always wanted to do, it's gonna sound pretty cheesy, but, like, since watching, like, the first Fast and Furious movie, just build crazy stuff, import cars, sort of just have, like, the Man Cave kind of cool vibes and hope that it pays for itself without, like, stealing DVD players and having, like, Underglow on your Civic. Found the location here in Santa Cruz about a year ago today. Sort of feel the dreams it, like, if you build it, they will come. Already had, like, a little black book of clients that would want cars to be serviced here. Let's see how bad the crank is or isn't. Doing some fun stuff, like, in Montana and other places that showed up more on the internet, like, sort of what we could do with a car. And I think that's started to, like, speak for itself. So, yeah, people are hopping on board and we're having a good time. Yeah, so early on, my dad, he had to, like, find the faults in cars from Honda in North America, so he worked in Torrance. And so he sort of figured, like, what better way to destroy Hondas on purpose than to, like, teach your young child how to drive. I just remember he would sit me on his lap, he'd control the pedals, and we'd just be driving around the dirt perimeter road of Willow Springs, like, up to the back grandstand where you can see down towards the track. And, yeah, I guess I just became, like, fascinated with him after that, which proved to not be so great. Like, with a young child's fascination of how mechanics will work, they're really good at taking things apart. His motorcycle got taken apart a few times. Every appliance in the house, like TV remotes, I would find ways to disassemble them. Like, I just became fascinated with how things worked. And cars seemed to be most accessible with the fact that Honda would give my dad a new one every month, and it seemed like we'd just go out to the desert, and I'd learn how to drive it. So I'd always wanted a Baja, and a buddy of mine told me about this. 65 had been restored probably in the late 80s, and sort of abandoned it up in the woods of Boulder Creek. So we went and looked at it, went with a slew of parts, and the car was basically, like, stuck in the woods. So dragged it out, got it running. Shift linkage totally broken, so we managed to get it into, like, second gear. It was a rough drive down the mountain. Ever since then, I've just, like, decided, like, really wanted to give the car another life. This car is going to be the one that's, like, the underdog, goes on all the adventures, and, like, has the most fun out of everything I have. It's a trip how many generations the BW Beetle and Herbie alone have, like, made an impact on. So really fun to drive a car like that, that has an impact on people. The car is sort of an underdog story, and, like, I sort of associate with that a little bit. The one that nobody thinks can do it, and then it's just, like, how is this little car hacking above its weight category? And so carrying that representation, like, with what I do with the business, it sort of seems similar. And, yeah, I guess a big part of it would come from my aunt, who really encouraged me a lot of my life. Just chase dreams and do stuff. And a couple years ago, she passed away, so it sort of was this reminder that I have to, like, keep her energy going. That sort of wild, just adventurous, you never know. She went all over the world and, like, went out in the most boring way, sort of say. Like, what she said to me, like, really early on of, like, the answer is always no unless you ask, that hit me hard at 12 years old or something. Like, yeah, the answer is always no unless you ask. And I probably forgot about that through, like, a good chunk of my 20s with school and getting a good job like you were supposed to do. And I'm never really asking for the raise. Like, hope I'd be recognized and, like, everything would work out, like I was supposedly promised. And then when it started to not, I was like, well, **** it. Like, let's just shoot the shot. Like, **** it, let's go to the safari party rally. Like, yeah, good little car.