My 1971 VW Super Beetle, also known as Mabel, has been known as my happy place since 1994.

My older sister was supposed to learn how to drive stick. My mother and father went to a guy who had old beat up cars, in 1988. My mother had grown up with a VW Beetle and I guess she thought my sister would enjoy it. Well, she had no luck during the lessons my mother gave her in a potato field.

So my mother drove it for years, until it was my turn to learn how to drive stick. I had very good luck, because it became my first car!

The car was in driving condition, when we got it back in 1988. But it received a brand new engine, paint, new interior and speakers. It was first painted a navy blue, but after I graduated high school and went off to college, my parents entered it into car shows and gave it a new paint job in a dusty rose color.

My mother promised to keep Mabel until I was able to get my own garage to store it in, since we are in Maine. So the year finally arrived in 2020. After all these years (1996 when I graduated high school to know!) she is with me, and it is just like the last day I was driving it.

It brings back the memories of driving around town with my friends and paying with rolls of pennies to put gas in the tank. And the one memory I cannot forget.....I locked all the doors and went with some other friends around town. When I came back to my car had been moved across the parking lot. I had the emergency brake on and it was in first, and to this day I do not know how my friends moved it. They say they picked it up, but really I still am baffled today.

This car means the world to me and I hope I have it for many years to come.