{"id":10929,"date":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studebaker.priemerhosting.com\/the-beetle-and-tante-kiki\/"},"modified":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","slug":"the-beetle-and-tante-kiki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studebakermuseum.org\/the-beetle-and-tante-kiki\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beetle and Tante Kiki"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mother is from Breslau, Germany.\u00a0 She had a privileged youth growing up in the 1920s and \u201830s: she had a governess, house keepers and long summer vacations on the Baltic sea.\u00a0 And her father, George Skiebe, my Opa, had a car collection.\u00a0 He had a Mercedes 540 and a Horsch, but he loved American cars.\u00a0 He had a Chrysler, a Ford sedan and a Ford pickup.<\/p>\n

That all changed during World War II.\u00a0 By the time the war ended, the Skiebe family escaped with their lives but little else.\u00a0 In the 1950s, my mom and Tante Kiki, my aunt, immigrated to the United States, took their citizenship test and began new lives as Americans.<\/p>\n

When each of them were able to buy new cars, not surprisingly they bought VW Beetles.\u00a0 Thanks to my grandfather, these two women were car enthusiasts, and even though they couldn\u2019t afford expensive cars, they could afford Beetles.\u00a0 My mom and dad had a 1958 beige Beetle and my aunt drove a light blue model.\u00a0 I can remember how excited everyone was when we went to the dealership to pick them up!\u00a0 I was four.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1960s, my aunt decided to move from the New York City area to the West Coast and drove her blue Beetle cross country.\u00a0 I remember she told me that when she drove across the deserts on long stretches of straight roads, she would tuck in behind a large tractor-trailer truck and \u201cit would just pull me along.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a 10-year-old, I was skeptical.\u00a0 How could a truck tow my aunt\u2019s car without a rope?<\/p>\n

Decades later, I became involved in NASCAR racing in public relations and marketing.\u00a0 I learned from veteran race drivers like Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison and Dale Earnhardt, Sr., that there was indeed something called \u201cthe draft,\u201d where the vehicle in front would clear the air, thereby allowing the car behind to work less.\u00a0 And go faster.<\/p>\n

Still, it sounded like black magic to me.\u00a0 Until I ran my first marathon.<\/p>\n

It was a calm day without a breeze when I was running the Charlotte Observer Marathon about 20 years ago.\u00a0 As I ran through the city streets, I followed another runner closely.\u00a0 When I moved to the left or right of that other runner, the air was \u201crougher\u201d than when I followed directly behind.<\/p>\n

Suddenly I understood.\u00a0 I understood what Tante Kiki had told me forty years earlier.\u00a0 And I understood why those NASCAR drivers \u201csearched\u201d for the draft in order to win races.<\/p>\n

Today, my mom is 93 and Tante Kiki is 89.\u00a0 They both live in nursing facilities and neither is able to drive any longer.\u00a0 But both are still car enthusiasts and both love to remind me about the adventures they had in their VW Beetles.\u00a0 And I have a 1960 Beetle in my garage as a reminder of my family\u2019s love affair with the brand.<\/p>\n

Thanks, Tante Kiki, for teaching me about a basic racing practice you learned in your 36-horsepower VW Beetle.\u00a0\u00a0 It just took me a few decades to understand it.<\/p>\n

\"VW<\/p>\n

About the Author
\n<\/strong>Tom Cotter is an acclaimed automotive author and historian specializing in “barn finds”\u00a0 and vintage racing.\u00a0 Tom is a regular contributor to Road and Track and the New York Times, and recently published, “Ford Model T Coast to Coast – A Slow Drive Across A Fast Country” chronicling his cross-country trip in a Model T. He is the proud owner of a 1952 Cunningham C3 Coupe, a 1939 Ford “Woodie” Station Wagon and a 1965 Cobra.<\/em><\/p>\n

About the Series
\n<\/strong>This series of essays explores the vehicles that made up our Ten Cars that Changed the World<\/a> exhibition.\u00a0 The exhibition was a partnership with the Society of Automotive Historians<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Visit South Bend<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mother is from Breslau, Germany.\u00a0 She had a privileged youth growing up in the 1920s and \u201830s: she had a governess, house keepers and long summer vacations on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-exhibitions","category-ten-cars-that-changed-the-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Beetle and Tante Kiki - The Studebaker National Museum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/studebakermuseum.org\/the-beetle-and-tante-kiki\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Beetle and Tante Kiki - 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