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1007 West Oregon
Urbana, Illinois
April 3, 1956

Dear folks,

We haven't heard from you on where to write yet, so will hold this until we do.

Well, We at last realized a dream: a Volkswagen is ours. We mentioned looking at it in our last note. It is a "strato silver" (actually greyish blue with deep luster) 1954 sun-roof (sliding fabric insert in top) car. The exterior finish is pretty good, and we will keep it so. People think it is new. We bought a short hose to attach outside and wash frequently, which we did today, and it is waxed about every month, not much of a job with this size car (Jack washed it before lunch today). The interior is gray with blue seat covers and looks fairly new. The dealer is a friend of a friend and assures us nothing is fundamentally wrong with it; we have a 30-day guarantee. This summer Jack will take the engine out, perhaps grind valves, time it, and replace worn parts, not a difficult job with this small an engine. We have friends who know how to do these jobs. It should last ten years if we treat it right.

The car cost $1250. New, it is $1680. Depreciation is about $200 a year. We got $100 for our old monster. We still have over $600 in the bank.

Fuel consumption is half of that in standard American cars. An engine costs $104 (trade-in) and $2 for installation (a fast man can do this in half an hour). It has 34 h.p. and doesn't go above 70 m.p.h. Ours was bought in Germany, consequently has its speedometer in kilometres, which we prefer to keep that way. It is quite simple to calculate--multiply by 6 and take first two figures.

We took it to Chicago last week end and made the trip