38th Annual Bug-In Hosted at Westside VW

Westside Volkswagen hosted the 38th annual Bug-In, a free VW car show and swap meet, in June. Rich Meyer, president of the Twin Cities Volkswagen club, started hanging around the old

Westside VW when he was 13 or 14 years old, buying junk yard cars and fixing them up. He met some of the guys that work at the dealership and found they all liked the Bug-In events taking place in California and wanted to start something like that in Minnesota. The very first Bug-In took place on Saturday, June 13, 1987. 50 people signed up on a club interest form and that was how the Twin Cities Volkswagen Club started.

This year, 150 vehicles were registered for the event but over 200 cars participated. Besides looking at all the cars, people could get food from a food truck, and buy Bug-In merchandise from David Kelly, a club member and designer. Awards were also given out to the 1st and 2nd place winners of a variety of categories depending on model and year. Tami Willett, Westside VW General Manager andv Tom Daley, Used Car Manager, also received a sponsor award.

Meyer’s designed each award and works with a local business to get them made as well as the T-shirts. Kids can also participate in multiple games and activities throughout the day, like a hula- hoop contest or a ring toss game. “We like to get kids involved because kids are the generation to keep the hobby going,” Meyer said. In the past the event cost $2 per person and $5 per car to attend. “Luther stepped up and asked how much it would take to get the show going. They’ve sponsored us for the last 20 years to make it a free event,” Meyer said.

Westside has also recently been opening their showroom for the event as well. Every year, the showroom has a new theme. This year theme was Volkswagen Type 3, a compact car produced by Volkswagen from 1961 to 1973. They’ve also done a Dune Buggy theme and invited the father of the Dune Buggy, Bruce Meyers.

Lots of the vehicles at the Bug-In are old school VW buses or bugs and many of them have been fixed up or decked out inside and out. One couple even has an electric minibus for their dog, Twinkie, and a cart made to look like a VW bus for their son. Pat and Shannon Granholm own a 1973 VW Kombi but bought their dog her own VW bus before buying the car because Pat always wanted one. “We got our son his own VW Bus cart because Twinkie has her own little one, right? So, he needed something, his own cool custom VW.”

People from all over the Midwest and beyond came to this event. Meyers knows of cars from Omaha, Nebraska and Winnipeg, Canada who have made the journey for it.

Meyer’s favorite part of the event is “seeing that people are having fun. They love it. We love it.”