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Karmin Ghia

Winter storms in Western New York state can be ferocious. Strong winds ripping across the Great Lakes create driving snow and icy conditions.

Worst of these, for those of us foolish enough to venture onto the highways in a blizzard, is the ice.

It is not just the ice on the road, that is bad enough. But you do learn through experience, trial and error, and close calls, how to drive on icy roads. It is ice on the windshield that can be the real problem. It can be a real danger since driving blinded by ice on the windshield is...well, it's driving blind.

To make matters worse for me (the time was the mid 1960's), I was on the Thruway, Interstate 90, between Rochester and Buffalo NY in a VW Karmann Ghia. The car was a definite step up in looks from my first car, a '55 VW bug. The Italian designed Karmann Ghia while sporty appearing. was also sporting the small VW 4 cylinder air cooled engine. Because the engine placement was over the rear drive wheels the Ghia did well in the snow. What the VW engine was especially bad at was heating the interior of the car. It was even worse at defrosting the windshield.

I was trundling along the Thruway the 60 mile distance between Rochester and Buffalo going 20- 30 miles per hour, I followed snowplow tracks, and kept a lookout for roadside reflectors, while listening to WKBW radio.

I was about halfway through the drive when the Ghia and I crested the hill into Batavia NY. Since the road is quite flat after the Batavia hills I decided to pull over onto the shoulder to clear the windshield, and to break the thickening ice off the tiny rubber strip wiper blades. There was no traffic except for the snowplows. I figured it was relatively safe to stop and to clear the ice.

I got out of the Ghia, left the engine running and closed the door behind me. I don't remember what I used to clear off the ice, probably a plastic or metal scraper and my gloved hands. After I did the best I could I went to open the door only find it locked. Locked out on the side of a highway in a storm with the keys in the ignition, the engine running, and no help on the horizon.

OK - how, you ask, did I lock myself out of a running car. I actually could not remember how that could even have been possible, so while writing this CarTale I posed the question to the internet.

Here is what I learned,

"The Mechanical Design Flaw

On vintage Karmann Ghias, you locked the door from the inside using either a distinct locking toggle, a door pin (on later models), or by flipping the inner door handle backward into a locking position. To prevent drivers from accidentally locking their keys inside, Volkswagen built a safety feature into the door mechanism: if you locked the door latch from the inside and simply slammed the door shut, the impact would automatically pop the mechanism back into the unlocked position.

How Drivers Overrode the Safety Feature

Drivers quickly figured out a shortcut to bypass this feature so they wouldn't have to use their key to lock up when leaving the car. If you pushed the inner locking lever to "locked," walked outside, and held the exterior thumb-button down while closing the door, the latch would bypass the safety trip. It would stay firmly locked when the door clicked shut.

Because it quickly became an unthinking muscle-memory habit for owners to hold that thumb button down whenever they closed the door, a driver could easily step out to clear frost from the windshield or open a gate, pop the lock, depress the exterior button, and snap the door shut—instantly trapping the keys in the ignition with the engine idling happily."

So, when I got out and closed the door I must have pressed the exterior thumb button while closing the door. Duh, I locked the keys inside the running car.

I was at the side of the highway, in a blinding storm, 30 miles from home locked out of my running Karmann Ghia. What to do? I had to get into the car. I could not force the rollup window down. It would not budge.

The snow on the road shoulder was getting deeper. No fun at all. I finally found a stone or maybe a piece of cinder block and smashed out the fixed side window on the driver side. I was able to reach in and unlock the door. I might have stuffed a blanket, or maybe my jacket into the window frame, and drove the remaining 30 miles. I was cold, wet, grateful, and feeling really stupid. The window replcement was not too expensive.

I've never since locked myself out of anything.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Karmann Ghia Night