VW Bugged: Tree Falls on Columbia Heights

Looks like this tree branch went after the VW rather than wait for a bug to come to it. At around 1:30 p.m. on Columbia Heights near Clark Street, a tree branch crashed on the hood of this vintage Volkswagen Bug. The good news is that there doesn’t appear to be much, if any, damage. They just don’t make cars like that anymore.

Our intrepid correspondent Karl Junkersfeld shot video as well, which you can view by clicking on

Less than two weeks ago, the Parks Department’s contractors pruned the trees on this very block. The irony. (Note that when Karl says “Willow” he actually means “Columbia Heights.”)

BHB reader GHB also sent in a photo:

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  • lois

    When I first saw this report, I said, “Oh no, not the VW bug the owner spends so many hours working on.” Hopefully, there was not much damage. I will check it out tomorrow when we all have to do the Tuesday morning shuffle.

  • lois

    PS Thanks for the video, Karl. Glad that no human was harmed during the filming of that episode. You have gone from reporting the news to causing news. Will we ever see the video you were originally planning to film?

  • Hicks St Guy

    I like that orange bug, had 1 bug and two Karmann Ghias back in the day. Loved how they floated across large puddles.

  • Villager

    I owned a ’71 Super Beetle in the past and performed extensive body work (I took 2 separate vehicles with serial numbers only separated by a count of 13, sequentially, and combined them into one car), I can say that any damage to the hood is brutal. This mostly goes the same for any car, but the hood is the show piece. With all the integral, structural curves in the Beetle hood, it’s hard to get it all banged out properly again. It would appear from the photo that the driver’s side edge would have been tweaked, at a minimum. After market hoods are crap, the metal isn’t the same.What’s worse is if the hinges got bent at all. Getting the hood to seat properly and to have equal spacing all around is tricky.
    I, too, loved my Bug. A completely unique vehicle.
    Best of luck to the owner.

  • BH’er

    did it make any noise?

  • ujh

    Look out for the annual Volkswagen exhibition on Governors Island in the summer – some 70 vehicles from the 1950’s to the latest hotrods.