Dan Ouellette

For everyone who ever drove one, crammed into one, or plays Punch Buggy when one drives by, here comes The Volkswagen Bug Book. Filled with 200 color and black-and-white photos of everybody's favorite car, The Bug Book is a high-design trip back to when Beetles filled the highways, Flower Children roamed the streets, and Love and Bug were forever linked. Author Dan Ouellette combed the archives of the official Volkswagen museum in Wolfsburg, Germany, for the best historical photos. Back home, Ouellette collected photographs of the most remarkable vintage VWs in the country as well as some less than pristine but nevertheless lovable models. The Bug Book is filled with personal anecdotes, detailed history and little known facts about the German car that zoomed into America's heart. For new Bug owners, there's a chapter devoted to Bug 2.0 and how it grew. It's the collector's most comprehensive Beetle book yet, and for everyone else, it's the book that coffee tables can't resist.

In the summer of 2003, the last original Beetle rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico and an era ended. In fact, author Dan Ouellette was featured at the time on The Connection with host Michael Goldfarb on WBUR/Boston [listen]. But like the car it celebrates, The Volkswagen Bug Book isn't going to fade away -- it has gained a new life, in an updated paperbound edition.

Author Dan Ouellette has been driving a Volkswagen Beetle for more than 25 years. Off road, he is a music critic for Down Beat, and writes about all forms of American culture for Salon, Esquire and his home-town paper The San Francisco Examiner. Now living in New York City, Dan confesses his orange 1974 Bug has been supplanted by a new silver Beetle... but the old one's up on blocks in the garage awaiting a complete restoral.