I say “then” because what I need to reach my destination is a Time Machine.
What does it take to make me post again after a week? This:
In 1959, Volkswagen Beetle cars offered a coffee maker as an optional extra.
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) December 29, 2025
Science girl is apparently not making this up. Remember when Volkswagens were cool? Well, I didn’t even know how cool until I ran across that on social media.
The best part is — or would be, if I had the Time Machine (why am I capitalizing Time Machine? because that’s what H.G. did) — is that I could actually buy one of these babies, new, for less than $1,000 if I could bring it back with me. Coffeemaker included. Because, you know, that was another of the coolest things about the People’s Car back in the day. Chic cheapness.
Sure, there are several things we haven’t worked out yet:
- How to build a working Time Machine.
- How to make it big enough to bring back a then-new Beetle. This one wouldn’t work, although I admit it’s got plenty of style. (Doc Brown thought his machine had style. Huh. It wasn’t as ugly as a Cybertruck, but it was almost as boxy.)
- How to — and this is the hard one, for someone as financially challenged as myself — how to take the money back with me in a form that would transfer to a spendable grand in the desired time and place. I mean, you don’t want to try to go back and earn it, because that wasn’t the easiest thing to do in 1959. It was like coming up with more than $11,000 today. It might take you a couple of hours.
Which I suppose is why we mostly just drive our cars to a Starbucks now.
