(Recollections of Joe Ragucci – recorded 1/10/2005 by Joe Ragucci)
On the VW, the wheel was connected to the axle with a geared spline and was held in place with a simple cotter pin.  The axle was hard metal but the wheel was soft.  So if you didn’t tighten the wheel tight enough – or if the cotter pin broke, the axle would wear away the gears on the wheel.  Eventually, the wheel wouldn’t turn because there were no more gears left.  This happened several times.  However, the worse situation was one day I was driving in Woodbridge down Green Street toward the Rt 35 intersection when all of a sudden I felt a thump and the rear of the car dropped suddenly. I hit the brakes and nothing happened.  I was still moving rapidly toward the intersection which was now a red light.  I steered the car to the curb and kept driving into the curb to slow down which eventually worked.  What had happened was the cotter pin broke, the wheel came off of the axle but was jammed under the large fenders which kept the car upright.  What a fright that was!