Beetle Boards

I just saw a site on the Internet today called myfreecar.com. It's a deal where advertisers will reimburse you in some way (I didn't read the fine print) for letting them turn your car into a mobile billboard. Again, just to show you kids (whippersnappers!) that there's nothing new under the sun:

In the early 70's, there was a program called Beetle Boards. If you had an old VW beetle, they would pay for a new paint job (one of those cheap-ass $99.99 ones) and then outfit you with big decals that you'd put on your VW. Then they'd pay you so much a month; I forget how much. But when you're in college and broke all the time, it seemed like a lot of money.

We got the Herbal Essence one, which looked pretty cool 'cause it was all sort of psychedelic.

A clever way to make extra cash in the 1970's was to become a beetleboarder. Many companies such as Beetleboards of America would pay owners of Volkswagen beetles a monthly stipend if they allowed their car to be repainted with graphics advertising stereos, soft drinks, blue jeans, and beer. In keeping with VW's image, advertising was geared toward the youth market, and prospective beetleboarders were interviewd to match the driver to the product. A blue jean advertiser, for example, tended to prefer a long-haired driver, while a beer company would choose athletic, clean-cut young men. It is unknown when this practice died out, but some beetleboards were sighted in Los Angeles, CA in the early 1980's.