John Muir (1918–1977) was a structural engineer who worked for National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), who "dropped out," 1960s-style, to become a writer and long-haired car mechanic with a garage in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...

, specializing in maintenance and repair of

Volkswagens Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...

. He was a distant relative of the naturalist

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

''How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive''

In 1969, Muir collaborated with the artist Peter Aschwanden to create the definitive manual for

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a ...

owners, titled ''How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive; A Manual of Step-By-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot''. Entirely hand-lettered with intricate hand-drawn illustrations, Muir's self-published edition sold more than two million copies to become one of the most successful self-published books in history, while its wry subtitle preceded (and likely inspired) the unending flow of "

for Dummies ''For Dummies'' is an extensive series of instructional reference books which are intended to present non-intimidating guides for readers new to the various topics covered. The series has been a worldwide success with editions in numerous lang ...

" books from IDG Publishing, and other "idiot's guide to ..." books. Presently, the 19th Edition, with updated material by Tosh Gregg and Aschwanden remains widely available. Although first published at the end of the 1960s, the Volkswagen was an iconic 1960s vehicle, and in retrospect this book is iconic of

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

' funky do-it-yourself, make-do culture. Muir's second book, published in 1973, ''The Velvet Monkeywrench,'' was an ambitious attempt to, as Muir put it, "lay out this structure, the bones of a completely new establishment," a proposal that included detailed plans for the replacement of the United States of America with the Republic of North America. The book remains available from Ocean Tree Books.

Death

Muir died in November 1977 of a

brain tumor A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...

, just short of his 59th birthday. In 1999, John Muir Publications was sold to

Avalon Travel Publishing Perseus Books Group was an American publishing company founded in 1996 by investor Frank Pearl. Perseus acquired the trade publishing division of Addison-Wesley (including the Merloyd Lawrence imprint) in 1997. It was named Publisher of the Y ...

, with publishing rights to ''How to Keep ...'' going to Avalon.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muir, John 1918 births 1977 deaths American engineers American writers