My friend and I drove that bug from Savannah GA to Notre Dame South Bend IN for a convention.
One thing I remember about Notre Dame was "Touchdown Jesus" at the stadium
Posted on 07/09/2019 5:48:56 AM PDT by McGruff
Volkswagen is halting production of the last version of its Beetle model this week at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. It’s the end of the road for a vehicle that has symbolized many things over a history spanning the eight decades since 1938.
It has been: a part of Germany’s darkest hours as a never-realized Nazi prestige project. A symbol of Germany’s postwar economic renaissance and rising middle-class prosperity. An example of globalization, sold and recognized all over the world. An emblem of the 1960s counterculture in the United States. Above all, the car remains a landmark in design, as recognizable as the Coca-Cola bottle.
The car’s original design — a rounded silhouette with seating for four or five, nearly vertical windshield and the air-cooled engine in the rear — can be traced back to Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who was hired to fulfill German dictator Adolf Hitler’s project for a “people’s car” that would spread auto ownership the way the Ford Model T had in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Had that(red) one and a Bermuda blue one. Went up scale to a CG, a bus and a Combi. I always felt that if the original was still built today, I would have bought another. The Big difference is, was it worth 15K today, for what was sold here for about 1600?
I owned one in 1977 and had one memorable road trip to Toronto. We arrived on Good Friday and the city was closed.
My friend and I drove that bug from Savannah GA to Notre Dame South Bend IN for a convention.
One thing I remember about Notre Dame was "Touchdown Jesus" at the stadium
AFAIK the design was stolen from Czechoslovakian Tatra by the Nazi. The bug has so much in common with 1930s Tatras and more like a simplified worse version of them.
Research Tatra T87. Twenty years before Beatle, similar architecture but also V8 powered with comfy independent suspension, four speed synchronized transmission and doing 110 mph at 20 mpg. And all of that in 1930s.
It took other companies decades to catch with specs.
Is that a ‘67?
“AFAIK the design was stolen from Czechoslovakian Tatra by the Nazi.”
That seems like a gross simplification. Porsche had been trying to create what became the Volkswagen since the 1920s and the T87 and Beetle prototypes were being developed at the same time. Lots of differences in the two designs as well,
Must have needed that shark fin for 110 mph.
Yes...bought new in Oct. 1966. Built like Swiss...er German watch.
Corvair was a bit more efficient at gassing its occupants than the Bug, though.
My first car was a 1972 yellow VW Beetle. Bought it brand new for $1900! Gas was 18 cents a gallon. Could fill up for a couple of bucks! Those were the days!
That is one sweet car!
My then-boyfriend had a white 1972 Super Beetle when we started dating and then had it painted red. I loved that car. A few years after we got married he gave it back to his dad (he didn’t even tell me - I would have argued against it!) and we bought something else. He regretted it for years until about 2 - 3 years ago, we found a red, 1972 Super Beetle for sale and since we had the money, we bought it. It had been owned by one person, a professor at NC State, who kept it in a garage and when his grandson didn’t want it he sold it. It only had 64,000 miles on it. The real kicker was that it had a 1979 parking sticker from NC State on it and that was the year we started dating. Of course we had to buy it.
Call me crazy but I think if they made a limited retro edition of the Super Beetle, people would line up to buy one. There would be tons of money to be made.
Peach
Great Beetle story! Thanks.
I bought a brand new VW THING made in Mexico back in 1974. A piece of junk in which everything fell apart on it. A Lemon of lemons. it spent weekends in the VW shop when I should have been bouncing out in the back country roads.
I later sold it to an unauthorized VW 2nd hand dealer, and within a day he had it running like a top.
Owned the original Beatles for years. Had a ‘58, 62, 68 and also VW Bus, 1960 or 1961 model, I forget which.
Very simple, easy to work on cars. Truly a peoples car.
My late mom drove one for a number of years in Hong Kong. She bought brand-new a 1961 model with the 40 bhp 1192 cc engine, which was a lot for a Beetle in those days. She’d pass everyone driving Morris Minors (a common car in Hong Kong in those days) like they were all standing still, especially going up to Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island.
Spent munitions?
I had a beetle Jr and Sr years in HS. Pulled into a gas station with my Mother once and only had 15 cents. She was embarrassed but I could run a whole day on that when gas was cheap. Those were the days!
Pretty good video that explains the early history of the Beetle.
I owned a ‘57 Beetle, a ‘66 Squareback and a ‘66 Beetle. I rebuilt the ‘57 with a Sears kit for $90. Lol. Great cars if you were mechanically inclined. The new ones bear no relationship to the old ones and were pretty terrible if you got the automatic tranny.
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