Curbside Classics takes you back to 1971 for a virtual comparison test of six small cars, based (and partly borrowed) from a C/D test. This piece tries to give a balanced account of the Beetle’s strengths and weaknesses in its sunset years. First posted here in 2011.
If you were going to a speed-dating event, and were thirty-three years older than all the “competition”, you might be forgiven for wanting some quick cosmetic surgery. But if the result was a reverse Michael Jackson, you’d damn well better hope that your “experience”, “build,” and other timeless qualities are still in demand; otherwise, like this 1971 VW Super Beetle, your days of finding willing partners/buyers are numbered.
By 1970 or so, the Beetle was in terminal decline in both Europe and the U.S. In the Old Country, modern FWD cars like the Fiat 128, Simca 1100 and Austin 1100 were light years ahead of the VW in terms of space efficiency, driving dynamics, visibility and fuel economy.
In the US., the Corolla, Datsun 1200 and Opel Kadett were nipping at the Beetle’s heels, despite their conventional RWD. But Americans always placed more emphasis on reliability than innovation: the Austin 1100/America had already struck out, and the Simca and Fiat 128 were as yet unproven, but highly suspect, in that department.
In addition to the new FWD competition in Europe, GM and Ford were known to be developing all-new “killer” small cars for 1971. VW was under the gun at the very time of Wolfsburg’s long performance-anxiety period. They’d known for years, even decades, that eventually they’d have to replace the Beetle. And despite endless home-brew and Porsche-designed prototypes, all they could come up with was this 1971 Super Beetle, sporting a new front end. Well, Viagra hadn’t been invented yet.
A new front end, period. I guess you could call it one-third of a new car, but then it looks so much like the old one that most people can’t tell the difference. Why bother?
The new MacPherson front suspension and bulbous hood doubled the size of the front luggage compartment from ridiculously small, to only somewhat ridiculously small. But hey, the turning circle got a hair smaller. And beginning with the 1973 model, the windshield was not only much larger, but now curved. And that’s about the extent of it. For VW purists, however, the timeless balance and symmetry of Edwin Kommenda’s ageless 1938 design had been ruined by the collagen-injected nose. Fortunately, the big noses were only a temporary fad; after 1975, the old one came back until the Beetle’s ultimate, if protracted, demise. The Super Beetle was a short-lived phenomenon.
In terms of dynamic qualities, the Beetle reached its zenith in 1971. Power was up to sixty (gross) horsepower from the 1,600 cc air-cooled boxer, thanks to new dual-port heads. Zero-to-sixty now came in sixteen seconds, almost unheard of for a Beetle. That still made it the slowest in this comparison with most of the competition, but only slightly so. Fuel economy was down to a disappointing 24 mpg.
The first time I drove one of these later 1600s on the freeway, I was almost a mile down the road before I realized I was still in third gear! The gearing was so much lower with the larger engines; my 40 hp Beetle topped out at about forty-five in third gear. Of course, that also made for quieter cruising, but the drop in mileage was unacceptable. The 40 hp Beetle was the Prius of its time, and this 25% drop in efficiency was a stain on the Beetle’s economy-car rep.
The rear suspension had lost its swing axles a couple years earlier. In fact, the Super Beetle now had the same suspension design, front and rear, as the Porsche 911. As per C/D: “the transients are very quick and the tail wags like a loaded station wagon, but the Beetle no longer feels like it will roll over and play dead if you corner a bit too hard…”
Europeans even got the front-disc treatment. But even with the U.S.-spec drum brakes, it turned in the second-best 70-0 panic stop, at 200 feet–one benefit of having a rear-engine (not to mention the unparalleled traction).
But the interior was as narrow and cramped as 1938, and the heater . . . oh wait, it now had a two-speed electric fan to push the tepid air somewhat faster. Why did you think VW got away with making the Beetle for thirty more years only in balmy Brazil and Mexico?
In Europe, where buyers were being tempted away by more modern offerings, the Beetle’s decline started earlier and was more rapid. In the U.S., VW still moved some 350,000 units in 1970. The Beetle was still (but barely) riding the momentum of its major assets: tank-like build quality, reliability, excellent dealer network and service, and popular sentiment. It was the flower Bug, an icon for a whole generation. But like for lots of sacred cows in 1971, change was in the air, blowing straight-on from the (far) east. Volkswagens don’t like headwinds.
Not surprisingly, the VW’s build quality is what most impressed the C/D editors: “Despite the Beetle’s 1938 infirmities, it has quality of a kind none of the competitors can match. The whole car feels as solid as a Supreme Court decision, first-rate materials are used throughout and it is all fastened together as if it was meant to stay that way for several dozen years. You can almost like it for that alone. But not quite”. How about three-and-a-half dozen, and still going strong?
It didn’t take an oracle to come up with that prophecy. But to me, the outcome became all too obvious in the hunt for photographic stand-ins for our six competitors. While I was lucky to find one example of most of them, there are more old Beetles in Eugene than I can shake a camera at. In fact, I’m well on my way to having a complete year-by-year collection, starting around 1959 or so.
This Super Beetle caught my eye with its fetching red rims and matte-black respray. When I think 1971, all I can see in my mind’s eye are bright yellow, green and orange VWs, and not just in flashbacks. But I like this color combo, in a grudging sort of way. And of course, matte-black paint and red wheels were originally used on the very first-ever VW, like the 1946 CC. That’s because I’m a purist when it comes to VWs. Give me an oval-window ’57 with a vintage Okrasa twin-carb setup, Porsche slotted wheels, a little negative camber dialed into the rear wheels, and I’m good to go. And hold the cosmetic surgery.
It should not come as a surprise that the Toyota Corolla ranked ahead of the VW in this comparison. It was mostly held back by its weak 1,200 cc engine, which was supplanted by a much more powerful 1600 within a couple of years. But the die was cast: Americans had discovered that Toyota and other Japanese brands offered more comfort, performance, style, room and features, all at a terrific price point. And even though they might not have had the Beetle’s bank-vault construction, their quality was good, and still rising.
Within a few years, the Beetle was gone from the American marketplace, replaced by the Golf/Rabbit, which was dynamically superb but quality-challenged. VW had done a somersault–one that upended its virtual hegemony in the import market.
1971 Comparison car #1 (winner)
I simply don’t understand the nostalgia for these. They were terrible cars.
Years back the grandson had one in his dirty “hippie” phase. I don’t think it was the super model though. Drove it for a couple days once while I let him my Country Squire for hauling.
Death trap on wheels. Cramped and uncomfortable. Like driving a tin can with a clattery engine in the back. The wind would blow the sorry contraption all over the roadway. Slightest hint of rain would make the windows foggy with no recourse from the non-existent defroster.
My first car was a used ’63 and I loved it. Much later I landed in the Northwest and marveled in all the rust-free old cars. I picked up a ’65 bug and discovered all the other ways an old car can die.
Replaced the speedo from a junkyard one day. Two days later a bee crawled out of the little hole for the light. The dial glass is part of the dash, not the speedometer, which the bee made its home in the junkyard. It fought with the needle on the way up, eventually the needle would snap past it. Same battle on the way down. Very entertaining. After awhile it just stayed stuck behind the needle and died there, at 25 mph. Next day I got pulled over for speeding. I told him the story and showed him the bee, swore I’d fix it right away and he let me off. “Never heard that one before.”
I got T-boned in that car, an old guy jumped out of a parking lot right into me, not all that fast really. It folded up like a paper cup. Filled the empty baby seat next to me with shattered glass. That was it. Got a slightly-rusty but great-running small-block ’73 Nova hatch my friend brought out from Wisconsin. I felt a sudden need for heavy iron around me and that baby seat.
Too bad. The Type-1 VW was brilliant.
MikePDX: Thanks for fixing your avatar! Reddy Kilowatt deserves the best!
It’s easy to understand the nostalgia for the Beetle, if you owned one: they were reliable, cheap to buy and run (bought mine for $200 from a hippy in Venice), well-built (350,000 miles on the original motor) and got great gas mileage (my 1958 VW got 30 mpg). My bug rarely broke down, and when it did, I could do all the work myself. The heater was never an issue because we lived in sunny Southern California. In comparison, my dad owned the “technologically superior” 1964 Jaguar E-type: it was always in the shop, ridiculously expensive to have fixed (forget working on it yourself), got around 15 mpg, and parts fell off it like a maple tree molting in the fall.
Yes these were well loved in the day, but one thing I don’t hear about is that one exhaust valve that burned due to not enough air cooling. I seem to remember seeing many of these in driveways with the engine on the ground getting heads rebuilt. Or was that my imagination?
I have had my 1971 Super Beetle for 35 years here in hot north Florida. Drove the original engine for twenty years without a problem. Then I decided to install a new engine but drove the old engine to the shop 25 miles away. I still have that original engine and it still is in running condition (I will install new pistons soon for more compression). The engines will last a long time time if you adjust the valves regularly, change the oil and have the correct timing.
I have a 16 years old Suzuki and it needs engine work, my VW is 48 years old and it runs great!
People questioning the nostalgia for older VWs should also question the nostalgia for the gaudy, chrome-laden boulevard cruisers from the 1950s.
I’ve never held anything against the Super Beetle and in the event that it becomes difficult to find a “regular” Beetle, I’ll take one of those pregnant Beetles.
Volkswagens, either you get them or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.
While you are telling us how stupid we are why don’t you tell us what kind of cars you think are great? I might think they are complete crap.
Oh and guess what? If it was such a terrible car why were over 21 million built over a span of 60 years? Enough people liked them to make the Beetle the best selling car in the world for a long time. The numbers speak for themselves.
Brainwashing, herd mentality, hallucinogenic drugs, and in some cases, the lack of anything better?
Finally, someone HONEST about these crapboxes. The Beetle was a relic from the 1930s and should have been euthanized by about 1950. They actually did nothing well except “cute”. Honestly, a Yugo is probably a better choice.
Nothing else with 2WD beats a Beetle off-road.
The matte black finish is popular among a brand of hipster these days. I recently saw a Bentley here in LA with that look. It looked like some death car out of a bad horror flick.
I was just reminded of something – must’ve been that matte black – the 1969 movie “Castle Keep” with Burt Lancaster, Peter Falk and a host of others – yes – that was the only WW2 movie in which a VW ever appeared in, I believe – and it was matte black – it was even shown floating! Historically correct in a weird, weird movie! As far a floating went, some friends and I actually tried this – in the Missouri river at Washington, Missouri in 1967 or so. Yeah, it did float and scared us three absolutely to death! The driver shoved it into reverse and got out of the water real quick. I feel better, now!
Of course the most famous floating VW was this one, from the National Lampoon:
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2009/08/Ted_Kennedy_VW2_EDIT.jpg
If it really was floating, putting it in reverse gear would have had no effect.
“Give me an oval-window ’57 with a vintage Oskra twin-carb set up, Porsche slotted wheels, and a little negative camber dialed into the rear wheels, and I’m good to go.”
Me too!
Always loved the air-cooled VWs, especially the classic type 1. But I must admit the SB with its strut front end drives, rides, and handles much better than the oldies did. You could always do a 5 speed conversion, for better economy and performance — it’s not cheap, though.
After the passage of so much time I find it looks far less objectionable, too. Maybe I’ll have to find one of those to tow behind my old Revcon…
The correct spelling is Okrasa
oops; typo. Fixed.
More random memories: A buddy of mine back in my air force days owned a dark green VW. He drove it like it was a Porsche, scared me to death several times in it, but always a thrill. Another friend bought a new 1973 model, orange, just like in the photo above, a Super Beetle with the auto stick shift. I took care(!) of it for him while he was overseas for a few months and a week before I got out of the air force, I burnt out #3 piston for not keeping the engine sufficiently revved in the 100°+ heat! VW in Yuba City fixed it under warranty and I kept it well-revved my last three days. Another guy had a red one and he had every panel pin-striped white! I think he waxed it every other day, too, almost as much as I waxed the 1964 Impala I had out there.
My dad had a couple of Super Beetles around ’83-’84. A “promotion” meant that he lost his company car my folks couldn’t afford another car payment. All told, they weren’t too awful compared to the company-issue X-car dad had just turned in. Crude, cramped and dangerously slow, but lots of character. Not bad for a then-12 year old car with 45 year old engineering.
When I was in high school I had a girlfriend who owned a Beetle, a regular one. It was a 1969 model, but by 1977 that thing was a rolling piece of Swiss cheese. But in our teenage ‘cheesieness’ we called the car our “Love Bug”. (Yes, I know, yuck) The heater tubes had rusted out long ago, and it was the only car I think I ever scraped the INSIDE of the windshield after scraping the outside of the windshield. But, with the rear engine we could rarely say we got stuck and have people believe us. Oh well…
Hey look! The edit button is back! Sweet!
My wife’s grandmother bought one of these new in 1971 (a 4-speed) at the age of 62, and drove it until she quit driving at the age of 87. It was creme-colored.
Believe it or not, while she owned it, it was never washed, yet looked like new. Her secret was to park it in the garage and wipe it down with a towel when it got wet. She had the tires, belt, and battery changed every two years just because. It became a family icon.
She willed it to my brother-in-law, who received it in 2003 when she passed. Now, as a 40-year-old car, it only has only 50k miles on it, and still looks great.
My dad had one during embargo years. We loved riding on the tiny running boards as he came up the driveway from work.
I still recall the oil smell and pathetic heater.
He hit a german shepherd and the VW dealer could never repair the resulting front end shimmy. This lead him to conclude that it was the only car he ever owned that was totaled by a dog! Leading him to a “if it can’t be fixed lets try to kill it attitude” in which he never changed the oil, only adding when needed. It was still running well in 1978 when he traded it for a Buick LeSabre turbo. Sadly another sob story….
I was on my way back from Phoenix, AZ yesterday, driving to Gallup, NM using the I-17 to Flagstaff I-40 route. I was just kissing the Flagstaff limits on I-17 when in the opposite direction came a VW Bettle, bright red, chrome gleaming, baby moon style hubcaps and trim rings. A young man was at the wheel and it had the chrome lugage rack on the roof. For a brief second, wizzing through the pines, a few inches of snow on the ground, and the sun shinning brightly… I would have sworn that I had suddenly hit a worm hole and been transported to Bavaria and backward 40 years in time. Beautiful vehicle.
Dan: Glad you had a safe trip! Welcome back! Was the Beetle you saw two-toned? I saw several of those in the San Jose area a few years ago while on vacation. Those are stunning! There’s one near where I live – baby blue with white sides. Pretty cute.
Nope, solid red, which is why the chrome stood out so well.
BTW I answered your question in the “rally wheels” thread about “baby moon hubcaps.” See a guy called “Hubcap Mike” http://hubcapmike.com/ he says the baby moons and trim rings only fit American cars up to 1990 so you’re out of luck on the Impala but he does have the old “racing disks.” Which I personally love.
Back in ’78 a buddy of mine had a pristine dark blue ’67. We put a fresh 1600 dual port with a trick EMPI header/exhaust but most importantly, new heater boxes. Somehow this VW had the best heat I have ever experienced. The heat ducts under the rear seat would put out all kinds of heat, how much heat you ask?? How about enough to melt a plastic bong that was placed in front of the duct behind the drivers seat in about an hour during a road trip. We didn’t notice until we stopped for some munchies and decided to take another hit before hitting the road again. Had to use a soda can………….
Is this really a Super Beetle.?
I thought the Super Beetles all had a curved windshield like the orange one in the other photos. This black one looks like a smaller flat windshield like on the standard beetle.
The Super Beetle name came in 1971 with the introduction of strut front suspension and the longer wheelbase. The curved windshield appeared on Super Beetles starting with the 1973 model.
In the rest of the world’s markets the 1971-72 flattish screen one is the 1302 (1300cc drum brakes) or 1302S (1600cc and front discs)
The 1973 on with heavily curved screen are called 1303 and 1303S. (the ‘S’ again denoting 1600cc and disc brake
With certain market variations that was about it,still plenty of them left, the astounding prices asked for VWs amazes a mate of mine he still has two both have required 7k+ engine rebuilds in the last 12 months, usual issues but if you can keep feeding the new engines in they run a long time, they had the same problems from new most small cars by 1960 out performed beetles or could at least keep up then the Japanese cars turned up even here people bought them a mate of mine was selling Toyota spares in the 70s it was very busy, they werent especially reliable but the parts were reasonably priced and easily available, VW had none of those advantages,
I often drove a 55 beetle at high school and also drove a near new 1302S the difference was night and day, disc brakes were standard fitment on local assembly cars from the mid 60s even the Australian cars all the British and French cars, VW finally caught up and Citroens brake rear axle first it is very effective.
I’m with you Paul, the earlier the better when it comes to the beetle!
I’ll admit my prejudice. The Super Beetle, in my case a 1972, was my first car; or rather, the first car I had titled in my own name, paid for with the sweat of my brow.
There’s no denying it was obsolete; by modern standards a death trap. The heat exchangers, as with most Beetles with a few salt winters, had rusted out…there was no heat. The cowl fan generated defroster air…COLD defroster air.
For all that, it had appeal. One thing overlooked, here and elsewhere today: That thing was a road car. It was superbly balanced…on one long rural Ohio downgrade, I got the thing over 100 mph. A rush? Lemme TELL ya…
For whatever reason, I’m partial to the light restyling. It was functional (the MacPherson strut suspension, cribbed from Porsche) and to my eye, put the whole front quarter in better proportions. Compared to the standard Beetle (two friends had examples) the steering was very light, and much more precise. It had no more power than the standard, but I was willing to take more chances…the feeling I could drive around cracks in the concrete.
That car, the Super Beetle, was a perfect paradigm of the times. Exaggerated proportions; slightly mod…like boot-cut Levis. Wildly obsolete yet somehow modern. A car for a kid…a kid of those times.
One more thing: Although the Super Beetle/Le Grande Bug ended production in 1975, the Karmann convertible continued to use the Super Beetle chassis right up until its 1980 end. So although the original Beetle soldiered on in the States until 1977, the last legally-imported Beetles were, in fact, of the Super flavor.
In 1982, I inherited a 1973 “Standard” Beetle from my brother. He had bouth it in 1978 from my sister, who bought it new in 1973. A real $1,995 special, no radio, no nothin’.
But that car was so impressively built; the doors were solid, the steel was thick, and everything fit together like a …German car.
Oil changes and valve adjustments were about all it ever needed.
An engine rebuild at 125K, another at 200K. Sold it in 1993 for $1,000. Not a bad resale investment; and that was with the rusted pan under the battery.
I replaced the heater boxes and it would crank out heat like nobody’s business. I keep hearing about “No Heat”, but if you took care and replaced them when they (inevitable) rusted out, you had tons of heat.
One fun fact: I replaced the US selaed beams with Cibie Z-Beams; and if I ran too long on high beams ) made some long bask-roads drives through Alabama and Mississippi in those days), they’d drain the battery, and if I stopped for gas and didn’t run on low beams for a few miles, it wouldn’t re-start. .
They never became cheap here either buy or repair, not even now, by the time the stuff gets here the freight and handling/currency disparity can more than triple the price,
but its the same for all old cars now, Hillman oversize pistons from Aussie were nearly 1K in local roubles and a door seal kit wasnt cheap either but that is the world source and my car does see rural gravel roads and lives in the rain and the factory set leak from day one right of the line,
they must have a very dry climate where that car was designed!!
I just bought that Beetle in those pics lol
Late to the party here, why have I not seen this site before this week? One of the best, if not the best sites of its type I have run across yet.
Anyway, my first new car was a ’73 Super Beetle (curved windshield). I remember that it came down between the VW and a Corolla, and VW won. After 40 years I don’t remember why but it probably had to do with Toyota being relatively new then and they hadn’t developed the reputation for reliablity they have now. To be honest my Super Beetle was a POS; by 1973 the emissions regs had really eaten into whatever power the flat four had and it was very slow. In addition, as others have mentioned, it wasn’t very economical. I got about 22 MPG, probably because I treated the accelerator as an “off/on” switch until reaching cruising speed. The only good thing to come out of this experience was that I was able to sell the car for what I had paid after driving it a year or so. When the first gas crisis hit in 1974 small cars of any description were easy to sell.
I can still remember my reaction upon seeing the Super Beetle for the first time. By 1971, 12 year old me was certainly used to a steady stream of progress, but as for the new VW, my reaction was “they have ruined the Beetle.” It was certainly more modern, and within a few years became the default VW seen everywhere. But the new car never had the aesthetic or the charm of the original.
I am surprised at the nasty drop in fuel economy. But I guess trying to squeeze ever more power out of the air cooled boxer had to hit the red zone of the trade-off-meter at some point.
I spotted more VW Beetle trivia on Jalopnik about the Beetle sold in South Africa http://jalopnik.com/5962574/the-freaky-frankenstein-vw-beetles-of-south-africa
Up here in the northeast salt belt, we simply do not see that many vw’s anymore, and the ones that we do see aren’t the super variety. The strut assemblies would rot away at the top, and destroy the cars, while the old torsion suspensions wouldn’t. with the older cars it was just cheaper to replace the floor pans every so often.
Would like to see links to the rest of this comparison. I could dig them up myself, but you might get more page hits from having the full set of links here and on the others. Just a suggestion.
There’s links to the next car at the bottom (or top) of each post. But perhaps the full set would be better….I’ll add them.
They’re all there now.
Like Ben5, I never saw the hoopla about Beetles. This might be due to the fact I was born a little after the massive VW boom. By the time I got to driving, there were not a lot of Beetles in Soviet Canuckistan. They did not stand up well to our winters and especially the zillion tonnes of road salt that go on Quebec and Ontario roads every year. VW’s were bought as cheap, disposable cars in Cancukistan since they were horribly cold in the winter. The fresh air heater couldn’t even make a dent on our cold and the gas heater (if and when it worked) made the thing suck fuel like a Lincoln.
When I was in high school, lots of the boys had Bugs and all they seemed to do is talk about how they fixed them. I was never that fond of doing that, so while they wrenched on their VW’s, I burned around on a stone reliable Honda motorcycle in good weather and an equally reliable Datsun 1200 in the bad. I paid $700 for the Datsun, it never stranded me and the heater worked great! In contrast, I saw Bugs as slow, cold and unreliable.
In my opinion, THE greatest car repair book ever written is “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step by Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot” by John Muir.
If you have any interest in cars, how they’re put together and how to fix them with your own 2 hands and brain, then this book is the Genesis for all car lovers and a must buy. I’ve never owned a Beetle or Super Beetle (but I do own a New Beetle) but I always heard of this book and the cult following it has, so I went out and bought my own copy. Trust me, this book is a must have for your collection. It’s more then a car repair book….. it’s a guide to living a simple and uncomplicated life, too. All and I do mean, ALL car repair books take a back seat to this masterpiece.
Plus, the late Peter Aschwanden’s illustrations are just a treat to see. They are just as important as the text written by Mr Muir. A Classic for all time…..
Always loved the Super Beetle, especially when it received the wraparound windshield. The car simply got better looking and was of course nicer and safer to sit in.
Could never understand why someone would not like the ever so slightly squared off hood and new windshield. Made little difference to the icon shape as evidenced by the New Beetle, which was arguably more of a copy of the Super Beetle than original Beetle.
I feel people dump on the Super Beetle because it’s human nature to repeat things you’ve heard. When people throw that out I like to challenge them by asking what was unattractive about it. “Well they changed the original shape, that’s always a mistake.” To which I point out that the Porsche 356 went through several windshield designs until it finally ended up with a large wraparound one. The 356 never looked better and was an inspiration, I believe, for the Super Beetle.
It may not come as a surprise to you that I have never quite gotten over the 356 B and C. I understand why the changes were made, but they ruined the purity of the original 356 big time. To each their own.
Still have nightmares from long distance trips in my family’s 1962(?) Beetle, hot, noisy & my mother would smoke heavily w/the windows rolled up… But I’m still enamored of ’65 & earlier Type IIs, (uBuses) & would love to have one except I’m in Texas & buses don’t do AC. (Built a ’65 bus for an ex-gf back in the day, don’t miss the ex one bit but still miss the bus… Btw doing the 12V conversion w/a power drill running a grinding stone was a bear but it worked, the final bellhousing grinding I did w/the starter teeth of the flywheel)
Minor correction: 2-speed fan was a “fresh air” fan and served only to push ambient air into the car. It did not interact with the heater or defroster. This I recall from my ’74 Super Beetle. Otherwise a fine article, sir!
Seems to me they kept selling the Super Beetle convertible ,even after the Rabbit was introduced, until about 1980 or so. Maybe they should have introduced the New Bug in 1980.
I wonder if it’s the car itself that people get nostalgic about, or the long gone days when a car like this would actually sell in large numbers. Probably a little of both. People were a lot less fussy then. A car this minimalistic would be dead on arrival nowadays. As W.C. Fields once said ” Those were the good old days. I hope we never see them again.”
A college friend had one of these in 1983, it was a ’72 Super Beetle. I rode in it a few times. Terrible car. Noisy, cramped, underpowered and cold, and it wasn’t comfortable either. Good build quality could not overcome these drawbacks IMO. I never saw the appeal of these things. He traded it in spring ’84 for a ’78 Fairmont Futura, red on white. Despite not having stellar build quality, it was a better car in every other way.
Solid construction, cute looks, clever advertising.
I can see the attraction of a simple car without frills. the mechanics are easy to fix, but they still rusted like any other car of that age
Personally I prefer the Morris Minor, it has just as much character, is easy to fix and update, the A series engine is sweet, more economical and is water cooled so has a proper heater
In ’72 I went off to the Swiss Alps for my first two years of college. One of the guys had a ’73 1303S… better known as a Super Beetle. Light Blue, Black Vinyl. Kid drove like a maniac, and when it snowed in that part of the world, it was by the meter, not by the foot. That little VW was unstoppable with good snow tires. The lack of power wasn’t a bother- we had Alpine switchbacks, speed wasn’t going to happen. Unlike my Volvo 142S, and the BMW 2002 that followed, it did not eat it’s transmission going up and down the switchbacks. It had the auxiliary gas heater, so you never noticed how inadequate the standard system was.
Sooo… although I’ve never owned one, or had the desire to own one, I have the highest respect for those little cars. As long as you don’t crash one. Pic of local village below.
Why would you buy a VW if there was a Toyota available? If you wanted a small car and were a full-sized adult, you had to walk right past the Japanese cars.
At 6’3″ I’m not exactly a giant, but it was almost impossible for me to drive Japanese cars of that era.
It’s funny; when the Super Beetles were new, the front end seemed so obviously different; I remember my parents calling them “Pregnant Beetles.” Now, I don’t really think about it at all unless you park a 70 standard and 71 super right next to each other.
I had a 71 Super Beetle as a daily driver in 1989-90 or thereabouts. I enjoyed it, and there was a Beetle specialty shop in an adjoining neighborhood (since closed) that could fix anything that needed fixing. I had to shell out rather more coin than I wanted to when the spark plug threads on one cylinder stripped and couldn’t be retapped. Had to replace that head. Mine was the Automatic Stickshift semi-auto, which tends to draw derisive comments, but it worked very well and seemed well matched to the 60 HP engine.
My best memory of the ‘69 autostick Beetle my Dad bought for my sisters and I to drive while in high school is the windshield washer which I reversed, pumped up the spare tire that powered it to about 75 psi and then hit the streets terrorizing unsuspecting pedestrians in crosswalks.
The Bug was a ideal entry point for a 1st time driver, who didn’t have a clue as to its many shortcomings. That was me in the early 70s. While in high school, I bought a ’60 junker for $90 without a engine and proceeded to the installation of a later vintage 40HP rebuilt mill that was so patently simple, I could time and tune it in my sleep. I drove it through my 1st year of college but a long distance move dictated its sale. My Bug’s replacement was a Volvo 544, which demonstrated what I had been missing out on specifically, safety, a superior heating system, better handling and responsiveness, As the old saying goes, in order to appreciate what you’ve got, you’ve got to know what you’re missing.
It’s quite remarkable to look at the rankings with the benefit of hindsight, and no GM advertising dollars in my pocket. You could put the names in a hat, draw them out at random, and rank the cars that way. You’d probably have to repeat the process at least a dozen times before you’d come up with an order that served the reader as badly as talking advice from Car and Driver would have.
The first year Vega would have had the worst rust and fundamental mechanical issues of the bunch. On the other hand, it would have been pretty until it rusted, and it was also said to handle well.
The Simca was a look at the future of small cars, but it was made by the French and barely supported by Plymouth dealers. It was probably the best car of the bunch when it ran right, but that’s almost a hypothetical.
The Corolla was the car that was building a reputation instead of ruining one, so it would probably have been the best buy for anyone who wasn’t dealing with road salt or resentment from mistreatment as a POW in WWII.
The Pinto was pretty sound. They had significant quality issues, but if you had a good dealer who corrected the ignition timing, carburetor mount vacuum leaks, or loose exhaust manifold before the engine was damaged, they were as capable as any Ford of lasting 100,000 miles without catastrophic failures. Not that good, but not Vega or Simca bad either.
The VW was a bit of an antique, but it was a dependable antique that had strengths and weaknesses that were known by their buyers. I understand why it would be hard to rank highly against brand new competitors from big advertisers, but when is the last time someone told you that they bought a new Beetle before 1975 that let them down badly? I spent my childhood hearing those stores about the Vega and Pinto, not to mention seeing Vegas smoking on the side of the interstates. VWs were everywhere, and the people saying bad things about them were the ones who had no interest in owning one. Rabbits were different. Many people had Rabbit horror stories, often told within the context of how dependable their old Beetles had been.
Should the Gremlin have been last? Gas was still cheap in 1971, and the Gremlin probably had the most robust engines of any of the cars in the test. Packaging was bad, but beating BMW 2002s in road racing was good, and those cars were all much closer to stock than most sedan class racing cars have been or are. It probably also took longer for a Gremlin to rust beyond usefulness than any of the other cars. Was it a good small car? Not really. Were many of the others in this group worse? I could make that argument.
Beetles were so damn obsolete by 1970. The Datsun and Nissan – even the Pinto was light years ahead. I grew up with Beetles as my dad’s second car. Then ended up discovering that they were the used car of choice in college. I can’t believe we used them.
I got a chance to drive one several years ago. I was simply astounded at how crude they were. I felt like I was sitting in a kitchen chair looking through an aquarium tank windshield. Dash was thisclose. I can’t believe these were on the road.
Hmmm, not sure that “solid as a Supreme Court decision” would have the same resonance today.
True. They didn’t imagine new constitutional rights in order to usurp the enumerated powers of Article 1 until 1973.
Like Geozinger above, I too had a scrape the inside of the windshield experience. A buddy and I went out for burgers one winter evening in his ’68 Beetle, and being A&W, we sat and ate in the car. Well the windshield fogged up and froze solid inside. We tried using the cigarette lighter with minimal effect, and had to resort to the scraping method.
At least his car had a bit of heat when it got going, my ’62 had zero warm air. Also, rust had already claimed a good portion of the car when it came into my very brief ownership.
Having had a few of them in the 70’s I’ll offer my .02.
The better they got, the worse they got. The old 36HP cars couldn’t get out of their own way, but didn’t have enough power to hurt themselves. The 40HP did, on all counts, but barely. By the time they got up to 1500/1600, let alone dual port heads, they, for the day, weren’t all that slow, but no longer the legendary reliability. Even those newer ones would do quite well, if you drove them at 55-60. Who had time for that, not me!!!
Yes, the heaters were lacking, partly due to the lack of a blower. On the highway they did ok, I remember very hot air coming out at 70 on the freeway. But around town, putting along at maybe 35, when you weren’t sitting idling at a light? Not so much. But if the heater boxes were rusted out, don’t blame the car, would you blame a water cooled car with a bypassed leaking heater core for bad heat? No, that would be lack of maintenance.
As someone noted earlier their off road capabilities were surpassed only by 4WD vehicles. Engine over the driving wheels, good. Rear engine even better. Weight transfer going up hill in say the snow made them even better. The only places I got stuck were deep sand and going over a ridge when I got high centered. And the places I went…
An exceptional car for the era it was designed in, that was somehow more than the sum of it’s parts. I’ve seen others that way and also the opposite where this was good and that was good, but the car as a whole was awful. Gearing was right, torque curve was right, it was slow but it felt good to drive.
The Beetle is a perhaps the greatest vehicular expression of the curve. What I would like to know is what type of inner turmoil was going on within VW at this time? The Beetle was a massive hit and a great example of durable German engineering. Senior management must have had countless arguments about needing to change to more fashion based vehicles so as to remain current with competition and not get so old on the vine. After the Beetle future models clearly embraced fashion at the expense of reliability at least here in the US.
“Senior management must have had countless arguments about needing to change to more fashion based vehicles so as to remain current with competition and not get so old on the vine.”
May be they knew something about this:
That’s a somewhat odd picture, unlike any VW crash picture I’ve ever seen or can find on the web. It could only have happened from driving straight into a concrete wall. FWIW, the passenger area seems to have held up reasonably well given the impact.
Germans didn’t argue. They planned. Then kept planning until the plan they planned was approved. Then they executed the plan exactly as they had planned. If you wanted a car not designed like that – get a Fiat.
That crash picture is nothing. I spent a bit of time in England in the early 70’s and what I saw of small English cars in accidents made the Beetle look like a tank in comparison. I mean in the pic you can still ID It as a car and what kind of a car. In many of the small English car accidents you could not.
Nonetheless by no means state of the art when it comes to safety. Not even then.
Fortunately neither of my wife’s TWO” personal” Super Bugs ended up like the gray beetle above! She loved those 2 obsolete “cars”. We had a ’71 and a ’73. Not a efficient, space effective design by any means, but they did get us all over L.A. and the ’73 back home to Wisconsin as well.
What bothered me, was the high co$t of standard maintenance vs the Nova 6 we had before. The Bug’s gas mileage was only marginally better than the ’69 Nova, but it sure was a “SNUG” interior, altho with far better (bucket) seats than the bench seat in the Nova. Curiously while I found the Bugs’ buckets supportive and comfortable…..she complained about them!
Ugly? Yes, but again my wife thought they were “personal”….wotever that meant, to her?? I traded the ’73 for a new ’74 Ford wagon back in Wisconsin. The Ford was just a car to her….. DFO
These Beetles were just curiosities to me, the well-trodden road not taken. It’s easy to imagine myself buying one and enjoying the uniqueness of it, but I found something much better first. In 1975, I bought the only NSU 1000TT I’d ever seen, and it turned out to be an improvement in every way (except for repair resources). The Better Beetle, made of 60’s technology instead of 30’s tech. But that’s a story for another time.
This article about a beloved car’s questionable efforts at life and chassis extension reminds me of the case of the Boeing 737 Max. The best-seller for decades, it created its own ecosystem of certified pilots, maintenance and repair resources, and low-level ramp servicing. All so profitable that several airlines are completely dependent on it. Through successive models, it’s doubled its passenger capacity while increasing fuel efficiency. But certain inherent problems have emerged with the 737, as we all know.
So when will Boeing retire this mid-Twentieth Century design for an all-new airliner? Will Southwest Airlines remain profitable if they have to train for and maintain a second airframe? And why would they not choose that other Euro maker that has a range of proven mid-sized planes? VW faced similar questions fifty years ago, and the answers weren’t pleasant for them.