C&D got a hold of a Canadian-market VW 1500 S notchback sedan, and put it through the paces. The result is a bit predictable, as the Type 3 qualities were not exactly new or exotic. It was essentially a VW at its heart, with a somewhat bigger and more powerful engine (not enough so for C&D), a bit more width in the interior, a somewhat softer ride, and a few other obvious changes. But it was still a VW, of course, including its shortcomings too. The question is whether the steep premium over a Beetle for a gray-market 1500 was worth it it.
I bought a 1600 type 3 fastback in 1968 in Germany. Think it was about $1800 (!!) new. Drove it for the summer in Europe and shipped it home to Houston. Drove it across hot Texas to Colorado Springs. It was definitely more comfortable than my 1967 beetle, and a bit more powerful. Engine ran well “mit einspritz” (fuel injection). So, it didn’t have the charm of the beetle…. and handled no better! I totaled it on an icy winter’s day that year….
The Auto-Europe ad was particularly well-placed that month.
No way was the 1500-S worth the inflated grey market prices in 1964. $1585 for Beetle
($12287 in 2018) vs $2900 for Notchback 1500-S ($22482), according to prices listed in the C/D article on CC two days ago (Aug. 11).
But in 1966 1300 Beetle was still $1585 ($12287) but 1600 Fastback listed at $2140 ($16590), a much more reasonable difference. Front disc brakes and 100 cc more engine displacement also came with the ’66 Type 3.
I had a ’64 1500-S Squareback (in rusty and well worn condition), and later a ’66 Fastback in good condition with a rebuilt engine, earlier my first car was a ’66 1300 Beetle in good condition, the Fastback was a nicer and faster car but got about the same MPG as the Beetle.
Still, a lot of money was spent on these pre ’66 type 3’s in SoCal, there were a lot around back in the day.
This road test pretty accurately describes the improvements vs 1200 Beetle, the heater worked well in my ’66 Fastback (SoCal rarely got below mid 30’s), I’m sure in frigid states and Canada a gas heater was pretty much a must. Another plus, if you broke a generator belt, since the fan was bolted to the crankshaft, the engine wouldn’t overheat and would run until the battery was drained.
Thanks for printing this old road test, my ’66 was a good car I enjoyed for a few years, it could hit 90 MPH, carb synchronization was key, if they were off (as most usually were), power suffered a LOT, C/D’s tester sounds like it wasn’t set up 100% correct when they tested it. Too bad they didn’t print detailed test results or specs.
Near the end of the article…”But then sensible cars have had pretty dismal histories here.”
Never true, and especially not true in ’65, when Detroit had finally surrendered to the public demand for sensible cars! Compared to a Falcon or Valiant or American, VW was no longer sensible. Those cars got the same MPG with much more safety and practicality.
The authors only got one detail wrong: spark plugs were on top in both type 1 and 3. A little easier in 3 because the distributor and plugs were all easily visible.
Whatever their merits, no one much wanted those cars as basic transportation, because they screamed I’M A LOSER. As soon as the public had sampled them, the public switched to fancier and/or bigger cars. However unfair it may be, the Beetle’s image was “I’m smart,” and their image was “I’m broke.” At the time this article was published, the Mustang was outselling those three cars combined. The Beetle outsold the Valiant, which was the best, most popular, and least embarrassing of them. By 1968, the Beetle outsold all of them combined (despite AMC drastically cutting the price of the American).
US Beetle sales increased every year from 1949 to 1968, peaking at about 400,000,and stayed over 300,000 through 1973.
No, they didn’t match the Beetle for fuel economy.
A CARS Magazine 1961 introduction to the VW 1500.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/lit/magazines/cars_10_61/cars_10_61_page_10.jpg
Just as a side note –
“When it was introduced in 1965, the original Mustang created a sensation with its sporty style and race-car inspired features that disguised its homely Falcon underpinnings, and were available with an average guy base price of $2,427.
Evidence would suggest that people typically were able to get financing for that amount.
I learned something new today – ‘lugubrious’ (page 30). I am mournful that I had to look it up to learn its meaning, however I plan not to remain forlorn about this sorrowful state, I rather plan not to remain glum about this.
One can always improve their vocabulary on CC! Have a great day!
Ah now, mourn not.
For lord-only knows what reason, I did know the word, and I’m not entirely convinced their use of it here is quite right. “Looking or sounding dismal” isn’t exactly what they meant in saying the 1500 is slower than the “S”. They really meant “slothful”, surely? I mean, the result of lower power may indeed be a bit dismal, but the adjective (lugubrious) would apply to the result (the performance), not the engine. The adjective for an engine essentially designed in the mid-’30’s is, surely, “old”. Thus, “this old engine must deliver lugubrious performance in standard form” was what they should have said.
Gotta go sorry, people on my lawn…
Several thoughts float up, not necessarily connected, but listed anyway.
1. What a pretty little car, which they then considered dull.
2. Converse to this, they identify correctly the appeal of the Beetle, which is its non-dullness compared to this otherwise-undistinguished early ’60’s design.
3. The heater on this – and all aircooled VW’s – was essentially useless. Fancy these days giving a car a tick (of sorts) for not fuming and oiling the occupants whilst heating them. (Headline: “New Car Doesn’t Gas Us”).
4. For ordinary consumers, the handling was disgraceful, what with the outside rear wheel jacking up, the “natural oversteer”, the latter about as natural to most disinterested drivers as knowing how the engine works. The Blowin’ In The Wind steering straight off the Bug isn’t mentioned.
5. Economy and performance, for a 1.5 litre car, were well off the pace within minutes of this car’s release, despite the accurately described 1st and 2nd gear traffic efforts of the car described here.
6. By many measures, the car pretty was much rubbage when new: too much of the essentials were seriously out of date, and, as the history of these pancake-engined cars would prove, overworked.
7. But offer me a pristine ’63 notchback in pale-ish green, and, smitten, I’d answer that I do believe my weekends have room for jaunts in it.
8. With the steel sunroof.
Amazing as it may be to believe, this car’s closest competition may have been the BMW 700 LS, which was about as much a “7 series” as a Chevette is a “Vette”. It was much more like a VW 1500 notchback actually, complete with an air-cooled rear engine (but with only two cylinders), drums at all four wheels, no available A/C, and power nothing. But it did have optional tilt-out front seats, just like Chryslers of the era. It even looked alot like a VW notchback, though also with a hint of the 1600/2002 that would effectively later replace it. The “New Class” 1600 would finally move BMW firmly out of the cheapskate-car market and they would never look back.
Cheap or not, I’d love to drive (or even see) either brand’s rear-engine notchback today. At least if the weather was fair; I’m too frail to make it anymore with a no-A/C, almost-no-heat car the rest of the time.
My favorite of all the cars I owned prior to 2010 was a 1968 VW Fastback with a mildly hopped-up engine that I owned in the late ’80s. It was no slower in the mountains than the then-current (desmogged) Sentra and Escort, and the steering was much more communicative. Try as I might, I never was able to get it to jack up suddenly on the swing axles in a turn, though it would smoothly transition to oversteer when I wanted it to. It cruised very comfortably at 80-85 mph and was respectably good on gas. The heat was always adequate in the Utah Winter, but was a bit slow to warm up. I thought it heated and cornered better than the Bugs that I had owned. I preferred the styling of the notch and square varieties, but the Fastback was as quiet as the notch while having a lot more trunk space. I would love to play with one again, though I don’t think I would trade my late model GTI for one as a daily driver at this point in my life.
In 2016, when BMW celebrated their 100th Anniversary, disturbingly few magazines gave credit to this car which ultimately saved the company from its financial crisis in late 1959. If not for the 700, BMW would have sold out to Daimler Benz, and Beyeriche Moteren Werke would have been no more!!
The absolute rarest of the Type 3 would be the convertible which was cancelled at the last minute and never officially hit the market. It would be interesting to know how many were manufactured (presumably by Karmann). I had a 3-panel foldout brochure on the Type 3 convertible, which I sold on Ebay to someone in Hawaii around 1999, so evidently, production was planned.
Were there any specs pages with this article?
No.
Darn. Should’ve been on page 32.
I had two experiences with a 1500. In 1968, two of my band mates and I and one girlfriend drove from Philadelphia to San Francisco to try and make some waves on the West Coast scene. Later, in the ’80s and living in L.A., I bought I 1500 notchback and used it for over two years as a daily driver. The car was flawless, and bulletproof. I hardly remember opening the engine cover to check the oil in all that time. Fun and agile enough to keep up with L.A. traffic, it never left me down until one night, when my wife decided to come find me at a gig on PCH and ended up rolling it on Mulholland Drive. She sustained a bandage around her head, but the car was totaled – the entire greenhouse was leaned over to the right by about four inches. A sad demise for a terrific little car.