OT - rare 60s aus VW Options

[wonkipop]

stumbled across this parked a block away outside the local mechanic who specialises in old school cars.

VW country buggy. rare as hens teeth. have not seen one in the flesh for more than half a lifetime.
think only about 2000 of these were made but don't quote me. who knows how many survive. probably count them on two hands maybe.

unique model developed by VW australia independent of VW germany.
only made here in original form though a later version was made in the phillipines or malysia - can't remember which country but it was up in south east asia.
dates from mid to late 60s. marketed as for use by farmers. had great off road capabilities. this one has been lowered - original ride ht much higher. used the rear hubs that early buses had that raised the suspension relationship to wheel.







i had a drive of one of these on a friends farm way back in time. would have been late 70s. think i was about 16 or 17 - before i even had a drivers license. so much fun to drive and so easy to drive.
beetle floor pan. blunt as hell styling. all flat metal pressed panels.
hoot of a car. these days CULT. made my day to see it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[jd74914]

That's pretty cool, never even heard of those!

As I looked it up on google, I also learned that beetles were built from flat packs in Australia with 50% local content. Pretty cool.

[wonkipop]

That's pretty cool, never even heard of those!

As I looked it up on google, I also learned that beetles were built from flat packs in Australia with 50% local content. Pretty cool.

yes the story of VW in australia is an interesting one.

its not widely known internationally but the contents and machinery of the wolfsburg factory after the war were offered to the australian government as war reparations by the british who had control of the area and the remains of the VW production facility.
this occurred shortly after morris or austin had rejected both the car and the tooling/machinery.

lawrence hartnett who worked for general motors australia visited the plant in wolfsburg but rejected the beetle design as inappropriate for australian conditions and buyers.
at the time the australian government committed to the idea that australia should have its own car suited to australian needs and manufactured in australia. ultimately this became the holden which was essentially a chevrolet and GM set up a factory and plant here and made cars until it all came to an end almost 20 years ago. hartnett ultimately got into disagreements with GM about the design of the first holden and left GM. he proposed his own design independently but it never achieved success.

VW set up here in 1957 with a full scale factory. not just knock down kits. the cars were produced here. body panel pressings etc. i think the engines and gearboxs came in from germany but the rest of the car was manufactured here. australian beetles are unique and different from the german beetles. they usually lagged behind the german manufactured cars in terms of updates. you could buy either a locally produced beetle or an imported beetle. the fully imported beetles were significantly more expensive. buses (or kombis as known here) were also manufactured.

there were also locally manufactured type 3s. again these differed slightly from the fully german manufactured. my mother owned a 64 locally manufactured beetle. later i owned a german import type 3 variant.

ultimately they could not compete with the japanese.
so full scale manufacture ceased in the late 60s.
they soldiered on for about 10 years after that reverting to knock down kit assembly.
they left the market and australia in the late 70s and did not return until the mid 90s with the golf mark 3. a car i also owned for nearly 10 years until i sold it in the mid 2000s.
oddly enough i ran across that very car about 8 months ago in the street near a job i have under construction. it still looked good. someone cares for it to this day. not bad - those mark 3 golfs were a bit dull to drive in standard form but they were built like tanks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)