May
18
Everyone knows about VW Beetles so we won’t get into any details about how it came to be the best selling car in history. But here is a tidbit– on February 17, 1972, the 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle comes off the assembly line, breaking a world car production record held for more than forty years by the Ford Motor Company’s Model T, which was in production from 1908 and 1927. Read More
May
17
We’ve been featuring quite a few VW buses and for the most part, they have all been what is known in the VW World as Split-Window buses. And they are known by that because the front windshield is actually in 2 pieces. Some even open up on hinges to let the air in while you speed along at 50 mph or so. This bus is from the next generation of Type 2 buses. They are significantly more civilized, larger and more powerful. Read More
May
15
Spring is finally settling in around our fair nation and summer is a little over a month away. Maybe it is time to get your freak on! If you’ve been a reader of Mint for any length of time, you may get the idea that we like vintage VW buses. Frankly, we don’t understand the insane valuations 23-window sunroof buses get but people are willing to pay for the best. We found a really nice VW Camper with a great interior and all the right equipment intact. Read More
May
6
These Syncros are the darling of expedition fans and adventurers. Read on and you’ll know why. In 1983, the water-cooled engined vehicles allowed VW to rethink four-wheel drive. This time VW decided that they would not use the well-tested “Quattro” system already installed on their sister companies Audi range but instead they went for a completely new and different “Ferguson” system (originally invented by a Briton). They called it the Syncro and although the vehicle itself was exceptionally good it was expensive. The logistics of the manufacturing process, that involved a lot of moving around partially built trucks, contributed to the high price. Initially, body shells from the Hanover works were delivered to the Steyer-Daimler-Puch works at Graz, Austria to be fitted with their 4WD train. Read More
May
2
We know that the Karmann Ghia was designed for VW to be a Halo car. A car that would enhance the brand and attract people to the showroom. They were built with VW Type 1 components but the body was built with lots of love by the folks at Karmann. The Ghia folks designed such beautiful lines on this little jewel that Karmann had to do a lot of hand work to get all the panels to fit just so. Now this find was purchased new in Germany by a US Serviceman. They must have given him a German language Owner’s Manual by mistake because after the initial service at 238 miles in Germany, he never serviced the car again. Read More
May
2
The VW Thing had a rather limited run here in the states. The Type 181, known in the US as The Thing, shared its mechanicals with Volkswagen’s Type 1 (Beetle), its platform with the pre-1968 Microbus and its concept with the company’s renowned Kublewagen, which had been used by the German military during World War II. VW sold many 181s to NATO as an interim model during the development of NATO’s Europa JEEP Concept vehicle. The civilian version was a bare bones beach buggy in the US and a more capable mode of transport in 3rd world countries with poor roads. Read More
Apr
15
This is a story we were never aware of and it has come to us from our frequent contributor, Frank K.. It involves one of our favorite VWs, the Karmann Ghia. Demand for the early Karmann Ghia was so great, that Karmann could barely keep up on the stamping, but not the assembly and final detail finishing. So a Swiss company, AMAG, who employed a section of coachbuilders themselves and had a successful race shop in-house, built a few hundred Karmann Ghias, of which a few survive. Read More
Apr
4
Most of us know the story of why the VW Karmann Ghia came into being. Here is a short version – VW execs wanted a halo car so they hired Ghia to cloak a 111 chassis (Beetle) in a slick new design. Then they got Karmann to build them using some pretty labor intensive, old school techniques to get all the curves right. Now they had a really nice little car to sell and DDB (Doyle, Dane, Bernbach) created one of the most memorable car campaigns to sell it. And sell it they did. Read More
Apr
1
You can buy a brand new Beetle Convertible with all of the bells and whistles or you could consider buying this spectacular ’79 Super Beetle with just 31,000 miles. Some people drive that far in a year. It has a nice story too. The original owner was a California college professor who obviously loved this little car. She sold the Beetle to its long-time mechanic. Read More
Mar
7
We are going to talk about Transporter. Not the movie about a man whose job is to deliver packages without asking any questions. Complications arise when he breaks those rules, starring Jason Statham. Enough of that. We are going to offer you a really cool VW Type 2 Transporter. Many mistakenly call it a VW Bus but since it can’t carry very many people why would you? The VW Transporter is exclusively a commercial vehicle. Or at least it was back in the day. Read More
Feb
22
Concept cars are created to judge public response and the possible success if it is placed in production. Well, back in 1953 VW executives felt they needed a halo vehicle to add to the line-up so they commissioned a styling concept created by Ghia’s Luigi Segre. It was a success. 
They contracted Karmann to build the car in Osnabruck using old style, time-consuming techniques like butt-welding body panels, hand-shaped and smoothed with English pewter – in other words, more money. The rest of the car is Type 1. The marketing people at Doyle, Dane, Bernbach created a classic campaign for the new car aiming at the excesses of true sports cars – Maybe you don’t want to drive a wild-horse, a man-eating tiger or a killer fish…
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