Used Car of the Day: Volkswagen 412

by Tim Healey

Published: September 15th, 2023

Today's UCOTD is essentially a barn find.

Or in the case of this Volkswagen 412, perhaps a forest find, based on the photos.

It's obvious from the pictures that this car is close to becoming one with the earth, but the seller wants to see if someone can save it before it heads to the crusher.

There's not much detail here but there doesn't need to be -- this thing clearly will take a lot of time and money to be restored. So this one isn't for the faint of heart. It's basically in the same shape as many of the Junkyard Finds.

That said, if you have $500, a love for old VWs, and some serious mechanical skills plus a lot of free time (and perhaps a big bank account), you could be the one who takes this car from trash to show quality.

Or you could just ignore it for yet another modified GTI. Your call.

Give this South Carolina car a look here.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 47 comments

Arthur Dailey on Sep 25, 2023

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/news/type-4-marked-beginning-end-air-cooled-volkswagens/
'In its marketing VW highlighted the Type IV's upscale features like draft-free air circulation, a thermostat-controlled auxiliary heat system, and six-way adjustable front seats that were able to fully recline. The 411 had front and rear crumple zones, a padded instrument panel, a collapsible steering column and steering wheel with padded spokes.

Brochures touted the 411’s suspension as being similar to that of the Porsche 911, but with a focus on stability rather than speed. Complete with an independent suspension with MacPherson struts and coil springs in front, as well as a coil-sprung trailing wishbone rear suspension with double-jointed axles and an anti-roll bar.

Eleven-inch front disc brakes, plus rear drums, hid behind 15 x 4.5-inch wheels mounting radial tires. '

For carrying stuff, the Type 4 sedan was shockingly adept, having a 14.1-cubic-foot trunk in front, plus 6 cu.ft. of space behind the rear seat. The wagon was even better, carrying around 48 cu.ft. inside with the rear seat folded. '

The original Type IV did have traditional controls. Modern controls were added in later production models. But still in advance of the domestics.
Just under 368,000 Type IV's were sold.

1 Reply
Ian Schultz on Oct 26, 2023

Is this a 2 door 412? This car is before my time and every picture I’ve seen of a VW 412 has been a 4 door fastback sedan. The first of the two pictures posted in the article book like it is a two-door fastback sedan in the second picture. Well you can’t tell how many doors it has. I don’t see a link or anything to the sellers pictures that the article mentions so I guess I will be Googling this.

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