World's Cleanest VW Beetle Sells at Auction; Buyer Even Gets Original Oil
If there was ever a hermetically sealed time capsule of a car, this is it. And we can thank an old, religious Italian man who hated driving for keeping it so fresh.
A beyond pristine 1974 Volkswagen Beetle, once a common sight on roadways everywhere, just sold at Silverstone Auctions in Denmark for a price that would make an original buyer choke on their Tab. Did they get a good deal? It depends on how much value you put on “perfect.”
The gavel came down on the ’74 Bug when the bidding hit 38,250 euros, or just shy of $43,000. For that price, the buyer drove off with a 42-year-old vehicle with 89.9 kilometers on the odometer.
Yes, the original oil came with the vehicle. Let’s hope those Polyester Era hydrocarbons are still up to the task of lubing the 1.3-liter engine’s guts.
The Bug was delivered by G. Terragni Volkswagen to one Armando Sgroi of Genova, Italy on January 23, 1974. Sigroi, an elderly, frail, and deeply religious man, had never owned a car before. When walking the short distance to church became too much of a chore, he relented and bought a car, despite not liking them.
Time was short for Sigroi, and the Bug saw its last “road trip” in 1978. When it was discovered recently in a barn, presumably by shocked locals, the vehicle was cleaned, waxed, and sent off to the auction house.
Everything about the car, except maybe the interior air, was original, right down to the brochures in the glove box and an unopened set of tools. For Beetle lovers, this was the cleanest example available on earth. And it still sold for less than a base Touareg.
[Images: Silverstone Auctions]
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The one thing I see overlooked in most of the comments here regarding the "why would anyone have driven one of these" diatribes is the gas mileage. Growing up in the late '70s, Mom had a '72 Buick Riviera which got about 12mpg. Dad had a '68 VW Type I which was good for around 28mpg -- with a 44 mile round-trip commute every day. Given malaise-era stagflation and a crappy interest rate on their new house (13.8% on $78,000 in 1977 -- my mind boggles), Dad had to save money somewhere and saving it at the pump still seems like a reasonable place to do it.
The VW Bug may have been strange-looking, noisy, not very comfortable (although its suspension was a lot better than that of its leaf-sprung competition) and really rather small inside, but it was really well-built. There's a sense of sturdiness and (dare I say it) craftsmanship that radiates from every bit of it, even after a decade or two of use. My first Bug was a '70, back in '88. It had almost twice as many kilometres on it as did my Dad's recently junked Chrysler Simca 1308, and it was more than twice as old as that Simca had been on its last day. And it wasn't a well-preserved Bug by any stretch of the imagination -- one of the first things we had done on it was add DM 500 worth of welding to its DM 500 purchase price so as to pass TÜV inspection. And yet -- it drove really well, its doors and lids clicked shut with the sound of eternal solidity, its seats felt like new, and even its paint (where not affected by rust) shone nicely after the application of a bit of elbow grease. It was, in other words, far from used up. And in 1988, that was pretty good for an 18-year-old car, regardless of make. Add the toughness, the surprising offroadability, the fuel economy, the cheap parts and easy fixing, and yes, the chick-magnetism (which tended to attract the ones with brains and humour, which was just fine with me), and there you have it: plenty of reasons to own an old Bug. As if any were needed -- I had been in love with the things from early childhood anyway :-)