Junkyard Find: 1978 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible
Volkswagen sold the air-cooled Beetle in the United States all the way through 1979, amazingly, overlapping Dasher and Rabbit sales by more than you’d have expected. By that time, the only air-cooled VW left standing here was the Beetle convertible (if you want to get nit-picky, that car was really a Super Beetle, since the last year for the original not-so-super Beetle was 1977 here and all the Beetle convertibles were Supers after 1971). I’ve never found a ’79 Beetle in the junkyard, though I’ve tried my best, but here’s the next-best thing: a ’78 in a Denver self-serve yard last year.
This car’s final parking place ended up being next to a Turbo New Beetle and a purple ’76 non-Super Beetle. One must assume that the junkyard employees had a sense of style.
Junkyard shoppers generally grab air-cooled VW engines right away … but I suspect this may be the result of a single VW hoarder in every metropolitan region around the continent.
The most important difference between the regular 1938-style Beetle and the Super Beetle may be seen in the front suspension; the original Beetle had a funky torsion-bar suspension while the Super got a modern McPherson strut rig. Having owned and driven both types of Beetles, I must say that neither the ride nor the handling feels any better in the Super.
While the Beetle was strongly obsolete by about 1951, it managed to get its job done for many decades after that. By the late 1970s, though, there was no affordable way to squeeze it through American crash-safety and emissions requirements.
It will go to its grave with a Stone Temple Pilots home-taped cassette inside.
For links to 2,100+ additional Junkyard Finds, visit the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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This really brings me back. My older brother had a series of bugs all yellow. 1967 VW Bug convertible bought new and totaled 2 years later, 1970 VW Bug convertible that rusted in a few years, and a 1974 Super Beatle hardtop that rusted as well. I really enjoyed driving the 1967 VW Convertible.
"Having owned and driven both types of Beetles, I must say that neither the ride nor the handling feels any better in the Super." Agreed. In fact, I always thought the original Beetle was more fun. I like its somewhat more-immediate steering control and the flat windshield/dashboard.