Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia

In the late 1940s, Volkswagen management came to the conclusion that it was necessary to create a more prestigious car than convertibles, which were built by the bodywork studio Hebmuller and Karmann . Therefore, in 1950, the latter was entrusted with the design of a car on the chassis of the Beetle, but with an original sports-type body. Dr. Wilhelm Carmann secretly engaged the Italian studio Carrozzeria Ghia , whose experts, contrary to the assignment, did not build a roadster like the more expensive Porsche roadsters, but a two-door coupe with a design that reduced the scale of the earlier work of Ghia, the Renault Frégate convertible Ondine.

In June 1955, a presentation of the news took place for the press, at the same time the car received its own name Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia. The official world debut took place at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1955. Later, a variant with a convertible body also appeared.

Initially, the body of each Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia was made entirely by hand, since the Karmann assembly plant in Osnabruck, Germany did not have stamping equipment, and body elements had to be punched out of tin and butt welded together, after which each seam was leveled with tin-solder. As a result, the workmanship of the bodies was one of the best in the world, but they cost much more than the serial ones - the cost of Karmann-Ghia exceeded the price of a standard Beetle by about one and a half times. Subsequently, as production expanded, more productive technologies were introduced, but the level of quality continued to be exceptional. Since the car was exported to countries with left-hand traffic, there were versions with a right-hand drive.

Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia was produced until 1974 in Germany and until 1975 in Brazil. The total circulation of this inexpensive and stylish coupe amounted to about 487 thousand copies.

Typ 34 was a variation on the same theme, built on the chassis of a more modern Volkswagen Typ 3. The car's design, partly inspired by the American Chevrolet Corvair , was coolly received by the public, in addition, the car turned out to be very expensive - twice as much as the Beetle. As a result, the release amounted to only 42 505 coupe copies for 7 years. In addition, 17 prototypes of the convertible were built, which did not go into a large series.

In 1969, it was replaced by the mid-engined Volkswagen Porsche 914 .