The VW Beetle is one of the best-loved of all classic cars, with many thousands preserved across the world, many in regular use. Over the years countless changes were introduced, together making a mid sixties Beetle, for instance, very different from one built in the mid-50s, or mid-70s, despite the obvious similarities. With the aid of hundreds of full colour photographs this new edition in paperback documents all the Beetle's specification changes and model differences during the classic period 1949-67, making it possible to determine the original specification and fittings of any Beetle from this period.Uses the same format as for the highly successful VW Transporter spec guides. Aimed at early-Beetle owners and enthusiasts. Superbly illustrated with 300 colour photographs. New edition in paperback for 2018.
The VW Beetle is one of the best-loved of all classic cars, with many thousands preserved across the world, many in regular use. Over the years countless changes were introduced, together making a mid sixties Beetle, for instance, very different from one built in the mid-50s, or mid-70s, despite the obvious similarities. With the aid of hundreds of full color photographs this book documents all the Beetle's specification changes and model differences during the classic period 1949-67, making it possible to determine the original specification and fittings of any Beetle from this period.
Few cars have achieved the iconic status of Volkswagen's classic and much-loved Beetle – yet its origins are intertwined with the dark days of Nazism. This book looks at those origins, at the marque's initial post-war rescue by the British and the effect of early VW Director General Heinz Nordhoff's forward-looking desire to perfect one model rather than spread the company's talent over a range of designs, at the impact of radical-minded advertising campaigns and at the Beetle's never-to-be-beaten production record for a single model of nearly 22 million cars. Bringing the reader right up to the present day, marque expert Richard A. Copping recounts the Beetle's story in a lively and authoritative manner guaranteed to delight devotee and casual browser alike.
The VW Air-Cooled Engine is a no-nonsense engine manual that any practical-minded person can understand, giving a highly illustrated step-by-step guide to dismantling and rebuilding a Type 1 engine. Most of the operations described in the book can be applied to the Type 4 unit used in 1700, 1800 and 2-litre Transporter models as well. Topics covered included workshop essentials; keeping the engine healthy; removing and stripping down the engine; examination of the engine components; reassembling the engine and ancillaries and full specifications of the various Type 1 and Type 4 engines. With over 300 colour images, this book will be an invaluable resource for anyone involved in the repair and maintenance of these iconic engines.
The definitive illustrated history of a true world beater. Discover the full story of the amazing VW Beetle--from pre-war KdF-Wagen to today's New Beetle. The book features a color technical appendix illustrating chronologically the major design modifications made during the Beetle's lifetime. Full-color studio photography of 26 milestone models.
Here, Volkswagen enthusiast and prolific author Richard Copping examines, for the first time, the complete story of the T4 from the Transporter concept originated forty years before its presence at VW's Hanover factory, through its development period and full production life. Topics covered include: the background story 1949-1990; design concept to production in the 1980s; full analysis of the T4's specifications; face-lifted Caravelles and Multivans from 1996 onwards; petrol- and diesel-aspirated engines including the VR6, V6 and 2.5 litre TDI; the T4 story in the USA - the Euro Van and finally camping conversions. The complete story of the Volkswagen T4, produced between 1990 and 2003 and the first book in the English language to have been written, illustrated and published solely about the T4, beautifully illustrated with 300 colour photographs - a sparkling mixture of archive and modern-day imagery.
Sometimes achieving big things requires the ability to think small. This simple concept was the driving force that propelled the Volkswagen Beetle to become an avatar of American-style freedom, a household brand, and a global icon. The VW Bug inspired the ad men of Madison Avenue, beguiled Woodstock Nation, and has recently been re-imagined for the hipster generation. And while today it is surely one of the most recognizable cars in the world, few of us know the compelling details of this car’s story. In Thinking Small, journalist and cultural historian Andrea Hiott retraces the improbable journey of this little car that changed the world. Andrea Hiott’s wide-ranging narrative stretches from the factory floors of Weimar Germany to the executive suites of today’s automotive innovators, showing how a succession of artists and engineers shepherded the Beetle to market through periods of privation and war, reconstruction and recovery. Henry Ford’s Model T may have revolutionized the American auto industry, but for years Europe remained a place where only the elite drove cars. That all changed with the advent of the Volkswagen, the product of a Nazi initiative to bring driving to the masses. But Hitler’s concept of “the people’s car” would soon take on new meaning. As Germany rebuilt from the rubble of World War II, a whole generation succumbed to the charms of the world’s most huggable automobile. Indeed, the story of the Volkswagen is a story about people, and Hiott introduces us to the men who believed in it, built it, and sold it: Ferdinand Porsche, the visionary Austrian automobile designer whose futuristic dream of an affordable family vehicle was fatally compromised by his patron Adolf Hitler’s monomaniacal drive toward war; Heinrich Nordhoff, the forward-thinking German industrialist whose management innovations made mass production of the Beetle a reality; and Bill Bernbach, the Jewish American advertising executive whose team of Madison Avenue mavericks dreamed up the legendary ad campaign that transformed the quintessential German compact into an outsize worldwide phenomenon. Thinking Small is the remarkable story of an automobile and an idea. Hatched in an age of darkness, the Beetle emerged into the light of a new era as a symbol of individuality and personal mobility—a triumph not of the will but of the imagination.
This comprehensive guide is the first one to tell the whole story of the Volkswagen Bay-Window Transporter, produced from 1967 - 1979. This new paperback edition deals with the Transporter's development, its technical evolution, the model codes, the specification detail changes, the factory fitted M-codes and Transporter export.Using this book, Bus enthusiasts can crack the codes of their own specific vehicle, to find out the factory-fitted specifications like paint and trim colours, engine and transmission types, and even the date of manufacture, model and destination code.The first guide to tell the whole story of the VW Bay-Window Transporter. The photographs took over three years to collect from Volkswagen archives resulting in an invaluable source of crucial information for restoration. Superbly illustrated with 470 colour photographs. Vincent Molenaar and Alexander Prinz are keen experts on Bay-Window buses.
At the Berlin Auto Show in 1938, Adolf Hitler presented the prototype for a small, oddly shaped, inexpensive family car that all good Aryans could enjoy. Decades later, that automobile—the Volkswagen Beetle—was one of the most beloved in the world. Bernhard Rieger examines culture and technology, politics and economics, and industrial design and advertising genius to reveal how a car commissioned by Hitler and designed by Ferdinand Porsche became an exceptional global commodity on a par with Coca-Cola. Beyond its quality and low cost, the Beetle’s success hinged on its uncanny ability to capture the imaginations of people across nations and cultures. In West Germany, it came to stand for the postwar “economic miracle” and helped propel Europe into the age of mass motorization. In the United States, it was embraced in the suburbs, and then prized by the hippie counterculture as an antidote to suburban conformity. As its popularity waned in the First World, the Beetle crawled across Mexico and Latin America, where it symbolized a sturdy toughness necessary to thrive amid economic instability. Drawing from a wealth of sources in multiple languages, The People’s Car presents an international cast of characters—executives and engineers, journalists and advertisers, assembly line workers and car collectors, and everyday drivers—who made the Beetle into a global icon. The Beetle’s improbable story as a failed prestige project of the Third Reich which became a world-renowned brand illuminates the multiple origins, creative adaptations, and persisting inequalities that characterized twentieth-century globalization.
Restoring 1949-1967 VW Beetles to original factory condition in the simplest, most cost-effective way possible is the goal of this illustrated guide. Sections include tear-down of the unrestored vehicle, part evaluation and buying, engine rebuilding and restoring, vintage accessories, and more.
