VW 1600: Was bigger better?
People sometimes forget that Volkswagen used to be the number-oneselling import in the United States; it was the car company to beat. The company rose to that lofty position mainly on the strength of its hot-selling Beetle. The little Beetle was a good combination of low price, high quality and good fuel economy. It was also seen as a counterculture statement, a protest against the large, heavy, gas-guzzling American cars so prevalent back then. Buyers tended to overlook the Beetle’s antiquated engineering and minimal comfort, and probably didn’t realize how unsafe the little cars could be in an accident. Beetle buyers were looking for basic “Point A to Point B” transportation at low cost, and the Beetle reliably provided it. For years, the little cars sold like crazy.
But the reality is that no company can live forever on just one car. People have varied needs, and the only way to supply those needs is with additional models geared toward the requirements at hand. And people’s needs change over the years. Lots of young people bought and loved their Beetles, but as they grew older, married and had children, they found they needed a larger, roomier vehicle than the Beetle.
VW had its station wagon version of the venerable Microbus, and I’m sure many families bought them when the need came. But many of VW’s customers later fled to Toyota and Datsun, not to mention Volvo (with its prosaic station wagons) and Saab (with its innovative front-wheel drives). In essence, VW was grooming buyers for the competition.
Building a bigger VW
Once VW’s U.S. distributor began to ask for larger cars, the parent company knew it had to act — the U.S. market was much too important to ignore. Luckily, VW already had a good foundation to work upon, a compact sedan dubbed the Model 1500, or Type 3. The Type 3 was a fairly conventionallooking “three box” two-door sedan that could pass for a front-engine car at first glance. Despite using the Beetle’s 94-inch wheelbase, its more conventional styling made it look like a much larger car. A larger engine provided better acceleration, and interior roominess was much greater due to the car’s slabsided styling and greater body width. Trunk room was also larger.
Production of the Type 3 sedan began in Germany in August 1961. About six months later, VW introduced a two-door station wagon variation, which would later be marketed in the United States as the Squareback. In 1965, a fastback two-door model joined the line. It would be sold in the United States as the VW Fastback.
VW increased the displacement of its Type 3 1500 to make it the 1600 in 1966, and that year Squareback and Fastback cars joined VW’s U.S. line-up. They sold well. However, the 1600 two-door sedan was not imported to the states. Why it wasn’t brought here is something I can’t answer for certain, but perhaps it was for financial reasons; two-door sedans are generally lower-priced and thus less profitable than station wagons and hatchbacks. In any event, over the years, a number of the Type 3 two-door sedans have made their way to America, and you still occasionally see them. VW prototyped a quite attractive convertible Type 3, but in the end, it didn’t produce it. Too bad!
Speaking of pricing, the Type 3 1600 Fastback was tagged at $2,140 while the wagon listed at $2,295. For comparison, the four-door Volvo 122 wagon was $2,845 and the Saab 95 two-door wagon was priced at $2,227. VW’s basic Beetle sedan was ticketed at $1,585, so making the leap from a Beetle to a Fastback involved spending a lot more dough. Was it worth it?
Well, for the price, you bought essentially the same chassis as the Beetle, with a slightly larger 1585cc (96.7-cid) flat four-cylinder, alloy-block engine that developed 65 hp versus the Beetle’s 53 horses. Beginning in
1968, the flat-four boasted electronic fuel injection for easier starts, was smoother running and had improved fuel economy. For transaxle choices, you had either the standard four-speed manual gearbox or, starting in 1969, a three-speed fully automatic transmission/transaxle, the first of its kind for VW in America and something many people had been asking for.
Steering was via worm and sector, and the front suspension consisted of transverse torsion bars with upper and lower trailing arms. The rear suspension was swing axles with trailing arms and torsion bars. Brakes were front disc/rear drum, which was a welcome improvement over the Beetle’s four-wheel drums. The steel body was mated to a backbone chassis.
The Type 3’s styling is certainly nothing to swoon over. The wagon and fastback models’ overall looks can best be described as “serviceable” and “nonthreatening.” But rest assured, despite VW calling the 1600 Fastback “beautiful,” no kid ever hung a poster of either of these cars on the wall of his bedroom.
VW marketed the Type 3 Fastback and Squareback models in the United States through 1973, finally replacing them with the Type 4, or 412 (a larger, longer and more powerful car similar to, but different from, the Type 3). Like the Type 3, the 412 prototypes included a sharp convertible model, but it, too, never made it into series production.
The 412 had several advantages over the Type 3, including more power and the availability of four-door models. We’ll cover them in the future.
Driving a Squareback
I still remember the first time I drove a Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback station wagon. I was working at a garage in Milford, Conn., that specialized in air-cooled VWs (that’s all they had back then), and one of our regular customers brought his late-model Squareback in for routine maintenance. After servicing the car, I took it for the customary test drive to make sure everything was running right, and that there were no unusual noises coming from the engine or chassis. Plus, I wanted to see how this new, bigger VW drove.
Settling myself in the vinyl-covered bucket seat, I noted that the glass area was quite generous, and visibility was excellent, though the windshield felt far away compared to that of the Beetles and Karmann-Ghias that we usually worked on. I was impressed by the roominess of the interior, but wished it had four-doors for easier access to the rear seat. Although the instrument panel was a lot more modern than in the Beetle, it looked cheap and flimsy. Ditto the door trim panels. The whole thing felt quite Spartan.
Taking it on the road, I was not impressed by the power. True, it had a bit more “oomph” than the Beetle, but it was still pretty sluggish. It seemed the only way to keep up with traffic was to wind it out in every gear, otherwise you’d be creeping like a turtle. The steering felt vague and very light — much too light for my taste. The ride was smooth and it took bumps quite well. Noise level was about on par with the Beetle, though the engine sounded much more at ease than in the Beetle. That must have been difficult for VW engineers to achieve since the engine, situated just below the rear cargo floor, was practically inside the cabin. A thick layer of insulation on the access panel helped keep noise levels reasonable.
I had plenty of time, so I took it out onto Interstate 95, aka the Connecticut Turnpike, to see what it could do. What it could do was keep up with traffic which, back then, tended to run around 60-65 mph. It didn’t seem to strain doing that, but front-end float seemed excessive and I didn’t care for it. I drove down one exit and turned around to head back to the shop. My semi-expert opinion? If you really wanted to have an air-cooled VW with more room than a Beetle, then the Squareback was just the ticket. If you wanted a car that was enjoyable to drive, it was not the ticket.
While writing this column, I did a cursory search of a few popular online old car selling sites. I was a bit surprised to find that, for as popular as they were when new, there’s a surprising shortage of them for sale. I located three Squarebacks priced between $10,000 and $21,000, including one that some idiot had lowered to make it look “sporty.” (I have a particular dislike of people who modify old import cars to make them look like hot rods.). I also found a few Fastbacks, and they were priced at $14,000 and up, and none of them were in Old Cars Price Guide Condition #1 or #2, so it would take some work to make them show cars, if that’s what you want. Myself, I’d buy the best example I could find and just drive it for nostalgia’s sake. But that’s me.
If you do decide to buy one, at least you can rest assured that many, if not most, mechanical parts are easily available. And you can be assured that you’ll probably have the only such car around. Good hunting!