Hello!
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I was on a 10 day car holiday with my wife in July. We drove about 5200 kilometers in all from Finland to central Europe and looked around some Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. I was keeping my eye on the ACVWs there and this post is a travel report of the Volkswagens on that trip. Our journey included also a visit to the Wolfsburg VW museum in Germany. There are some pictures included, mostly from Wolfsburg. In the end of the post there is also listed shortly the route we drove. If you are interested to know something else about the trip, please ask.
Beforehand I thought that there would be a lot of Beetles in Germany, because the car is originated from there. In the northern Germany we saw very few Beetles. There were a lot of convertible/targa Porsches though. The ones we saw, were all late -70's 1303LS convertibles (Supers with 1600cc engine). In the southern parts there were more ACVWs visible and most of them were also late -70's 1303LS convertibles. In the Mosel valley and nearby we saw a lot of Trikes though. A Trike is a Beetle motorcycle with a mc front and Beetle rear axle and engine. Those seemed to be quite common there, because we really did see quite a lot of them.
In the Netherlands there were more older and standard Beetles and vans like the ones we mostly have here in Finland. More vehicles from the -60's than in Germany. All the sightings were in parking lots. We did not see any moving ACVWs, but I think they all seemed to be in driving condition.
The Belgium had quite similar ACVW scenery as the Netherlands. More standard -60's Beetles, few vans. The thing to mention about Belgium though is its roads and traffic arrangements. Nothing good to speak of them at all. Seems that they don't know how to build roads and set up working traffic arrangements there. Absolutely terrible highway surfaces. On a german car with stiff suspension it really makes the fillings fall from your teeth. Now I know where they need those mushy suspension and seat setups that french cars tend to have.
We had no ACVW sightings in Luxemburg. We were there though only for a couple of hours and the country is quite small. One thing to mention is though that in the Luxemburg side of the Germany-Lux border there was for like a kilometer of only gas stations. The germans come to buy gasoline from Luxemburg side. There it costs around 0,7-0,8 eur/ltr and in the germany around 1,1 eur/ltr.
Overall imperssion I got was that there are more ACVWs left in the daily traffic here in Finland than there is in the central Europe. Whether it is because cars are relatively more expensive here and we have to have relatively cheap recreational cars here. I would also like to have a Porsche 911 targa, but can't really afford one ;)
In Bruxelles (Belgium) we saw a "ballnose" van modified to sell ice cream out of the side. I had to take a picture.
The Autostadt Wolfsburg and most of its surroundings seemed to really be VW territory. All the cars around there were VWs: Passats, Tourans and Golfs mostly. I was a bit embarrased to drive an Opel there, but afterall, we had foreign plates, so I think we were forgiven this time... ;) I was looking for at least one ACVW there but I did not manage to see any. All VWs were quite new models. I bet everyone there works for VW and they get good employee discounts for factory products.
So it seemed that the VW museum was the only place that had ACVWs in the WOB area. And they have plenty. Old ones, vans, busses. Most of the Beetles there were either some special one-time modifications or first/last specimens from factories (last German made beetle for example).
I took pictures of some of the interesting ones. I was though looking for an original -61 to look at, but they did not have one.
The one car I liked best there was the Dannenhauer & Stauss made convertible modification. It looks very nice to my eye. Something Porsche-like but in a Beetle size. (all VW pictures from the trip behind the following link)
Trip route shortly:
- day: Drive from home at Pirkkala (FIN) to Turku (FIN) night ferry from Turku (FIN) to Stockholm (SWE)
- day: drive through Sweden, ferry to Denmark (Helsingborg- Helsingör), drive through Denmark, ferry to Germany (Rödby-Puttgarden), Lübeck (D)
- day: Hamburg (D), Bremen (D), Zandwoort (NL)
- day: Day in Amsterdam (NL), drive to Brügge (B) in the evening
- day: Bruxelles (B), Luxemburg (L), Trier (D), Mosel valley (D), Ediger-Eller (D)
- day: Heidelberg (D), Karlsruhe (D), Schwarzwald (D), Böblingen (D), Stuttgart (D)
- day: Rothenburg (D), Schwebish Hall (D), Lutherstadt Wittenberg (D)
- day: Day in Berlin (D), drive to Wolfsburg (D) in the evening
- day: VW museum (WOB, D), drive towards north, ferry to Denmark (Puttgarden-Rödby), drive through Denmark, Köpenhagen (DK), ferry to Sweden (Helsingör-Helsingborg), drive through Sweden in the evening/night.
- day: Day ferry from Stockholm (SWE) to Turku (FIN), drive to home at Pirkkala (FIN)