What was the last year of the air-cooled Beetle in Europe? I understand that it lasted a few years longer there than it did here. And which version(s) were avaliable at the end? If memory serves me, only the "Super Beetle" cabriolet was avaliable in the U.S. during the last year or 2 of it's life here in the U.S. Steve Grauman
Beetle life in Europe?
Oct 23, 2004
7 Replies
Not sure, but post to the aircooled group...they might know.
The last German made Beetle was built Jan 28th 1978 according to Volkswagen Chronical.
Karmann built the convertibles into 1980 IIRC.
The last few years were super beetles and convertibles basically.
Apparantly the technical pinnacle was in 1974 - no significant further developments took place afterwards.
I read somewhere that VW (in Germany) imported Beetles from Mexico thru
1985. I know when I was in the USAF stationed in the UK, on our trips to Germany the German Air Force were still using newer looking Beetles as little staff cars if you will, on their airbases we were at. And I was over there until 1989.The previous poster is correct though. Last German sedan was 1978, convertibles still made by Karmann thru 1979. A few may have been titled in the States as 1980.
Doug
what about the fuel injection from 75 up? my orig 79 'vert still runs great @ 121k miles.
Pretty sure they went straight to FI. However I believe FI appeared on the Type 3 quite a bit earlier.
type 3 got fi in 1968, no mechanical in any air-cooled.
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