I just saw a remarkable bit of Volkswagen Beetle history happen tonight: a Beetle sold for the highest price ever recorded, an absolutely staggering $300,000. This beats the previous record of $212,500 by a significant margin, and the crowd at the auction was cheering it on, with by far the most enthusiasm of any car that went across the block that night. I don’t think this necessarily indicates a new trend for even higher prices for classic Beetles, however, because this was a very special and unusual Beetle.
This Beetle was something of a celebrity, and it’s a car that I’ve been aware of since I was a kid. It’s the first stretch limousine Volkswagen Beetle, and was built in 1969 by West Coast Porsche/Volkswagen distributor John von Neumann. Well, it was built by Troutman-Barnes in Culver City, California, after von Neumann gave them $34,499.95 to take a stock 1969 Beetle (built in October of 1968 as a 1969 model), add 40 inches aft of the B-pillar, and turn the whole thing into a luxurious stretch limousine.
I first encountered this comically incredible machine in a book I had as a kid compiling old VW ads. This was the one with the Beetle Limo:
The headline of the ad refers to the price von Neumann paid for the Beetle conversion to a limo, and remember, this was a time when, as the auction catalog notes, a Lamborghini Miura cost about $20,000. The cost of the VW limo today would be about $308,000, which is funny, considering that it just sold at auction for just about that price!
Man, these old Beetles really do hold their value!
It’s not really known why von Neumann had this Beetle limousine built, other than that he’s awesome and the fact that car dealers did this kind of thing to get publicity and attract business to their dealerships, which I’m sure this did. It was displayed at the Los Angeles International Auto Show, where it got the attention of Volkswagen themselves, and then ended up in that famous ad.
It also may be worth noting that 1968 was one of VW’s biggest sales years in America ever, with 569,292 cars sold. So perhaps von Neumann was flush with cash, and wanted something exciting to spend it on.
Seeing this car in person was like meeting a celebrity for me; I’ve known about this car since I was a kid, and encountering it in person was surreal and wonderful. My Autopian co-founder Beau, seen above there, even said that if bidding stayed around $50,000, he’d buy it for use as an Autopian Staff Vehicle.
Bidding, of course, did not stop at $50,000.
So while I was disappointed that didn’t happen, I was delighted to see just how far this stretched Bug would go, and, damn, it did not disappoint. The previous two record holders for most expensive Beetle sold were both Herbie cars from The Love Bug movies, so the fact that this limo beat them both without any Disney-backed intellectual property to increase interest and value is really remarkable.
The build quality of the Beetle Limo is remarkable; because it was built by a dealer who seemingly gave the builders a blank check, no corners have been cut. The custom-made wide rear doors use genuine VW parts, and unique elements, like the door’s leading edge with it’s integrated vent window, all feel like they just left the factory in Wolfsburg.
The vent window there is especially important because, unlike most limos, there’s no air conditioning in this car, just like most Beetles of the era.
To move the extra 400 pounds or so of weight and the six passengers this car can comfortably hold, the engine (which is under an engine lid from the convertible, which has two vents that would become standard on all Beetles by 1970) has received some upgrades, going from a 1500cc to a 1600, and with the addition of two genuinely huge carbs (I think Webers, shown as 1, below).
Those carbs are so large they caused some other interesting modifications, which I’ve pointed out with arrows. The semi-automatic transmission that this car uses requires a bit of extra hardware, including a control valve assembly (2) which would normally be mounted to the driver’s side firewall, but that big carb is taking up the room, so it had to be re-located.
That re-location interfered with the left-side heater hose, so a longer replacement one (3) was installed, the outlet on the fan shroud removed, and the hose mates with where the right side hose would normally be, here replaced by a sheet metal coupling tube (4) that takes air from the blower fan in the shroud and blows it into the heat exchangers below.
It’s an unusual setup I’ve never seen before, but I imagine worth it, as those carbs help to give this engine the extra power needed to move all that stretch. I even spoke with someone who had driven this limo for a wedding decades ago, and he said it moves surprisingly well – perhaps not fast, exactly, but not painfully slow.
The interior is finished at a standard well above a stock Beetle; the front chauffeur’s compartment has very nice vinyl, heavily padded seats, and the rear is genuinely limo-grade:
In addition to the very plush rear seat, there are two jump seats, flanking a mini bar and sound system:
It all feels like new; closing the door takes a bit of force because, like Beetles when they were new, the car is nearly air-tight, and every control feels like it must have felt back in 1969.
This may be a limo made from a cheap car, but it does not feel cheap in the slightest.
One of the only visual changes I can spot from how the car appeared in the original VW ad is that the carriage lamp atop the roof changed from an old gas lamp-style one to something that reminds me of Ultraman’s head:
After seeing so many supercars and exotics cross the auction block, it really was incredible to see the reaction of people to this strange little Beetle limo. Once it became clear that the price was going up and up and up, everyone got into it cheering each bump in price, as this once humble little car, remade into a strangely honest and practical caricature of luxury, climbed higher and higher in value, until it hit that staggering number of $300,000.
The Beetle has only had three other owners after von Neumann: VW of America, who used it in promotions up until 1977, then to Chick Iverson, who had the first VW dealership in Orange County, California, and then finally to Lorenzo Pearson, the founder of huge air-cooled VW parts supplier West Coast Metric.
This fantastic and gleefully absurd limousine is, I think, an iconic car, and while I do wish it could have gone for cheap enough to become part of the Autopian fleet, I’m delighted to see it get the valuation that I think it actually deserves. This is quite a day in Beetle history, and I’m delighted and thankful I got to witness it happen.
