I’ve mentioned before how, despite all logic and reason, the world of the Volkswagen Beetle seems to be an inexhaustible source of strange details and curiosities. I’ve been obsessed with these silly cars for decades, and just when I think I’ve encountered every obscure detail or bit of knowledge only the worst, most insufferable pedants like myself would find interesting, something else comes along. And something else has come along, this time from Africa.
Volkswagen had factories building Beetles in at least two African countries during the life of the car: a smaller factory in Nigeria, and a larger subsidiary in South Africa. I’ve talked before about some of the strange variations of South African Beetles, which include a weird Beetle/Super Beetle hybrid, but I just recently noticed something about Nigerian Beetles that makes absolutely no sense to me.
Let’s dig into this little mystery! It started with this page from a Nigerian Beetle brochure:
Nigera’s Lagos VW assembly plant went online in 1975, and in the air-cooled era produced Beetles, buses, and Nigeria’s own special variant of the Brazilian Brasilia, the four-door Igala:
Okay, but let’s get back to the Nigerian Beetle. The one I showed above there was from 1976 or so, and this one is from 1985-ish:
The thing that strikes me about these Beetles is that they seem to be using the same body stampings as Brazilian Beetles (they called them Fuscas). You can tell by the strange combination of old and new details, like the smaller windows and thicker pillars, while also having the little (-shaped air extraction vents behind the rear side windows. Plus, there’s the distinctive Brazilian-style engine lid, with its two sections of louvers. Here’s an example of a Brazilian Fusca so you can see what I mean:
Now, just to compare, take a look at some of the Beetles being produced at VW’s South African factory:
Look at the sizes of the windows, and the pattern of vents on the engine lid; these are far more in line with contemporary German Beetle production than what was being built in Brazil. Now, VW South Africa had their own body stamping facilities, while Lagos, at least initially, was using CKD kits for the body panels. So, based on what I can see, it looks like the Nigerian Beetles were getting their bodyshells from Brazil instead of from where you might expect, the far closer South African factory. Why?
Was it really cheaper and easier to get bodies from across an ocean instead of on the same continent? I suppose so? Maybe Brazil had excess production capacity that South African didn’t? It just seems strange to me.
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Nigerian Beetles – at least the earlier ones – are also unique in that while they have bodies from Brazilian Fuscas, they do share at least one strange trait with South African Beetles: the strange extra “cuff” used to mount the “elephant’s foot” style taillights to the rear fenders. Later ones (like the 1980s example shown eariler) just mounted the lights to the fenders themselves.
I’m talking about this:
See that funny body-colored cuff on the taillights? That was something that I thought was unique to South Africa, but it looks like Nigerian Beetles used it, too. Everywhere else in the world just mounted those big lights right to the fender:
Why these cuffs were developed and used I can’t figure out? My best guess is that the rear fender stampings were older, and couldn’t just mount the elephant’s foot lights the way they wanted? And this was cheaper than updating the fender tooling? I’m guessing here, but that seems possible. But that doesn’t explain why Nigeria used them, especially if they were using Brazilian body parts, which could accommodate these lights just fine?
And, if we really really want to get into the weeds here, which I assure you we do, then look at the lenses of those taillights. There were actually three variations. The most common two are these:
The American spec ones and the European/Mexican/”global” ones. The difference is that the US ones have four chambers, with the red middle section having a separate tail and brake bulb, with the tail section having a square-ish reflector, while the global one is just three chambers, with a combination brake/tail bulb in the middle red section and a wide, rectangular reflector.
South Africa, for reasons I can’t fathom, had their own variant, though:
This one is like the three-chamber “global” lens, but with a smaller reflector, for some reason.
So, all of this is to say that the Nigerian Beetle uses the strange South African taillight cuff, but with the global lens, all on a Brazilian body. This makes these Beetles unique in some really unexpected ways!
This is exciting! A whole new variation I never realized! Also, oy, I have a problem.
As a fellow Beetle fanatic, I am shocked I never knew about these tail-lights. Maybe it’s because I generally hate the elephant’s-foot tails so much, I try to avoid looking at them.
But seems somehow universally in order, that the biggest elephant’s feet are found in Africa..
Kinda buried the lede for us Brasília enthusiasts!
Local factory = local suppliers for some parts = specific manufacturing methods?
From the smart Ai:
The taillights seem awfully extended- I was trying to put together a “Cold start” with erect nipples joke but couldn’t quite get my hands on it.
The problem is you were using the entire hand. You should only be using the thumb and pointer finger.
My best guess is that the rear fender stampings were older, and couldn’t just mount the elephant’s foot lights the way they wanted?
I agree. They seem to have used pre-1974 fenders intended for the flatiron-type taillights (which are installed further down and have a cuff, too). It looks like without the cuff, the elephant feet would have been partly obscured by the rear bumper, as the cuff raises the taillight by a few inches. No idea about VW’s reasons for combining the global/Brazilian/SA features, though. Maybe the specific tools or parts were more readily available or easier to ship to Nigeria than the alternatives.
BTW, it seems like you have been implicitly banned from standardkaefer.de. They request help with the defining features of different Beetles EXCEPT information about taillights.
https://standardkaefer.de/Modelle/ZWITTER-101952-bis-31953/ (last paragraph).
One theory on why the Nigerians were importing from Brazil rather than South Africa: For a good chunk of the Beetles’ production lifetime the brutal and racist Apartheid regime in South Africa was under some form of international sanctions (observed to varying degrees around the world), it’s possible that Nigeria or another critical partner/market was not trading with South Africa. I’m not well enough versed in either Beetle or African political timelines but it would be a good first guess.
I can just imagine Musk’s mum and dad balking at the idea of driving the same vehicle as a black skinned African.
I guess the Brazilian VW factory was really expecting that the Nigerian prince would deposit all that money directly into their account in exchange for sending the parts.