Ranking The High-Back VW Beetle Seats And What Monsters They Sorta Look Like

This is one of those things that has been lurking in the back, disused areas of my brain for decades. You know, in the storage areas in the back of your brain that are usually only utilized for storing lyrics to songs you can’t stand yet know every freaking word of, or every word to some stupid commercial jingle, or phone numbers you haven’t needed since junior high. It has to do with the front seats in Volkswagen Beetles. And monsters.

As you probably guessed, the evolution of VW Beetle seats is a rich, complex field, one that likely deserves its own book or perhaps a feature film, maybe starring Aubrey Plaza as a renegade car seat designer trying to break into the male-dominated word of car seat design in 1960s Germany.

Today I just want to talk about the evolution of post-1968 front seats, which, at least for the American market, were all high-backed seats. I’ve had three versions of these seats in the three Beetles I’ve owned, and I have opinions about them. And not just opinions: also, each of them reminds me of a specific kind of monster or alien or supernatural creature.

First, let’s look at the evolution of these seats:

I’ve owned three Beetles in my life: a ’68, a ’71, and the ’73 I still have. I also grew up in the back of my dad’s ’68, too. So I have extensive experience with three of these seats, and I have thoughts on the ’74-76 ones, too. The separate-headrest ’77 and up seats are fine and arguably the best of the seats, but their more conventional look makes them less interesting to me in this context, so we’ll just be focusing on the ’68 to ’76 seats, if that’s cool by you.

One key feature of some of these seats that inspired the monstery associations is that the 68-72 seats had these buttons, on the fronts and backs, that reminded me of eyes:

The eyes, especially when I was a kid, really made these seats seem like creatures. And what sort of creatures, I know you’re likely screaming, alarming everyone in the office/coffee shop/cockpit! Well, I’m going to tell you, now!

The 1968 seats, the first ones I encountered, are actually my least favorite of all of these. The headrest area is just so huge, I think because this was the first year headrests became legally required on American market cars, and VW wasn’t taking any chances when it came to resting those heads. The headrest is almost the full width of the seat, and it really made the interior of the car feel more cluttered.

As far as monsters go, these seats always reminded me of some kind of tentacled sea creature, like a smaller Cthulhu-type beast. Like maybe a baby Cthulhus, ones that bud off the big Old One or whatever.

The 1971-1972 seats felt like there were others who agreed with me at VW, because the headrest shrunk in size dramatically here, leaving a seat with nice broad shoulders and a solid, square build.

Which may be why these seats remind me of the famous Golem of Prague, the brute made of clay by Rabbi Leow to protect the Jewish community in Prague. It was sort of like a robot, just, you know, full of rabbinic magic. The golem is often depicted in ways that remind me of this seat.

The 1973 seat was a one-year-only design, and was much more rounded and flowing than previous designs, with less of a break between the lower seatback and the headrest. These lost the button-eyes of the earlier seats, and sort of reminded me of ghosts/banshee-like beings.

These are actually pretty comfortable seats! They even have a bit of side bolstering.

And finally, the ’74-’76 seats reverted back to a more separate headrest design, but this time a little more sculpted than the ’71-’72 design. The headrest here also curves forward a little bit, and the back has a bit of a curved cross-section, too.

I didn’t have a good creature-association with these seats until 2016, when the alien invasion/linguistic challenge movie Arrival came out. The aliens in Arrival, known as heptapods for their seven-tentacled lower sections, have an upper body shape that really feels like these seats. I’m pretty sure that association is what director Denis Villeneuve was going for.

I hope these help! I bet you’ll be referring back to this many times to find what VW seats look like what creatures now that you have it handy.