This 1968 Volkswagen Brochure Is The Only One That Ever Showed A Beetle In This State

If anyone ever doubts that I may not be on the spectrum in some way need only to roll an air-cooled Volkswagen in front of me and take note of what happens. There’d be no hiding it then, I’m pretty sure. For whatever reason, when it comes to old VWs, I can’t help but scrutinize the smallest, seemingly insignificant details and be fascinated by things that would make most “normal” adults collapse into a deep, bored sleep. But not me. That’s why I’m so enthralled by these wildly tiny details in a 1967 (1968 model year) Volkswagen brochure that, I think, point to something significant.

That something is the appearance of a pre-production Beetle in an official VW brochure, with notable visual differences from what the actual production car would have. As far as I know, this is the only brochure to have ever shown a visually different, pre-production Beetle.

Now, these differences are tiny, and I doubt most people would notice them, but to me they stick out like a red handkerchief hanging out of someone’s fly – strange and obvious and hard not to stare at and wonder. I think the time this happened is significant, because the switch from the 1967 Beetle to the 1968 model is, arguably, the biggest change in the Beetle’s incredibly long life. It’s the line where we see the shift from the “early” to the “late” Beetles.

Look, you can see it happen in this chart:

See? In 1968 the Beetle was “modernized” and set the template for all Beetles to follow (well, less so the Super Beetles, but that’s another thing) until production ended in 2003, and for a car that prided itself on making only small, incremental changes over the years, was the biggest and most obvious set of changes and updates ever seen.

With that in mind, it’s not hard to imagine that nailing down the final form and details may have taken a bit longer, to the point that a brochure like this one would have been produced before all those changes were truly finalized.

We get a hint of what’s strange here with this whimsical illustration on the cover:

That crude little drawing there may be the first illustration of a ’68-type Beetle anywhere, and you can see the key visual traits: the simpler, higher “Europa” bumpers, and the new “tombstone” shaped taillights with the integrated reverse lamp.

But what’s weird here is the little scribble over the license plate light housing, which is intended to be the chrome VOLKSWAGEN script on the rear hood. No production Beetle ever had the script in that location or orientation. I actually noticed this detail before and wrote about it a while back, but I promise there’s more coming. Here’s what I noticed before, at the rear of the car:

The VOLKSWAGEN badge is horizontal and just above the license plate light, and the taillights, while close, look smaller and slightly differently shaped. Also, and I didn’t call it out before, but the rear bumper seems to hide the four bolts that hold it to the mounting brackets, under what looks like a stripe of possibly rubberized tape?

Here’s a convertible version, with slightly more visible details and visible bumper mounting bolts:

For comparison, here’s the rear of a production 1968 Beetle:

See how the VOLKSWAGEN badge is angled and to the side? And note the subtle difference in the taillight shape. Okay, so those were differences I noticed before. But I’ve noticed more! It doesn’t matter why I was looking at this brochure again, what are you, my therapist? It’s fine.

Anyway, take a deep breath and look at this:

Wow, right? How did I miss this before? You see it, right? No? Wait, here, let me show you a production Beetle to compare:

Now you get it, don’t you? What? Really, do I have to spell it out for you? Ugh, fine:

Look at this! That one on the left is clearly a pre-production Beetle, because there are two glaring differences between it and what would be the 1968 Beetle. First, the rear-view mirror. The one on the left has the old metal one on the metal arm; the production car would end up with a very modern, more rectangular black plastic-covered mirror (with the anti-dazzle switch) mounted on an arm covered in softer white rubberized, textured plastic.

That was a huge change in Beetledom! And now we know it must have been a very last-minute change!

The other one is even more odd. Beetles from ’68 and up had this odd little circular inset panel thing on their front apron. You can see where it goes more easily on the part itself:

The little circle of metal that fills that hole is technically called the Front Apron Tunnel Hole Cover. It’s just a little cover for that access hole. On Brazilian-built Beetles (or Fuscas) the little cover was often black. I always thought VW should have offered a little foglamp to go in there; that’d be cool as hell.

Anyway, the pre-production Beetle shown here did not have that access hole or cover! This is like seeing someone born without a belly button for VW geeks.

Man, this is big. Like I said, as far as I know, this is the only pre-production, visibly different Beetle ever shown in an official VW brochure – you know, not counting any of that KdF-Wagen stuff from WWII, I mean. Let’s say post-1950, VW as we know them today VW.

If you need to take the rest of the day off to process this, tell your boss I said it was okay. They can email me, if need be.