The VW Type I, also known as the Beetle, makes regular appearances here on BF, but the Type III, colloquially referred to as the Squareback, shows up with a lot less frequency. Digging into the history of the Type III, I learned a few things that I didn’t know so let’s take a look at this 1971 South Pasadena, California resident and peel back the onion a bit. It’s available, if you’re interested, here on craigslist for $6,500.
So, what I didn’t know is that the Type III dates to 1961 and continued through 1973 – total production equaled about 2.5 M units. I remember ads for the Squareback in the very early ’70s but don’t have a recollection prior to that time. Besides the Squareback, there was a fastback and notchback body style Type III too though the notchback was never exported to the U.S.
The seller tells us, “Previous owner did an exterior repaint. There are primer spots as seen in pictures“. Seems odd, you respray the car and then add primer spots to it – I imagine the respray was long ago, rust reappeared, and thus the primer. We are told that there is some rust in the bottom front corners of the doors but it’s not photographed. All in all, the body looks to be pretty straight with maybe a minor dent/scrape here and there. More images are available here.
According to Hemmings, this Type III should be powered by a fuel-injected (starting in ’68) 1600 CC, flat-four cylinder engine but what I’m seeing looks like a dual carburetor fed motor. There was such a set-up used but it was a 65 HP 1500 CC powerplant so I’m not sure what’s going on here. The seller claims that the engine has been rebuilt so maybe a modification or two has occurred. The seller is mum on engine specifics but does say, “Runs great, fun to drive!“. A four-speed manual transaxle makes the rear-wheel hookup.
The interior images aren’t very revealing but they’re good enough to spy what looks like basket-weave door and interior panels, how unusual! The dash pad and instrument panel show quite well but there are no images or description of the seats/upholstery. The rear cargo area shows little sign of use or abuse, and the frunk appears as original.
Too bad about the slopped-on primer, it’s a distraction to an otherwise OK-looking car. Oh yeah, and as an add-on extra, the seller says that he has the appropriate roof rack included in the sale. Owing to the aforementioned comment about not encountering Type IIIs too often, I’m not up on the current market value. For $6,500 what do you think, priced right or not quite?
Nice car. These are nice driving cars. Owned two Notchbacks and enjoyed them both. The carb setup is aftermarket but can’t see which ones they are. The early European models had twin carbs but the Bosch fuel injection soon replaced them for emissions control.
$6500 is a good deal for this car. It won’t last long. In addition to the EFI swap to simple carbs there is engine tin missing which should be replaced so the engine has less tendency to run hot. Even better is this being a 4-speed car.
Even though I could never actually own a VW and live in the same house as my old man( that was soon to change, no surprise, at 18 I was out the door.) VWs, whether the old man liked it or not, were here to stay. I always felt the Type 3, especially a wagon, was the best VW, and so under appreciated. The motor was more than proven, had a ton of room, great mileage, okay, heater still poor, and ironic, because they actually went through the snow great with a set of “Town and Countrys”. That’s right, before radials, Firestone T&Cs were all we had. It’s simple, dependable, I just can’t understand why car development had to go any further than this, really. Great find.
For that price compared to 9000 to 10.000 dollar Vegas and pintos , I would take this!
I drove many different VWs when I was a young man . This is my favorite Type 3. I always wanted to drop a Porsche 6 cylinder drive train and surprise many Vette owners at the light!! 😂 I saw many Type 3 in my neighborhood in the 70s . This looks real nice and it will be sold by the weekend. Good luck to the next owner. 🐻🇺🇸
Fifty years ago most mechanics didn’t know how to work on that early electronic fuel injection system, which was an improved version of the 1950s Bendix “Electrojector” that Bosch bought from Bendix. The system used an analog computer as a controller and when the system went out of whack, S.O.P. back then was to yank out the fuel injection and install carbs.
So true. Bosch D-jet has to be happy with a good head temp sensor. They won’t run without. The lack of self tuning on the early systems required everything to be in spec. The generator ripple and poor grounds were also major contributors.
Very common to see carbs. The bosch fuel injection computer was around $2,000 in the mid 90’s so most used a Weber conversion kit when the injection system died. Way, way cheaper way to go.
I had a 66 square back in the early’70s. It was my winter driver, when I had a ‘63 Sunbeam Alpine put away.
I liked the VW so much that I drove it all the time. Lots of utility room for my drum set, and it was remarkably good in the snow and mud. On 4 retread snow tires.
It developed a shrill whistle at higher RPMs. Someone must have dropped a nut into the fully enclosed fan case, because there was a hole at the bottom that had been covered with duct tape. When the tape fell off, it became a 65 hp coach whistle!!
Had a ‘67 square back—great car. I would still have it except the tin worms got it. The Bosch FI, ‘68, was problematic even when it was working. It gave the T3 a bad reputation. Most ended up in the trash bin.
There was also a Type III Karman Ghia to go with the notch, fast, and squarebacks. My wife bought one that was imported from the Bahamas when we lived in Miami. Great, fun car.
In reality, there were only two types of these VWs: those that have caught on fire, and those that have yet to catch on fire. My mother had the first type, and it caught on fire more than a few times over the years before it finally rusted away. We kids were always ready to bail out.
Never had that problem. Some people took the tins off and that wasn’t a good thing to do as they ran hot but I never had an issue with mine and never knew anyone who did. Heck, mine had factory A/C and I live in Central Florida!
Among our family, we had at least 15 VWs over the years, almost all with gas heaters, and not 1 caught fire. I’ve never heard of that trait. Model years from 56-72, we had Type 1s galore, a few Type IIIs, a 412 and a Type 2 that my brother swore ran at some point.
The catching fire thing seemed to be more a problem of type ones, there was no firewall between the fuel tank and the occupants’ area. Most conflagration occurred at night, so seems to be connected with hot fuses igniting fuel after a front end encounter with another vehicle.
Type threes had a firewall and did not catch fire in such a manner.
Engine fires did occur, were uncommon, and not as likely to be a disaster.
That is my understanding of the fire bug phenomena.
The fuel injected cars were prone to fuel leaks between the fuel delivery rail and the injectors. Good garages knew what to look for and recommended replacing before flames.
I grew up with a 68 Squareback. Great design, lousy execution for New England. The heater boxes rusted out – no heat or defrost after the fifth winter. The fuel injection intermittently failed in year nine, and the car was junked at year ten with 75k miles because we could not replace a failed headlight for all the rust. The first car I owned had a water cooled V8 and heat because of my frozen youth.
Those of us of a certain age have vivid memories of scraping the *inside* of the windshield in their VW while driving on those cold winter mornings…
My favorite was when after pushing the clutch pedal in before starting my 71 Bug, on one of those cold winter mornings, realizing that the clutch pedal remained depressed to the floor, even without my foot on it, until I reached down with my hand and pulled it back up.
I had a 71 Type 111 that I commuted to work with back in the late 70’s. It suffered the FI leak problem and I spent almost 1000.00 repairing the system at the local VW shop since I knew naught about FI back then and needed it in a hurry…running fine except for a half-shaft failure on Hwy 580 that sent the left rear driving wheel off the car, over the hill and undoubtedly into the oncoming traffic lanes. Never found the wheel but did that repair too before giving the car to my approaching 16 years old son. Unfortunately and since his mom and I were divorced, his grandmother took the car and proceeded to drive it into the ground. Nice car, bad gamma.