The Best Volkswagens at Mecum’s Indy Auction

The Indy 500 doesn’t run until the 29^th, but the historic track is already abuzz with activity. The good news is that in the lead up to the 100th Indy 500, there’s something even better than watching a bunch cars go in a circle real fast, and that’s Mecum’s Indianapolis auction, running from today until Saturday.

Bobbing in the sea of American muscle are a few foreign classics, and none are as interesting to us as the pretty solid selection of Volkswagens. Below, in no particular order, we’ve assembled the ones we’re most looking forward to:

1970 1600 CC Beetle

What do you do if you have a popular car from an unspectacular year? You inspire the imagination. Apart from the fact that it’s clean, there’s nothing all that special about this Beetle, but the owner has put a lot of time into getting the details right. Don’t you just want to go on a picnic in this thing? Or better yet a road trip!

The Herbie Cars

You may not have loved 2005’s Herbie Fully Loaded, but the car still holds undeniable cultural capital and on Thursday three of the cars made for the movie will be up for sale. These include: NASCAR #1 Hero Car, Junkyard Herbie, and Demolition Derby Herbie. These cars are actually fairly serious, too. The NASCAR Herbie, for instance, actually ran laps in NASCAR’s Pop Secret 500 and is the only Beetle to have ever appeared in a Nextel Cup event.

1969 Double Cab Pickup

A pickup Kombi is cool enough, but the rare double cab version is even cooler. This one, part of the John Clancy Volkswagen Collection, is all about patina, too. Over the rust there’s some great pinstriping and classic sign writing, that sets the mood for this retro Type 1.

1995 Jetta III GLS The Fast and The Furious Stunt Car

The Fast and The Furious was a seminal movie for a lot of young car folk. It came out at just the right time to ride the wave of turn-of-the-century tuning and established a franchise that’s now seven movies deep. This Jetta, a stunt car from the original movie is for sale, and it might fetch a pretty price. Another of the movie Jettas sold for $46,000 at Barrett-Jackson earlier this year.

1955 Oval-window Beetle

It’s not just the heavily modified that’s coming under the hammer in Indy, there’s some classic stuff, too. This ’55 Beetle is one of the rare and sought after oval window models and even features the original semaphore turn signals. The car was recently restored and isn’t 100% original, but it’s still highly desirable.

1961 23-Window Samba Bus

There’s just something about Volkswagens and windows. This restored 1961 23-window bus features everything you could ever want out of a microbus and it’s still rocking its original color scheme of pearl grey and white. This greenhouse will make you want to start using hashtags like #vanlife.

Those were our favorites, but there’s a whole lot more hitting the auction block this week, and you can check it all out at Mecum’s website. But hurry, your favorite might have already sold.

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