Skip to main content

The Karmann-Ghia Celebrates its 61st Anniversary

At the end of the Second World War, Europe was in dire economic straits. As a result, economy cars were the predominant form of transportation and the people’s car, the Beetle, was doing well. By the early fifties, though, things were looking up for the old world, and cars could become sporty and expensive again.

Wilhelm Karmann recognized the arrival of prosperity and decided that what Volkswagen needed was a fun, stylish car to go along with its bugs and buses. Since 1949, Karmann had been building Beetles for Volkswagen and the companies had a good relationship. Without telling the top brass at VW, though, Karmann went to Carrozzeria Ghia and asked them to design a sleek new body for the Beetle.

Karmann-Ghia_rot_BW_1

Ghia became famous in the ‘20s for building aluminum-bodied sports cars, including the Mille-Miglia-winning Alfa Romeo 6C 1500. Latterly, the coach-builder had been building big American cars, like the Chrysler D’Elegance, and elements of that design made their way into the VW.

Karmann was impressed the design and in 1953 took it back to the head of VW, Heinrich Nordhoff. It was a bold move, since he was once quoted as saying “Offering people an honest value appealed to me more than being driven around by a bunch of hysterical stylists trying to sell people something they really don’t want to have.” But that’s how pretty it was. It even won over Nordhoff and on July 14, 1955 at the Kasino Hotel in Westfalia, VW launched Karmann-Ghia. In August the first cars were manufactured, and sales totaled more than 10,000 for the year, exceeding expectations.

SiGray.Worthersee2016-9312

The Karmann-Ghia made its way into US showrooms the following year, selling for $2,365. In 1958 the convertible hit showrooms and sales increased steadily. Volkswagen continued building the Karmann-Ghia right up until 1974, when it was replaced by the Porsche-Volkswagen 914 and the Scirocco.

Over the course of its lifetime, more than 450,000 Karmann Ghias were sold and to this day it remains popular collector car. So join us wishing the Karmann-Ghia a happy birthday.

The post The Karmann-Ghia Celebrates its 61st Anniversary appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/29Gat2m
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Saying Goodbye to the CC V6

For all its size and its global reach, Volkswagen is still, in many ways, a deeply human company. There was, for instance, the Bugatti Veyron an ego project if ever there was one. Then the purchase of Ducati, a move most called folly. And then there was the Phaeton, the Volkswagen that most folks can’t afford. Not only were these moves all strange, I’m sure that they made VW’s accountants furious. None of them made good business sense, but they were all deeply interesting and they all are evidence of the heart that beats at the center of VW. Among these follies is the CC, a car that everyone agrees is rakishly handsome, but that no one really wanted to buy. The car couldn’t last, but the world is brighter for its having been in it. With the approach debut of the Arteon, it seems like a good time to look back on its sadly departing predecessor. The version I drove, because I live in Canada, is a V6 Wolfsburg Edition, which apparently isn’t available in the States. Nor is the V6, not as...

T-Prime Makes World Premiere at Beijing

[ See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com ] The SUV segment is one of the fastest growing segments in the world and Volkswagen is showing the world how to do it. With the new T-Prime Concept GTE that was revealed today, the company is showing off all of the technology you can look for in its coming models. The T-Prime is a full-size hybrid SUV that can go up to 31 miles on a charge and gets 87 mpg. The hybrid power station is good for 375 hp and 516 lb/ft of torque and puts the power down with 4MOTION all wheel drive. It’ll get you up to 60 in six seconds. The concept’s real party piece, though, is its interior, which features exclusively touch, gesture, and voice controls. Everything from the infotainment, to the display, and even the gears are controlled by touch-screen. The T-Prime Concept GTE is bigger than the Touareg, and design elements are likely to find their way into all of their SUVs, of which there will be many. Volkswagen is also announcing that they expect to make an S...

Watch: The Transport Does a Whole Hell of a lot More than Transport

Petrolicious doesn’t only feature million-dollar classics, it also features the more generally neat, like this 1996 T4 Transporter that became Instagram famous and started and is starting an empire. Callum Creaser’s T4 started life as a panel van, but over the years it has become a homebrew camper van that has gone on adventures around the world. After posting about his adventures to Instagram, the diesel van gained a following and launched The Rolling Home, a series about other people’s small spaces and homey cars. Based on a 1.4-liter diesel with no ECU, Callum says his T4 is easy as pie to work on since information is widely available from sources like ours. The post Watch: The Transport Does a Whole Hell of a lot More than Transport appeared first on VWVortex . from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2KR01Sv via IFTTT