Low-lying headlights in a body that is more reminiscent of a flying saucer than a car - the mysterious VW study from North America.
Photo: The Guild of Automotive RestorersIt was an extraordinary VW that David Grainger put for sale on the Internet at the beginning of August. "VW Concept Car" is written above the advertisement of the owner of the classic car workshop "The Guild of Automotive Restorers" in Bradford, Canada. Below that is the price - 5,000 Canadian dollars, the equivalent of around 3,200 euros - and an amazing photo.
You can see a cream-white car that could just as easily be a flying saucer or a diving boat. "Weired and wonderful" it says in the ad text - strange and wonderful. Is that supposed to be a VW?
Inquiries from the VW experts for model history in Wolfsburg mainly cause confusion. "The car is completely unknown to us," they say, they have no information about the vehicle. There is practically nothing on the Internet about cars either. Only a Facebook entry from January 20, 2017, on which a photo of the sleek vehicle can be seen with the text: "Billy working on getting the VW Concept running." Did that Billy manage to get the VW up and running? You don't find out.
A beetle for the year 2000
After all, David Grainger, who wants to sell the car now, answers a request from SPIEGEL by email. His information is quite sketchy, but they do give a few clues: Grainger has owned the VW Concept for around 25 years. He bought the one-off in the mid-1990s from the US company "Fantasy Car" in El Cajon near San Diego, along with seven other vehicles. "Fantasy Car" boss Bob Butts, who has since passed away, told Grainger at the time that a Californian design studio built the study in the early 1970s. With the aim of designing a VW Beetle for the year 2000.
So it also happens that the car trades as VW Concept, because the funny, futuristic body is based on a Beetle platform. The four-cylinder boxer engine sits in the rear and drives the rear wheels, there is also a conventional manual gearbox and the steering wheel in the otherwise spartan, minimalist interior comes from VW.
Nobody in Wolfsburg heard of it. Especially since VW was at that time fully occupied with putting the successor to the Beetle on wheels, i.e. the VW Golf, which came onto the market in 1974. Keeping the Beetle base with its air-cooled unit, technically obsolete, for another thirty years - VW engineers never dreamed of that.
Short appearance in the film "Back to the Future II"
A few car nerds in California do. And because Hollywood is very close and the need for fancy cars for film and television productions was immense, the VW Concept began its car life in front of the camera. "Among other things," reports Grainger, "the car can be seen in 'Back to the Future II'. I also vaguely remember a few short scenes."
At some point, however, even the bizarre body of the slimy, rounded future Beetle no longer looked modern. The car landed in Canada and for the next two and a half decades played mainly the role of a dust collector in the workshop of Grainger's company. "It has a few notable features," explains Grainger. "For example, the entire rear part of the body can be opened up so that the huge storage space underneath can be easily reached."
The car has never been street legal, although it has the necessary equipment such as exterior mirrors, headlights, indicators and windshield wipers. What becomes of this unique mobile with the many VW parts is in the hands of the future owner. However, he would have to get the old Beetle engine running again first.
Icon: The mirror
