The tradition of open days at the Nurburgring is old. As is the tradition of wiping out, especially at this tricky little corner. Watch the thrills and spills! And rear engine cars, especially with swing axles, make up a disproportionate share of the action.
And I can totally relate to the guy falling out of his Beetle at 1:50. That’s exactly how I was ejected in my crash. except in my case, my body immediately bounced off the side of the Country Squire I hit. VW doors had a bad rep for popping open. Seat belts?
Nürburgring in the past was probably more entertaining to watch than today.
Case in point: my French friend and I visited Nürnburgring a several years ago, hoping to see something like in the video. We came away disappointed. The cars today have so many safety nanny technologies and better engineering that it’s always more “close calls” than actual spin-outs.
Got a little worried watching the beetle full of people get out of shape!
And some still believe that a rear mounted engine with RWD is the best configuration.
All things considered, this video provides a pretty positive impression of the VW’s structural integrity.
Like the door that pops open and ejects the driver when the car got torqued, spitting out the driver in the car’s path? No thanks. But you know, they do look even more like beetles when the roll upside down.
What, no Renault Dauphines!?
Was that a Renault or a Simca at 2:38? Either way, it would have been nice for the doors to stay closed.
Renault R8
When I was very young, our toy poodle escaped out the back door of my parent’s home. ‘Perry’ immediately ran across the road behind the house, into the path of a VW Beetle. The young woman driving, immediately slammed on the brakes as Perry fell on his side, in front of the front right tire. Miraculously, the poodle skidded on his side for several feet, as the front tire never passed over him. Several observers at the time, credited the lightweight of the Beetle’s front, to saving his life. For the experience, the poodle had burnt rubber marks on his side for weeks.
Here is a related CC article from a couple years ago:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/cc-vintage-video-flipping-out-on-the-nurburgring-nordschleife-1970-an-expensive-sunday-outing/
That VW convertible at 3:22… those people in the back were so close to getting thrown out! Some folks choose to just get into the dirt and keep going.
Such a badly engineered curve!
no,, just drivers exceeding their competence.
The luckiest ones: the Volvo(?) wagon that *barely* kept shiny side up at 1:22. The driver being ejected out of the door of the Beetle right into its path at 1:50, and the four people in the drop-top beetle with no roll protection at 3:22.
Volvo at 1.22 is a VW Type Variant, again rear engined and swing axle
A Volvo 122 at 1:22 would have been too good to be true.
Rolling over is not funny. I’ve tried it once. I’m not planning to try it again anytime, ever.
Having also once parked on the roof – slowly, luckily – it’s not an approach to motoring I intend to take up ever again either.
How did this work? Did you pay by the lap, or a block of time?
Also, I did not know you could flog a VW hard enough to get upside down.
The Nurburgring has public days at which you pay by the lap of the full Nordschleife.
https://www.greenhelldriving.nuerburgring.de/#/landing
I’ve spun mine into a ditch going down a steep hill on ice but never ever got one to go off any of it’s wheels. But the VWs I’ve had were all of the later IRS type.
What gets you squirrelly in a swingaxle VW, I’m sure in other similar cars as well, is backing off of the throttle mid corner, braking at that time makes it even worse. The weight shifts away from the rear. It’s best to brake before the curve and accelerate through it. Slow in, fast out.
The problem is that people realize the curve was too much too late and hit the brakes and lose it. I’ve come pretty damn close a couple times (think it’s scary in a Beetle, try it in a VW Bus!) but I’ve never rolled one.
In my long quest to eliminate the rear engine and the swing axle as respectable members of the History of The Car, and prove conclusively that the two were ever Third Columnists from Death himself, I would produce this video high on the exhibit list.
Now for such explicit proof of the same source in that companion from Hades, The Drum Brake, which, unlike the long-dead axles of swing, should be lying in a poorly-adjusted overheated out-of-alignment grave 30 feet past where it was supposed to be, but isn’t.
Anyone noticed the passenger window getting smashed by the passenger’s head at 1:10 ? o_0
Funny how a bunch of know nothings out on the track years ago somehow are touted as examples of the all-rear-engine-are-evil-must-die creed.
People in the know are pleased to inform that it’s a myth.
Oh, Porsche, Alpine, Renault, Fiat amongst others have comprehensively proved rear engines (and even some with swing axles) to be a hugely effective weapons on a racetrack or in a rally.
But unfortunately, the vast majority of us, including me, are Know-Nothings, or at best, slightly-talented consumers of cars for transport, and for us, the evils were real.
There’s only two mass-market boot-engined cars left, the smart and the Twingo, which in some ways is it’s own answer, though it’s also true that with modern engineering, even a Know-Nothing like me would be quite happy in either.
As for those in The Know, numerous members who have achieved membership of that exotic club have come round blind bends happily sideways half into my lane on public roads over the years, and as I cleaned my underpants and extracted my car from the verge, I will confess I didn’t call them names that showed due respect for their advanced skills.
We went off in my friends ’56 VW, but the rollover was so slow that only the drip rails were bent. This was in dirt.
My beloved NSUs did pretty well here. I can count four spins, one of them hitting the guardrail, but all of them stayed on their feet. I drove an import-model TT for nine years. The handling was an utter delight! It didn’t seem tail-happy at all, just happy. The engine was tucked close behind the rear seatback, and it weighed about the same as I did, so it wasn’t tail-happy like a VW. I’ve never driven a Porsche, so I can’t say for sure, but that NSU felt like the sedan that Porsche never built.