(image courtesy weilinet.com)
Volkswagen do Brasil has produced a number of models over the years by taking familiar VW designs and conducting radicalsurgery to tweak and twist them in surreal ways. The VW Gol of 1980-84, with an air-cooled Beetle engine mounted in the front of a shortened Audi 80/Fox chassis, is a perfect example. The immediate predecessor of the Gol was another mix and match of VW design elements: the Beetle-based VW Brasilia, proudly named after the capital of Brazil. It was a greatest hits collection of air cooled VW passenger car themes, combining a Beetle 1600cc engine and chassis, a three door hatchback body based on the Type 3 Squareback, and the front end styling of the 412.
With a larger interior made possible by replacing the Beetle’s 1930s fastback sedan body with a two box design, the Brasilia competed successfully with newly designed 1970s economy cars such as the Chevrolet Chevette and Ford Corcel. Over a million were sold from 1973 to 1982, and it continued for two years after the introduction of the front wheel drive Gol. Variants included a five door wagon and an alcohol fuel version with a 1,300cc engine. The Brasilia did not actually replace the Beetle, which outlasted the Brasilia by continuing in production in Brazil until 1996, with a temporary hiatus in 1986-1993.
Brasilia (image courtesy panoramio.com)
The Brasilia was an international sales success as well. VW do Brasil exported them to numerous countries including Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, South Africa, Portugal, and the Philippines. Overseas assembly occurred in Mexico and Nigeria for those markets. Although never sold in the U.S., a few have been imported individually, and they are among the rarest of VWs in the U.S. It deserves to be remembered as the final development of the Beetle platform and an example of VW do Brasil’s independent thinking during the 1970s.
Four door Brasilia (Image courtesy wikipedia)
Going thru Australian and Brazilian cars is not unlike reading an alternate universe science fiction novel. A wonderful series of “what-if’s”. Admittedly, non of these alternate designs would have been worthwhile from the American market viewpoint, but I’d have loved to have them available just for the ability to buy something slightly different.
Of course, I’m an auto blogger. I may wish that these cars were brought in. That doesn’t mean I’d actually reach into my wallet and BUY a new one.
Come one, man, as car guys, it is our duty to righteously and indignantly demand, with flared nostrils, cars that we, or nobody else, will never actually buy.
Kind of like manual transmission mini-vans.
Yet another car I had never even heard of before this morning. I love this place! That back end is much more sloped than a normal squareback. Interesting how Brazil would start with the kit from Germany but then add a lot of its own stuff to make it quite different.
It is cars like this, so popular in one part of the world yet unheard of in another, that makes me wonder if Alan Mulally’s “One Ford” plan is really such a great idea.
Sure, the company saves a lot of money and what it builds will be less expensive. However, the tradeoff is that your product probably loses a lot of appeal in many parts of the world (or in every part if you try too hard to please everyone). Oh no – not yet 10 am and I am starting to daydream. (Smacks self)
Mullaleys one Ford is straight out of Henrys play book except he has chosen the wrong cars
One Ford isn’t. They are still doing separate cars for the BRIC/non-first world countries.
Saab 99 tail lights?
Actually, the car shown is a Variant- the equivalent of a Type 3 but designed in Brazil and I believe on a different floorpan entirely to anything from Europe.
The Brasilia was based on a Karmann Ghia floorplan with a ‘vertical fan’ engine, whereas the Variant had an end-on fan like the type 3. Thus, the Brasilia has a rather compromised rear luggage area, but is easier to work on.
The latest versions of both looked even more similar- a late Brasilia and Variant 2 from 1979 looked almost identical from a distance, only when next to each other or when looking at the luggage compartment could you really tell the difference.
VW Brasil also made their own Karmann Ghia- the TC which looks very similar to the sexy Fiat 850 coupe.
I hope in the very near future to tag along to a Campervan export venture and bring some of these lovelies to the UK for my own fun. The only main hinderance (aside from logistics) is re-engineering the heaters which were often left off of South American cars.
Brian,
Your car-fu is superior to mine. You appear to be correct that this car is a Brazilian-made Type 3 Variant, produced from 1969 to 1980. I noticed the “Variant” badge, taillights that appeared non-standard for a Brasilia, and lack of C-pillar vents, but I assumed that the differences were from model year variations.
I will have to correct the CC when I have time later today.
Love this place…I had heard of the Brasilia and even the SP2, but never the Variant or the TC (mentioned above). That TC is wild and looks nothing like a VW to me, but I am completely getting the Fiat 850 reference.
So, Brian – the Variant is visually a lengthened Brasilia with different taillights and the engine differences noted above?
No, the Variant is a Type 3, known as the Squareback (and Fastback) in the US. The Brazilians restyled the front and rear to update it some.
They even made a four-door version of the Type 3:
Okay, I get it now. Brasilia = Type 1 chassis, Variant = Type 3 chassis. Those headlights on the 4-door Type 3 are wild, but I like ’em.
Spot on.. Type 3 and 1 (KG) chassis. Interestingly, that 4-door Type 3 Notchback shown above used a Beetle type upright engine and had no rear boot/trunk, unlike the German Type 3s.
To add to my previous comment (just above this one!) – I’ve since discovered (studying pics, manuals and brochures) that despite the external body shapes Brazilian ‘Type 3s’ weren’t actually based on Type 3 chassis but were all Type 1 based.. They all use the wider floorpan Type 1 chassis as used in Karmann-Ghia, Type 181, Type 147, Brasilia etc with Beetle suspension not the more sophisticated Type 3 chassis, which had rubber-mounted subframes both ends, and crossed round full-width torsion bars at the front.
No Brian. It’s a Brasilia. The Variant was much longer.
This is a Variant 2. Very different proportions to the Brasilia.
Was a Type 3 mounted engine like on the Variant considered for the Brasillia?
My buddy and I rented one of these in Freeport, Grand Bahama in 1980….not a bad little car for zooming around in the tropics and as I owned a 1977 Rabbit back home in Canada everything seemed familiar but different.
Its nice front end looks very close to the VW 412, a restyle done by Brooks Stevens.
According to whom? I never heard that before anywhere. Oh, I just checked…wikipedia. I’m rather dubious of that, and there is absolutely no corroborating evidence that he did, which frankly, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That, except for this intrinsically mangled claim on his company web site : “1970: Volkswagen – 411-412 Series with first water-cooled front engine automobile lines” This is under the section of the site called “Industry Firsts”, no less!
That nose has specifically been called the “Leiding nose”, after VW Boss Rudolf Leiding, and is seen on a raft of VWs. I don’t think VW needed to go to Milwaukee to get a squared-off nose on their cars….
Having said all of that, I’d be happy to credit Brooks Stevens with that redesign if anyone can come up with some actual evidence. Here’s the snippet from their web site:
Did you look at the citation next to “Brooks Stevens” in the Wikipedia VW Type 4 article? (Link)
“Test VW 412 LS”. Auto Motor u. Sport. Heft 3 1974: Seite 40–48. date 2 February 1974″
If anyone has access to Auto Motor und Sport back issues, online or otherwise, it would be you, Paul!
Times were tough at VW in the early seventies, weren’t they? If they wanted a fresh restyle on a slender budget, Brooks Stevens was the man to call.
I should have. Hmmm; undoubtedly I read it at the time. But sadly, I never kept the old ones. I will try to investigate further….
i’m in love…
Holy crap! The stylistic predecessor to the AMC Spirit Kammback! Wowsers!
When I visited Lisbon in 1982 these were all over the place, so Portugal must have been a major export market. For you miniature enthusiasts, Hot Wheels has made a model of the Brasilia, I got one i the supermarket this spring but haven’t checked he date for when it first appeared.
Yeah, I’ve a Hot Wheels Brasilia, as well as an SP 2 coupe, Chevy “Opala” SS, and 1974 Brazilian Dodge Charger… It’s amazing that Mattel would actually DO such hot cars from Brazil, as they’ve done with the Australian XB Falcon GT! I’m hoping to see either an Argentine IKA-Renault Torino, Aussie Chrysler VH Valiant Charger, or even the Gol/Fox… And I’m still waiting for an AMC Matador Coupe and Wagon and a Citroen SM!
Wow! Now the pictures that were up first looked vaguely familiar, but this thing is just weird. To me, it has a bit of an Eastern European vibe to it, like a Zastava-Saporoshez prototype. And what’s with the little fins on the rear light cluster? For better heat dissipation when turning and braking at the same time?
I think the ribbed light lenses are a nod to Mercedes-Benz. .. Could have been appealing to the Brazilan market? Check out the tail lamps on the Gurgel XEF.
This VW week has been muitu brasileira!!
When I was in primary school three schoolmates had VWs: there was a brazilian Beetle, a Brasilia, and a Variant II. You could easily confuse the Brasilia with the Variant II. I sat many times in the back seat of the Variant II, and it drove nice and made a pretty solid impression, unlike the Brasilia, which was in every aspect cheaper.
And since I mentioned the brazilian Beetle: these kept the pre-1964 small windows all around until 1996 being, like the brazilian Type 2, a strange combination of elements from different years. This makes them also very easy to identify from the distance, which has become for me a good kill-time when driving! (although beetles are becoming more and more scarce here in Chile)
I have the current edition hot wheels brasilia one in green and one in purple. Talk at ya all in about a month. The only appointment for the fibre op was a month away and its a three day install in my new shack. Ciau
My uncle had 2 of these when I was a kid. He loved them. One of them was rally raced. Because of the color, I suspect the one in the picture is his was a light blue one and was fairly stock.
Image is courtesy of other site.
The VW Brasilia article brings back memories. My mother-in-law and two of her sisters bought identical Brasilias at the same VW dealership in Mexico City in 1976. They were a roomier and upscale alternative to a Beetle with the same indestructible mechanicals.
Unfortunately, the Brasilia gained a well-earned reputation as a rust-bucket.
Weather sealing was inadequate and they leaked like sieves. During rainy season you’d find a pool of water sitting on the floor with nowhere to go. Both the Brasilias I inherited from the family had the floors rust out. Once my wife and her sister were in a minor rear ender in their parents’ Brasilia. The only exterior damage was a bent bumper and a dent in the rear panel. Both of them, however, found themselves sitting on the pavement because the jolt caused the floorpan on both sides to disintegrate and their seats literally plopped onto the ground. A local welder cut some sheet steel, liberally coated it with tar and welded in new floors. But the leaking from the door seals persisted. Frustrated with bailing out my Brasilia every morning, I finally solved the problem by drilling a few quarter-inch holes in the low points of the floorpan. That solved the pools of water in the morning problem but created an interesting “bidet” effect whenever I drove through a puddle.
As bad as the 76 Brasilia’s water leaks were, the models from 79-81 were even worse. Some of them apparently came with no weather sealing due to a supply problem from Brazil. In spite of these problems, the two 1976 Brasilias were my daily drivers throughout the 1980s and I remember them fondly. Parts were real cheap. Interior trim bits and signal light assemblies could be bought in supermarkets and cost only a few pesos. Although both had well over 100,000 km you could still drive the crap out of them and they wouldn’t let you down. The only tools I carried in the cars were a pair of pliers and a flat-head screwdriver.
In late 1981 the Brasilia was replaced by the first generation VW Jetta, known in Mexico as the Atlante.
It would be an interesting ‘what-if’ proposition to imagine VW had done something like this in say 1964-65. Of course the mechanicals would have still held it back, but then again many wouldn’t want them to change.
It would have been a hit in the US, better than the dumpy-looking Squareback. VW would have made it well into the Seventies without a slump. It’s easy to imagine a smooth transition from this car to the FWD Rabbit/Golf. In a slightly different Alternate Universe.
Here’s one parked in a California driveway. You can see the Rabbit/Golf in it, don’t you think? The Beetle for the Americas. (Link to Bring a Trailer)
The Brasilia’s much smaller than a Type 3 Variant / Squareback and it’s an upright beetle engine so it’s not an estate car / station wagon, juts a hatch over a high shelf…
The Brazilian VW Variant 2 is what you’d need. ‘Pancake’ Type 3 engine and longer car but similar styling to the Brasilia.
It seems that the pancake type 3 engine would have been an improvement in space utilization. I am guessing it was more expensive to make and harder to work on as noted above. A pity about the weather stripping/drainage… I have seen these in Mexico and thought they looked nice and seemed more pleasant than a Bug.