Photo: Mobile.de
Almost a century ago, two men set up a huge project for a tiny car. Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche were envisioning the Volkswagen Beetle.
In the summer of 1934, Hitler commissioned Porsche to come up with a car under the motto "strength through pleasure". The Führer, who did not have a driving license, announced a ”people's car” at the motor show in February 1933. It was just weeks after he was appointed Reich Chancellor.
He personally approved the prototype of ”his Volkswagen” on 29 December 1935. No more than two years later, on 26 May 1938, the foundation stone of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg was laid in the presence of the Führer.
The Volkswagen Beetle was intended not as a sports car but as a car that every German could afford. However, fast forward a few decades and we find a model that would have made the Führer himself frown.
What you see in the pictures looks like a regular Beetle. But what this old guy is wearing underneath is anything but ordinary. It is a Volkswagen Beetle with an Audi 4.2-liter twin-turbo V8 engine producing 331 kW (450 ps / 444 hp). The car also has a 6-speed manual transmission. Its price is pretty hefty, commensurate with its supercar performance: €98,000 (around $98,730).
According to an ad on one of Germany's largest used car sales websites, this Volkswagen Beetle was produced in 1986. It is one of the only two V8 Stealth Beetles in Gulf Edition ever built. The car sports a Gulf Oil Racing livery has a mileage of only 1,100 km (around 684 miles). According to the description in the advert, this Beetle was approved by the TÜV in the individual test procedure and certified for German road traffic.
Given the rather high price, we don't know how tempting the seller's offer is, but the fact remains that this example is a far cry from what the Beetle's creators had planned: a car that normal people can afford.
He personally approved the prototype of ”his Volkswagen” on 29 December 1935. No more than two years later, on 26 May 1938, the foundation stone of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg was laid in the presence of the Führer.
The Volkswagen Beetle was intended not as a sports car but as a car that every German could afford. However, fast forward a few decades and we find a model that would have made the Führer himself frown.
What you see in the pictures looks like a regular Beetle. But what this old guy is wearing underneath is anything but ordinary. It is a Volkswagen Beetle with an Audi 4.2-liter twin-turbo V8 engine producing 331 kW (450 ps / 444 hp). The car also has a 6-speed manual transmission. Its price is pretty hefty, commensurate with its supercar performance: €98,000 (around $98,730).
According to an ad on one of Germany's largest used car sales websites, this Volkswagen Beetle was produced in 1986. It is one of the only two V8 Stealth Beetles in Gulf Edition ever built. The car sports a Gulf Oil Racing livery has a mileage of only 1,100 km (around 684 miles). According to the description in the advert, this Beetle was approved by the TÜV in the individual test procedure and certified for German road traffic.
Given the rather high price, we don't know how tempting the seller's offer is, but the fact remains that this example is a far cry from what the Beetle's creators had planned: a car that normal people can afford.
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