MoneywebDRIVE Issue 5 | Page 36

MoneywebDRIVE: Investment Classics At the 1955 show, the beautiful, sensuous, Karmann Ghia made its public debut at the Messe in downtown Frankfurt, and it was undoubtedly a show-stopper. The Frankfurt International Motor Show opens its doors to the public today – September 17 – and it is more than likely that a special tribute will be paid at the Volkswagen stand to one of the most eye-catching cars ever conceived by the Wolfsburg concern. This year’s show marks 60 years of the Karmann Ghia. At the 1955 show, the beautiful, sensuous, Karmann Ghia made its public debut at the Messe in down-town Frankfurt, and it was undoubtedly a show-stopper. Yet few people viewing the car for the first time would have realised that beneath that sensational shape – styled by Luigi Segre of the Italian carrozzeria Ghia, and hand-crafted by one of the oldest coach-builders in the world at that time – Karmann of Osnabruck – beat the heart of a humble Volkswagen Beetle. The original Karmann Ghia coupe was powered by a 1 192 cc air-cooled four-cyl- 36­ inder motor identical to the original Type One Volkswagen – in those days, the term Beetle was not used officially for the Volkswagen sedan. The rest of the mechanical ancillaries were Beetle too, although the floor-pan was widened slightly to accept the two-plus-two body, which was built and mated to the otherwise Beetle-like chassis at the Karmann factory located east of Hanover. Unfortunately, this reliance on stock Beetle power meant that the Ghia was not exactly a firebrand when it came to performance, especially as it looked as though it would take on a miniature Ferrari with one of the spark plugs disconnected! But what VW had created was “Beetle in a party dress” and in fact this was the forerunner of many similar cars marketed today, where the accent is on style as much as performance. Think Scirocco for the VW brand and some of the Korean coupes too.