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The Ghia shape has a symetry that many believe deserves more than humble Beetle underpinnings.
Owners believe Beetle mechanicals are a reliable blessing! The Type 3 Ghia (1962 to 1969) is known
as the Razor model, for obvious reasons. This 1600 cc version displays its rather odd proportions.
The fact that the Karmann Ghia’s frontal area
was much smaller than a Beetle meant that
it was marginally quicker on top speed, with
contemporary road tests of the period reporting a speed of around 118 km/h, whereas the
cooking Beetle was good for about 115 km/h.
But that early power deficit, mattered not a
hoot to the people that bought the car, and
indeed, many thousands of people wanted
just such a steed, as even then the Beetle
had built a reputation for reliability that was
arguably unmatched on the planet.
port tariffs on special models saw an influx of
all sorts of cars previously unobtainable here.
Thus we had all sorts of special builds arriving
here in that year, ranging from tiny microcars
to thundering great Cadillacs and Thunderbirds. A fair smattering of 1958 Ghias survive
in South Africa, and indeed these are seen,
along with the 1959 model, as the most desirable Ghias in terms of collectability.
Two years after the coupe’s debut, the equally stunning convertible was launched, also
called a cabriolet in certain markets. Initially
the Karmann was built only in left-hand-drive
form, and this was the case until the 1960
model, when the first right-hand-drive Ghias
were built.
The reason is these early models have the socalled low-light styling. From 1960 onwards a
big design revision saw the headlights raised
up slightly, the tail lights grow bigger, and
the wheel arch cut-outs on the front fenders
re-angled. The most noticeable change was
that the front end fresh air vent “nostrils” were
made larger in 1960. Indeed, rarely a year
went by from 1955 to the end of production
in 1974, when Volkswagen didn’t make a few
minor improvements.
In South Africa, the Karmann Ghia made its
first impact in 1958, when a relaxation of im-
Some of these improvements included marginally more powerful 1 192 cc engine for the
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