Hi,
Just out of interest, does anyone know how many semi autos were made?
:)
Hi
no one seems to know exactly... they were all made in the one factory in GERMANY...
and exported all over the world.. Not a lot were sold in Australia..
and they were mostly 1968-69-70-71-72 models.. seems most were sold in 1968, when the NEW 1500 model beetle was introduced here.. but whether 100 were sold or less or more???
The USA seems to be the largest market for the AUTOSTICK TYPE 1 BEETLE, plus the KARMANN GHIA also had the autostick... [hard top and soft top [cabriolet] and I presume the type 1 Karmann Cabriolet [beetle convertible] would have been available with the autostick option... so that would add up to a lot of cars... naturally somewhere in the thousands...
its a wonder WOLFSBURG didn't have the exact number made..???
cheers
LEE in Australia
They are fairly rare in Europe, including the UK, Australia and New Zealand but are Very numerous in North America. It seems that Most autosticks were sold in the USA. Porsche needed the Autostick transmission for its USA cars. I believe it could have been a joint venture?
Lee
Hi Again
Well I just read recently some where that Not a lot of Autosticks were made compared to manual cars..
although No real figures, it was suggested that the EXTRA cost of the autostick was one reason and the poor fuel mileage was another.
The writer also said the car wasn't as fast as the manual to drive because it had only 3 gears.
At that time I knew the writer didn't own an autostick otherwise they would have known that the top 3 gears were the same as a manual and it was 1st gear that wasn;t used...
because 1st gear would have been useless...
Every autostick owner would know that LOW gear is VERY Low and a lower gear is NOT needed.
So, whether the writer actually knew anything about autosticks?? I don't know...
Lee in Australia
Think I might send an email to Wolfsburg :)
Quote from: FESTERER on 28 July 2014, 17:21
Think I might send an email to Wolfsburg :)
Would be great to get the figures....
but I believe there is only about one person still working in the old VW files etc section...
Best of Luck
Lee
I received an email back earlier, it said:
thank you for your eMail.
We are very sorry, but in our archive there is no historical tradition
for counts of semi automatic Beetles.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards,
Corporate History Department
Volkswagen Group Communications
i.A. i.A.
Stefani Steiner-Harder Ria Oswald
The Main problem being there were No computers back then so everything was on paper and its probably all been recycled...
That is also the problem with the VW birth certificates and the options etc
the options may have been printed on seperate tags etc.. and they no longer have them. Seeing they made and sold so many millions of beetles , its really no wonder they don't still have all the details.. I presume Most car makers would do the same.. as they are really only interested in selling the cars.. lol.. these days..
although having all the details on computers nakes it very easy now..
cheers
LEE
Hi everyone,
Better late than never I suppose. On February 02, 2006, Bookwus posted on thesamba.com that about 10% of type 1's imported to the United States were autostick. At that time (of posting) he stated that significantly fewer than 10% remained on the road. Well, it is almost 11 years later and I suspect that the numbers have diminished significantly since 2006.
From Rokurmen January 17, 2006 (this site, Old Forum):
VW produced a total of 610300 Type 1 and Type 14 with Automatic Stick Shift, since August 1967 (1968 Model) until 30th of July, 1976. I take this as total production and not the number exported to the United States.
Thank you,
John
Hi John,
That's a great bit of info, I gave up looking for an answer when emailing Wolfsburg museum returned no info. There's one thing for sure that they're very scarce now,
Thanks for the reply
Sally :)
Hi Sally,
I know that every Beetle for sale is not listed on thesamba.com. However, if I pull a count on total 1968 to 1976 Beetles and then pull a count on autostick Beetles, the autosticks are 2.4 percent of the total. While not exact, that is probably a pretty good estimate of how many autosticks remain.
610,300 VW Autosticks. I would guess that is the number for USA Only .
As far as I know NO type 114 autosticks [Karmann Ghia] were ever sold in Australia.
I do believe that MOST Autosticks were sold in the USA. Left hand Drive.
Very few Right Hand Drive autosticks were sold in UK & Australia & New Zealand Japan.
Guessing total less than 100 ????
Makes You wonder why they made any RHD autosticks at all????
Accurate numbers would have been great.
LEE
I saw someone on a VW Facebook page last week giving a semi auto beetle away, they are in the Channel Islands I think. She wanted it to go to a good home.
That maybe the only one ever in the channel islands???
I just read in A UK Haynes handbook that the autostick beetle was sold in the UK in 1968 and 1969.ONLY
It was a special import in 1970... then NO MORE SOLD....
LEE
Quote from: 68autobug on 06 December 2016, 14:18
That maybe the only one ever in the channel islands???
I just read in A UK Haynes handbook that the autostick beetle was sold in the UK in 1968 and 1969.ONLY
It was a special import in 1970... then NO MORE SOLD....
LEE
Our UK '73 must be really rare then :)
Hi everyone,
All that I know is that the supply of autosticks for sale is dropping quickly. I wish that the conversion of autosticks to 4 speeds would stop. But that will not happen. Maybe I am overreacting. Anyone care to comment ?
Thank you,
John
I would agree but the conversions are probably done a lot of the time where if the car body is in such good condition a buyer just goes for that knowing that they have no intention of leaving it auto. Someone should start a YouTube channel about autosticks and the most common issues & fixes.
Hi Dave,
That is a good idea. When I see a picture of an engine compartment and the vacuum lines are hooked up incorrectly, I send an email to the seller. They rarely respond. My opinion is that clutch slamming is damaging. When I got my 1973 Super Beetle autostick, the vacuum lines were hooked up incorrectly and the clutch slammed violently. I corrected that but I think the damage was done. The torque converter was damaged and that led to it destroying 3 flexplates before the cause was determined. At that point, I got rid of it.
I knew that was happening in Australia back in the late 90s but I don't know if it was a common practice later on.
The main reason it was done in Australia, was to get the Independant Rear Suspension rear end that all autosticks had.
We didn't have IRS manual cars apart from the supers plus a few 1976 manual cars with IRS rear end . So to have a torsion bar front end and IRS rear end with constant velocity joints etc an autostick was used, otherwise they would have to use a SUPER beetle to get the IRS as the manuals still had the old Swing axles. All autosticks imported into AUSTRALIA had front disc brakes... I don't think any autosticks were sold in Australia with the 1300cc engine. they were 1500 single port or 1600 twin port engines. Then again, No one knows haw many autosticks were sold in Australia, but it was nothing like the USA. Also a lot of autostick Karmann Ghias were sold in the USA, but none in Australia as far as i know. Very few Karmann ghias were sold in Australia as they were nearly DOUBLE the price of a Beetle and only a few were sold around 1960....
Lee in Australia
Quote from: phxjohn on 08 December 2016, 23:21
Hi Dave,
That is a good idea. When I see a picture of an engine compartment and the vacuum lines are hooked up incorrectly, I send an email to the seller. They rarely respond. My opinion is that clutch slamming is damaging. When I got my 1973 Super Beetle autostick, the vacuum lines were hooked up incorrectly and the clutch slammed violently. I corrected that but I think the damage was done. The torque converter was damaged and that led to it destroying 3 flexplates before the cause was determined. At that point, I got rid of it.
Hi Dave,
My car used to slamm into gear for about 6 months or more, until I found the problem as I wasn't using a Solex carburetor... I cannot see how you can damage the torque converter with the slamming...
as the clutch is either In or OUT so there is NO slippage at all... I did however damage My torque converter after I took the engine out and whilst it was out I must have turned the crankshaft or moved the axles etc as when I went to bolt the torque converter onto the flexplate the SPLINES were NOT Aligned, so I damaged the inside of the TC and it made a racket when I started the engine... so, I had taken the engine out a few times without ever moving the rear axles or crankshaft... so, it was a learning curve when that happened...
but if the bolts were done up with out the splines aligned and then adjusted correctly, the damage had been done, so re-aligning the splines would NOT repair the damage.... When I asked a local Mechanic about the noise when I started the engine, He knew right away about the splines being mis-aligned... so it may have been a common occurance in auto cars many years ago... I don't believe that the slamming has any effect on the torque converter... but that is just Me... lol
LEE in Australia
A bit late, again, to the party but I can confirm the u.s. convertibles did have autostick as an available option. My dad got my mom one for their anniversary. That car is long gone now, unfortunately.
Quote from: phxjohn on 08 December 2016, 23:21
Hi Dave,
That is a good idea. When I see a picture of an engine compartment and the vacuum lines are hooked up incorrectly, I send an email to the seller. They rarely respond. My opinion is that clutch slamming is damaging. When I got my 1973 Super Beetle autostick, the vacuum lines were hooked up incorrectly and the clutch slammed violently. I corrected that but I think the damage was done. The torque converter was damaged and that led to it destroying 3 flexplates before the cause was determined. At that point, I got rid of it.
Quote from: Dave on 08 December 2016, 19:37
I would agree but the conversions are probably done a lot of the time where if the car body is in such good condition a buyer just goes for that knowing that they have no intention of leaving it auto. Someone should start a YouTube channel about autosticks and the most common issues & fixes.
How was the torque converter damaged?
maybe it was damaged by the previous owner - NOT by driving it???? only guessing.... I damaged My torque converter by tightening the 4 bolts to the flexplate with the splines NOT MESHING...... I thought it was odd, as the 4 bolts were much more difficult to do up.... When I started the engine, there was a strange noise as the torque converter was way out of balance... If I had found out about the splines not meshing earlier on the torque converter could have been slightly damaged inside but not making the noise...
Maybe that did happen... some times...?? Did the flex plates crack or break??
After jogging My memory about the 610 thousand autosticks being made, that was probably the total made... although I believe Most went to the USA and were mainly LHD.
Where many thousands were sold in the USA only a hundred or so [or much LESS] to Australia and New Zealand. I have bought autostick parts from about 4 people whose beetles were destroyed and no longer on the road. I know of a few more that were made into manuals and used to obtain the IRS rear suspension that wasn't available in Australia with a torsion bar front end. [until 1976 when autosticks were no longer sold here after 1974].
I don't like to think of all the autostick gearboxes and other good parts that have been trashed over the years, many probably not having anything major wrong with them, or had a rusted out body.... We don't have the problem of salt and other chemicals being used on the ICY ROADS in Winter here in Australia. It it gets too Icy over here they just close the roads... lol [mostly in the snow fields although there is a local road only open to Four Wheel Drive Vehicles [with chains]
Apart from the vacuum and Automatic transmission hoses being replaced every 20 years or so, most autostick only parts lasted longer than 'normal' beetles...
LEE in Australia