The VW Type 4 was introduced in the summer of 1968 and was produced until the end of September 1974. It was not the success it should have been although the final production total of about 370,000 cars is not to be sneezed at. Survivors are now rare and they are largely ignored by the traditional VW enthusiast.
I bought this car as a standard 3-door Variant in June 1987 whilst working at Watford, Hertfordshire. It proved to be a superb family car but I always thought it would be improved by having four doors. After a lot of thought I finally got around to splicing a couple of extra doors into the sides to create this, the world’s only VW412 5-door Variant.
The car is yet to be finished but I have always intended that it will be my daily driver – when I᾿m not driving my Beetle!
Specification:
You can read the full story of the conversion here. Updated 5th March 2014.
First published October 2012 © J S Rastall