1965 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia review from North America

The driver's side door latch broke in two shortly after I bought it.

The manifold heat-exchanger for the heater rusted through so I couldn't use the heater without smelling exhaust fumes. Not good. (Cough.) The windows always fogged up in cold weather, even when it was halfway working. They could've used the type that Corvair (another air-cooled, rear-engine car) used, which provided instant heat at any time.

The six-volt system left a lot to be desired, and the wiring was marginally adequate at best. There wasn't enough "juice" to run the wipers sometimes. It was always burning fuses, too.

Even with lots of care and oil changes every 2,500 miles, the engine developed an oil consumption problem and eventually required an overhaul.

One day when driving home from work on I-40, the engine quit. I got out and went to the rear of the car to check the engine, and when I lifted the hood, there was fuel everywhere! The fitting that the fuel line was clamped to popped out of the housing of the fuel pump (it was pressed in). Miraculously, it did not ignite.

I suppose this is an OK car for someone who likes tinkering with a hobby car every weekend. I didn't like the fact that the valves had to be adjusted every time I turned around. Also, I would've liked to see a conventional spin-on oil filter on the engine, instead of a screen that cut my fingers more than once when removing it from the crank case (after a tedious removal of numerous cap nuts).

A lot of people converted the 6-volt systems over to 12 volts. It involved a lot of other changes, namely the generator, battery, radio, etc.

I lived in an area that required tire chains a few times in the winter. I had to jack the car up off the ground just to put the chains on, because there wasn't enough clearance to get my hands up and over the tire in the rear wheel well. This was a shame, because the little beast was actually pretty good in the snow otherwise.

After the near-disaster with fuel spraying all over the engine, I figured fate was trying to tell me something. The very next day I went and bought a car with a real heater, a real 12-volt system, hydraulic valve lifters,

two-speed windshield wipers, and a gas tank that wasn't sitting in my lap.