1965 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia from North America - Comments

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.

Why did you buy it in the first place?

You obviously are not a Volkswagen enthusiast.

Many of the traits you complain about, valve adjustments,

quirky heater, screen oil-filter, are endearing traits

to VW enthusiasts.

As far as the Corvair heaters go, they pumped a heavy oil smell into the cabins.

In answer to the question "Why did you buy it in the first place?": Well, I didn't buy it for a hobby car, although it put a lot of grease under my nails on weekends. That's OK if one has the time, the enthusiasm, and a warm garage. Look. I know that the old Beetles and Ghia's captured the hearts of a lot of people and I don't put anyone down for that. Plus they are really easy to get engine parts for and rebuild, etc. But I bought it in hopes of cutting down my transportation costs, commuting to my job 27 miles away. At that time (30 years ago), the little 41 mpg Ghia seemed attractive from the standpoint of fuel economy. Perhaps the 12-volt conversion would have made a halfway dependable machine out of it. I lacked the time or interest in doing the changeover back then. Since those days of my youth, I have grown fond of a certain Japanese-built economy car. (One mechanical failure in 175,000 miles, and it took 1 minute to diagnose with its own built-in diagnostic system!) The bottom line in my learning experience? Dependability is a virtue.

What you need is a 3 banger 5 speed Geo Metro, Pontiac Firefly, Chevy Sprint, Suzuki Forsa or Suzuki Swift. The 3 cylinder 5 speed cars can easily get over 40 mpg on the highway, and have gotta be the closest thing to an old Veedub Beetle on the road, as far as mechanical simplicity and ease of repairs go.

I couldn't agree with you more. After my "learning experience" I eventually learned that the best all-around economy vehicle ever built was a 3-cylinder 5-speed Geo Metro. I guess you could call me a Metro Enthusiast, since I own 3 of them now. The '93 I bought new, and it now has 216,000 miles on it. It has NEVER left me stranded, it has NEVER been in the shop, and I've only had to make 2 repairs in the whole time I've owned it. (MAP sensor and water pump gasket). One repair took me 3 minutes and the other took 1 hour. I am a Metro Enthusiast by choice, not by necessity, and I no longer have VW grease under my fingernails and in my carport. And my Geo's most endearing traits are a real heater & defroster, real windshield wipers, real oil and air filter, and a "quirky" 55 miles per gallon with the real air conditioning on.

And no soul what so ever.

If by "no soul", you mean "no worry that it won't even make it to the corner store without making some suspicious sounding noise, if not breaking down altogether", then, yeah, no soul.

The problems that you mention with your Ghia indicate to me that there was possibly something fundamentally wrong, probably due to lack of maintenance by a previous owner. My first car in 1965 was a 56 Beetle, followed by a 61, 59, 66, then a 68 fastback, and a 65 while in Europe for a while. All of them, except the 68, were 6 volt systems and I never had any problem with wipers, etc. Although I do admit that starting my 56 in Ontario winters was not always a forgone conclusion. However, I figured it was more to do with a crappy battery than anything else. And I sure didn't have to adjust the valves more than with any other car of that vintage. And yes the heater boxes do deteriorate, especially if you operate in a harsh winter environment where salted roads are the norm, but you shouldn't smell exhaust fumes unless the exhaust pipes that run through the boxes have rotted too and that is somewhat extreme. If you had replaced them they would have been good for at least another five years. And while on the topic of winter driving, why would you need chains? Hell, you barely needed snow tires on them.

Before there were Datsuns, Toyotas, and Hondas Volkswagens were pretty much the only affordable foreign cars that gave recognized dependability. This is what built their reputation in the 50s and 60s. In those days clocking 100,000 miles was considered a big deal on any car, and VWs would do it regularly.

In answer to your winter driving question, I'll ask you one. Have you ever driven on ice, on 7 percent incline at 9,000 feet? Yeah, even VW's need chains in those situations. There was one hill in particular where everyone was giving up and leaving their cars on the highway because they had no chains. I too, lost traction on the ice and had to stop. After fighting with my chains for an unreasonable amount of time and freezing my hands I finally had to jack the car up and remove the wheels from the Ghia, one at a time, to do a safe installation. There was no clearance to put my hands up over the tires to drape the chains over them (the first step in installing them). Factor in 15 degrees F above zero with a 30 MPH wind. By the time I got up and running I was beginning to experience borderline hypothermia. The heater, defroster and wipers were a joke. Somehow, without being able to see clearly through the windshield I finally made it home. With any other (conventional) car, this would have been an easy procedure. The next day, I had to jack the car up again and remove the chains. That is just one of the many things I disliked about it, as you've already read.

I commuted between 250 and 300 miles a week, mostly highway miles, and I diligently changed the oil. However, that kind of sustained use separates long-life cars from the others. 100,000 miles on an air-cooled VW without any engine work? Be real.

I am curious as to what car you bought to replace the Karmann Ghia, as you said it (the replacement) had hydraulic lifters and very few production cars had hydraulic lifters in 1977 or earlier.

Did the writer of the previous comment just fly in from another planet? Hydraulic lifters have been commonplace on American vehicles, especially V8's, since at least the early 1960's...

In answer to the question, I bought a Ford Thunderbird. It was a '79 model with a 302 V8. It turned out to be one of the better Fords I have owned. It was comfortable, dependable, good in snow and I was pleasantly surprised when I measured the fuel mileage. It delivered 24 mpg on my first 400+ miles trip (with the air conditioning on). Those numbers were hard to achieve in carburated V8's in those days. Incidentally, it came with a '79 factory Motorcraft 2150 2-barrel carb with.051 jets. It is a very simple and economical carburetor.

Your belief that hydraulic lifters were uncommon in cars prior to 1977 is incorrect. All of the cars I owned before the Kharman Ghia had hydraulic valve lifters, and I started driving in 1965. To name a few, they were Chrysler 300, Olds Delta 88, Pontiac Grand Prix, Pontiac GTO and Chevy Impala.

In the past decade or so I have taken to driving Geo Metros and Toyota pickups and I don't worry about lifters, hydraulic or otherwise. At the age of 55, I have better things to do with my time than fix cars. I find Japanese vehicles to be the most trouble-free, if you buy them new and maintain them properly from day one.

As the author of the original review, I need to make a correction. I departed with my Kharman Ghia in 1980, not 1977. After thinking about it, I realized it was two years before moving from New Mexico to Colorado, and the T-Bird was a year old when I bought it. Sorry, my chronology was flawed.

At any rate, I think the experience of owning the Ghia was worth it, as it provided an opportunity for me to learn about air-cooled, rear-engine cars. I believe the gauge of the electrical wiring could have been heavier, especially for a six-volt system. I understand that most conversions to 12 volts provide an adequate fix, even though it involved in a lot of replacement of components. I have to add that driving the little beast in the summertime was a lot of fun, for the most part. However, I was more at home with having a spin-on oil filter, a paper air filter instead of a greasy oil bath filter, a radiator with coolant (meaning a good heater & defroster), and a 12-volt system that I could add a stereo and other add-ons to. The valve adjustment was a pain in the butt. The incident involving the hose fitting coming out of the fuel pump and spraying gas all over the engine helped me to decide to get something else to drive.

I bought my first Ghia (vintage 1964) in 1970. In December of 1976 I was overcome by carbon monoxide on a long trip and crashed into a ditch. Evidently the heat exchanger rusted out and allowed exhaust to get into the cabin thru the heater. Nobody ever mentioned that it could be a concern back then. After months in the hospital and a year in a body cast I was back on the road when I replaced it with a 1972 Super Beetle. I've owned a variety of VW's since then. I now own a 1972 Ghia and vow to hold my breath on long trips in the winter from now on (or maybe leaving a window down might be a better solution). Karmann Ghia's are an acquired taste, but once they get into your blood you will practically die to have one.