You'll Never Believe What This VW Thing Just Sold For
1974 Volkswagen Thing Acapulco Edition
Much as the classic cars
gathering at Amelia Island in March have begun to compete with Pebble
Beach's annual concours in scope and beauty, the collector-car auctions
around the Amelia Island event have swelled to new heights. Last weekend
kept the trend alive, with more than $100 million in classic machinery
sold, with 20 rare Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Mercedes drawing more than
$1 million apiece.
And then there's this, a 1974
Volkswagen Type 181, a.k.a. Thing, that set a new world record price for
VW Things during the sale at Gooding & Co. You'll never believe
what this Thing is suddenly worth.
One of several customized for an
Acapulco resort, this surrey-topped Thing is rare but not exactly
museum-quality; it saw several years of use around said resort and came
to Gooding billed as fun driver, not a conservatory piece. Things were
slow beasts, what with their 46-hp engines and 0-60 mph times of "mix me
another mai-tai while you're at it," but as they were based on widely
available VW components, care and feeding has been fairly easy.
There's a precedent for these
types of runabouts; the Fiat 600 Jolly has a small but ardent fanbase,
and one of those sold for $63,000 in the same Gooding auction last
weekend, although Jollys are far rarer. According to Hagerty, this exact
Thing had sold for $22,500 in 2010, and the pre-auction estimate of
$25,000 to $35,000 seemed optimistic without being delusional.
And yet when the hammer fell,
this Thing had set a new world record at $52,800. We're fairly
ecumenical in our appreciation of old metal, but that's serious coin for
a car that can't outrun rain, although prices on many older VW classics
have been rising. If you're the seller of a Type 181 who thinks this
sets the new bar, we'd suggest tempering your enthusiasm just a bit.
Market corrections can be a hell of a Thing.
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