As far as gorillas go, the Silverback is the most majestic. And when monkeying around with VWs, a lot of people go ape over the Squareback. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe ‘66 may not be majestic, but will its price have you asking for some of your silver back?
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority - a full 94% of you - felt yesterday's custom Nissan pickup, dubbed the Truxarossa, to be nearly perfect. Perfect that is to be used as either a mobile Meth Lab or in lieu of Charmin the next time you take the browns to the super bowl. Yeah, it was just that bad.
Today we will attempt to cleanse the taste of cracker ass from everyone's mouths with an aperitif that's pretty much a favorite around here - the VW Squareback - and maybe its price will prove just as appetizing. The first of VW's Type 3 variants arrived in 1961 in the form of the very handsome notchback saloon. The following year saw the debut of a second body style, that of the square-back wagon. Sporting two doors and a hatch, the shooting brake-esqe long roof provided utility and, with the exception of a set of rear fender louvered air intakes, belied its rear engine placement.
This 1966 VW Squareback is from the fifth year of production and sports both aspects of originality, and what might be seen as welcome updating. The baby blue paint is claimed OG and featured a patina of age that will either endear or revolt. Under that patchy azure coat is a body that's relatively straight, but does feature a few dings and dents here and there, and what looks like a spot where a .357 slug narrowly missed taking out the driver's liver. Thankfully both the delicate blade bumpers and the precarious nose look reasonably unscathed. A couple of cool features are the basket rack on the roof and the sprint star rims. Behind those wheels, the seller calms are disc brakes, alleviating one of the early VWs major foibles- stopping ability of a one-legged duck on black ice.
Inside it's mostly stock, and a little tired. However, the blue plaid door panels and load area sides are a little jarring and it appears that the clan represented is McGarish. Much less eye watering are the skinny stock wheel with its lovely delicate horn ring, and the black dash top that unfortunately has a sizeable crack running through it. The hatch area is clean and thankfully unencumbered by oversized audio equipment that's seemingly common among Squareback owners.
Under the bed lies the engine, and if you like pancakes, you'll love the dual-port 1600 that lives down there. The Type 3 1600 was the first volume production car to feature electronic fuel injection, but that didn't come until 2 years after this car left the factory, and so it has old school carbs. That means about 55 bhp and, with the 4-speed stick and a deft arm working the long, rubbery linkage, getting to sixty from a standstill in about 15 seconds. You might want to bring a book. Also two years in this car's future - unless it has been upgraded - is the fully CV'd rear suspension, so this one's axles likely swing like drunken divorcees.
So it probably stops better than it goes, and looks pretty cool no matter what it's doing. If someone likes Squarebacks even more than babybacks then this one looks like a prime rib contender. But what about its price? The seller is asking $4,500 to take it off his hands, and even though its located in Nevada, that doesn't seem like too big a gamble, does it? What do you think, is $4,500 a square deal for this Squareback? Or, does that price make this Type 3 number 2?
You decide!
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