Description
FIVA Pass
Original all-wheel drive chassis
Authentic details
The VW Type 87, also called the Commander's Car, is a four-wheel drive version of the KdF-Wagen, which was built by the Volkswagen factory from 1941 to 1944, primarily for the Wehrmacht.
The all-wheel drive and engine were taken from the Schwimmwagen Type 166.
Because the Type 87 has 5. 25-16 off-road tires, the fenders are wider than those on the KdF-Wagen. For this purpose, a metal strip was added to the inside of the fenders; the running boards are also correspondingly wider. Under the front hood, where the spare tire would normally be, a 20-liter gasoline can is housed in addition to the fuel tank. The spare tire is located above the 40-liter fuel tank, whose filler neck was angled for this purpose. The body is bolted to the chassis. Almost all cars had a folding sunroof.
The off-road gear is engaged along with the front-wheel drive via a second shift lever in the center of the vehicle. With front-wheel drive engaged, the gradeability is 75 percent.
The front wheels are individually suspended on two trailing arms at the top and bottom with torsion bar springs (so-called crank link axle), the rear axle is a portal swing axle guided on trailing arms with reduction gears on the outside of the half-axles.
How many Type 87s were actually built is disputed. Estimates range from a few individual units to several hundred.
What is certain, however, is that all-wheel drive Beetles were used both in Northern Europe and in the African campaign.
Our car was painstakingly reconstructed in Norway in the late 1980s on an original four-wheel drive chassis.
A photographic documentation of the work is included in the vehicle file.
It is certainly one of the most authentic Type 87s in the world.
All details such as the matte light-absorbing paint, the camouflage headlights, the windows with forced ventilation and the large folding roof were faithfully restored with great effort.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the all-wheel drive Beetle was sold to a collection in Germany, of which it had been a part for the last 30 years.
It has a German registration and a FIVA passport.
