Most likely didn't do much for my opinion of these cars that the "hillbillies", as my mother derogatorily referred to the family across the street from where we lived on New York's Long Island, pulled the bodies off junked up VW's and hacked the chassis' for Manx Dune Buggy's. Nothing making you believe that something is less than what it's perceived as by seeing behind the curtain. These days, while a Beetle of this vintage can still be had quite affordably, same can't be said for a Kharmin Ghia like this freshly restored two-tone '66 that has an asking price of $35,000.
The problem I had with Kharmin Ghia's, and to some degree I still do, was that I saw them first and foremost for what they were - fancied Beetles. Didn't matter to me that Ferdinand Porsche had a hand in engineering and designing them; Beetles were noisy, cramped, under-powered death traps. Any offshoot couldn't be much better, right? Then again, I'm someone who'd pay a king's ransom for a 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo meanwhile for a fraction of the cost I could have essentially the same car with a different body in buying a Chevelle. To each, as they say, their own.
Volkswagen's Kharmin Ghia was a result of the VW's success with the Beetle. The cheap little cars sold well world wide and, since VW had long ago amortized their tooling and development cost, they made a nice profit on each one sold. In a move that was quite General Motors like, in the early 1950's, VW executives determined that to keep up interest in the Beetle they needed a "halo car" for their showrooms. Particularly here in the United States which was a critical market to them.
Of course, they wanted to do it as practically if not inexpensively as possible, Rather than go through the expense of engineering an all new car, they, naturally, started with the guts and chassis of the Beetle. Problem was, production of the Beetle and Type 2 bus where at full capacity. Was sollen wir machen (what should we do?)
Contract outside the company, that's what. Enter Wilhelm Karman a coach-builder who custom built Beetles into convertibles. He commissioned Gigi Segre of the Italian design house Ghia to design a sporty coupe whose body would the Beetle's. What's more, Karman offered VW the use of his production facilities to build what was known as internally the "Type 14" but would later be called the "Kharmin Ghia".
The first Ghia's came ashore here in the United States in late 1955 and were an immediate hit. Dealerships couldn't keep them in stock and customer's willingly laid down handsome deposits and waited six to twelve weeks, many times longer, for their cars to come in. And, in the end, pay nearly a thousand dollars more for a Ghia than then Beetle it was based on. Big bucks, or deutsche marks, back then. The Ghia was so successful that VW commissioned Kharmin to build another model that was styled by Ghia.
That resulted in the, frankly, rather unusual looking Type 34 Kharmin Ghia which debuted in 1961 but was never sold in the United States. Above is a 1963. Looks like VW suits knew American car buyer tastes better than we ever imagined; this is an odd looking car in a East German "Trabant" kind of way. It's sort of cool and pleasantly familiar but also weird in not a good way. If you've ever seen one here in the U.S, at some point someone had it imported privately.
The Type 14 Kharmin Ghia was sold in the United States through 1974; the end of the line, arguably long over due, coming at a time when the U.S. government was mandating ever more stringent safety and tailpipe emissions regulations. Meanwhile the good old Beetle was sold here through 1979.
I see these now and I'm smitten; not by this one per se since I find it's color scheme and fat white walls gott schrecklich (god awful) but by its overall design. It's simply gorgeous. I now see past it's oh-so-humble beginnings and see it for what it is or was. The Kharmin Ghia, to me, not unlike the girl next door whom you always thought was cute but familiarity breeding contempt, you never gave her a moment's notice; not that she would reciprocate if she did. Turns out she grew up and did quite alright for herself.
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