Vintage Volkswagen Memorabilia Collector Guide

Volkswagen in America: the Beetle and Bus years

Volkswagen’s American business began slowly. The company’s U.S. newsroom says the Type 1, later known as the Beetle, came ashore in 1949 and just two were sold. Volkswagen’s own chronicle records 328 sedans and 2 Transporters sold to the USA in 1950, the same year mass production of the Transporter, the Type 2 van known in the U.S. as the VW Bus, began in Wolfsburg.

Volkswagen of America, Inc. was founded in Newark, New Jersey, on October 27, 1955, and moved its head office to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. It took over imports in January 1956, reorganized the dealer network around strict service requirements and overhauled the presentation of the brand. That year it sold 42,884 Beetles and 6,666 Transporters through 15 main distributors and 342 dealers.

The original Beetle stayed in production into the 21st century. The last one left the Puebla plant of Volkswagen de Mexico on July 30, 2003, after Volkswagen had built 21,529,464 in total. The shape had already returned: the New Beetle had its world premiere at the Detroit Motor Show on January 5, 1998, and Volkswagen says it set off “Beetlemania” in the United States. Treat that revival as a separate chapter: promotional pieces from 1998 onward can echo the original shape without being period items.

Think Small and the advertising

On August 17, 1959, Volkswagen of America started a professional advertising campaign with the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach. Volkswagen’s chronicle says the campaign produced classics such as “Think small,” “Lemon” and “Nobody is perfect,” and that Volkswagen raised its import share from 20 percent to 32 percent in 1960. The chronicle credits the “Lemon.” ad to art director Helmut Krone and copywriter Julian Koenig.

The layout was part of the message. Volkswagen’s U.S. newsroom describes the “Think small” ad as mostly white space around a single, small Beetle, and notes that the campaign was named the best of the 20th century forty years later. That reputation is why original magazine pages from the campaign interest design and advertising collectors as well as car owners. Because the campaign produced many different ads, record the headline, publication and date of each page rather than relying on the Beetle illustration.

Why Volkswagen items are collected

Volkswagen collectors come from several directions. Owners want literature and accessories that match their cars. Advertising collectors want pages from the Doyle Dane Bernbach era. Pop culture collectors follow the Bus and the Beetle into music and film, two stories Volkswagen itself tells in its U.S. history.

An art piece called Light, a 1963 Volkswagen Type 2 Microbus, rose to fame when a news agency published a photo of it, and its likeness was printed on the liner of the official Woodstock album in 1970. On screen, a white 1963 Type 1 with a racing-style 53 on its hood and doors became, in Volkswagen’s words, the most popular VW in film history. Volkswagen notes that one of the cars used in the movies sold at auction in 2018 for $128,700. Licensed Herbie miniatures were still being made decades later, as the 2005 example described below shows.

What collectors find

Dealership signs reach the auction market. RM Sotheby’s sold an illuminated Volkswagen dealership sign, 115 cm in diameter and said to have been used by an Italian dealership, for €660. The catalog dates it to the 1990s, a reminder that a VW logo by itself does not place a sign in the Beetle era.

Sales literature and magazine advertising document both the cars and the campaign. Literature can use factory language rather than collector nicknames: Volkswagen notes that the Transporter version later known as the Sambabus was described in its brochures simply as the “eight-seater special model.” A listing title that uses a later nickname may not match what the printed piece actually says.

Miniature Beetles include licensed pieces made long after the original car. The Henry Ford holds a 2005 Hallmark Keepsake ornament of Herbie, the Love Bug, made in China. Its bottom is marked with the character’s name, the year 2005, a Disney copyright and Hallmark’s name, and its package describes it as die-cast metal. Check a miniature’s base and box for markings like these before treating it as an old toy.

Owners also bought add-ons, and not all of them came from Volkswagen. Volkswagen’s chronicle calls the vase in the Beetle cockpit a legendary and much-coveted accessory, yet says it was never part of Volkswagen’s sales program and was available only from accessory suppliers. A vase can be correct for an old Beetle without being a factory part, so judge it as an aftermarket accessory.

What to check before buying

Volkswagen still sells its own nostalgia. At the time of writing, Volkswagen of America’s DriverGear store lists new Bus-themed goods such as a Retro Bus T-shirt, Light Bus mugs, a Light Bus keychain and a T1 Bus air freshener. Add the New Beetle years and licensed miniatures such as the 2005 Herbie ornament, and retro graphics alone say little about age. Judge the object itself.

• Markings: look for copyright lines, dates, printer or maker names and part numbers on bases, backs, boxes and page margins
• Wording: compare the listing title with the printed text, since a later nickname such as Samba may not appear on the original piece
• Era: a VW logo does not date a sign by itself; ask for the dealership name, location and any maker’s label
• Construction: for signs, ask for photos of the back, edges, mounting points and wiring, and have an old illuminated sign checked before plugging it in
• Paper: note tears, folds, stains, trimming and missing pages, and ask whether an ad is an original magazine page or a reproduction
• Provenance: dealer paperwork, photographs of the piece in use or a documented collection history add confidence; an unsupported story does not
• Returns: a fair return policy matters for items whose condition is hard to judge from photographs

Where to find Volkswagen memorabilia now

The Volkswagen company page on I ♥ Capitalism collects live, relevance-checked resale listings and links each item to the marketplace where it is offered. Its Official Store tab points to Volkswagen’s current DriverGear catalog, which is useful for telling new merchandise from older pieces. Inventory changes whenever sellers add or remove an item.