AUTONEWS

Absolute rarity: the 1984 Beetle with a water-cooled engine

Wolfsburg, 2017. The trip was to see the second generation of the Tiguan, which would be launched in Brazil the following year. And of course I would take the opportunity to visit the Volkswagen museum once again.

I'm not talking about the ZeitHaus (Time House), that modern and sumptuous VW museum in the AutoStadt, with five glass floors filled with ultra-shiny classics from various brands. My place in Wolfsburg is another one, 2.5 kilometers away, on the gray Dieselstrasse, number 35: the Stiftung AutoMuseum Volkswagen (Volkswagen AutoMuseum Foundation).

Opened in 1985, the AutoMuseum is a modest, poorly lit building with only one floor and many leaks. Its collection, on the other hand, includes several prototypes that were saved — God knows how — from being scrapped after the development and testing period. There are, for example, a handful of candidates for successors to the Beetle, but which never made it into series production.

But let's go back to the 2017 visit... As I walked through the main (and, by the way, only) exhibition hall of the AutoMuseum, I noticed that there was an irresistible little door half-open, which led to an area hidden from the public eye: the Foundation's technical reserve. And there, protected from the dust by thin transparent plastic covers, were dozens of prototypes and rare cars, things unknown even to those who study the history of VW.

One example, in particular, caught my attention: a simple white “Fafá” Beetle, but with extra openings in the rear hood and a rectangular protrusion on the license plate holder. With trembling hands, like someone who is breaking into Tutankhamun's tomb, I lifted the thin cover, opened the hood and... instead of the classic air-cooled boxer, there was an EA111 engine — a water-cooled four-in-line engine that, in Brazil, equipped the Fox, versions of the Gol family and the Kombi after 2005, to name just a few.

Birthday present... A leap forward of 7 years in this story and we went on another visit to the AutoMuseum. It was my birthday, my only free afternoon in Wolfsburg and it was quite cold. Perhaps moved by the situation, the administrator agreed to open the exhibition just for me. The best part was that, inside, there was a surprise gift: the water beetle, this time, was on display! Next to the car, a small sign explained in German: “Käfer mit Polo-Motor” (Beetle with Polo engine). And it contained brief information:

“Since the air-cooled boxer would have no future in terms of emissions, work began in the 1970s on installing water-cooled boxers. The adaptation of the T3 Kombi was successful, but with the Beetle it was not possible to go beyond experiments.”

“In the early 1980s, a Polo engine (EA111/VM 9581) was installed in a Beetle manufactured in Mexico. To do so, it was necessary to modify the rear cover, among other things. Later, the EA 111 engine was used in the Brazilian T2C Kombi, but not in the Beetle.”

A little history...Until the end of the 1960s, VW's main selling point was its air-cooled engines. “Air doesn't boil,” they said in their advertisements. This culture began to change when the company bought Auto Union, taking with it the Audi F103 project (1965). With the advancement of sealed radiators, electric fans, thermostatic valves and coolants that were more tolerant to extreme heat and cold, having an “air-cooled” engine no longer represented much of an advantage in terms of reliability. Controlling the ideal operating temperature had become easier, which made “water-cooled” engines more efficient and less polluting. From the beginning of the 1970s, gas emissions became the order of the day, with increasingly stricter standards. To top it all off, “air-cooled” engines were noisier.

In Europe, both the Golf I (1974) and the Polo I (1975), announced as successors to the Beetle, had in-line four-cylinder engines with liquid cooling. And to improve the Kombi T3 (a third-generation model with straight lines that was never manufactured in Brazil), Volkswagen created another solution: the Wasserboxer, an engine that maintained the concept of the horizontal engine with four opposed cylinders, but with water cooling.

The 1,043 cm³, 45 hp version of the EA111, which equipped the smaller displacement Polo IIs at the time (there were also the 1.1 and 1.3). Even so, the Beetle could reach 130 km/h. We remember that the Brazilian Itamar 1993-1996, with its 1.600 boxer engine of 58 hp (alcohol), reached a maximum of 140 km/h if the wind was in its favor.

It took some skill to fit the engine “upright” into the compartment designed for a boxer. Unlike what is seen in many Beetles adapted with AP in Brazil, the rear cover did not even need to be modified much. A discreet ridge on the plate mount allowed everything to be fitted into place. On each side, extra openings were made to reduce the temperature of the compartment. The license plate light had to be raised a bit.

The arrangement of the peripheral components is very different from what is seen in the 2006-2013 national flex Kombis, also equipped with the EA111 (but with 1.4 liters and 80 hp). In the prototype of the Mexican “water” Beetle, the expansion tank is on the left side and the alternator is on the right side — the opposite of our Kombi. The wedges were also very distinct.

But the big problem was the radiator of the Mexican prototype, which was on the left side, projecting a few centimeters below the bottom of the car. A thick sheet metal tried to protect it from stones and “topes” (as they say in Mexico, speed bumps), further reducing the free space. An electric fan forced the airflow past the radiator and out through one of the extra grilles in the rear hood. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche must have done somersaults in the grave.

Everything cancelled...Conceived in 1984, the water beetle was aborted while still in its embryonic stage and the Mexican “Vocho” continued to be manufactured with the air-cooled boxer, as God intended. In 1991 and 1992, the model gained a catalytic converter and electronic injection to reduce emission levels. Production only ended in 2003.

The Brazilian Beetle didn't even get injection. It was manufactured here again between 1993 and 1996, keeping the “air-cooled” boxer engine and a pair of carburetors. The biggest novelty was the catalytic converter, which, however, was different from the one used in the Mexican version.

The closest thing to a “factory” water-cooled Beetle was the New Beetle (1997-2011) and Beetle (2011-2019), which were actually the Golf Mk4 and Mk6 disguised as a Beetle. The Via Anchieta factory was the last in the world to continue producing VWs with the classic boxer engine. In December 2005, the Kombi “ar” left the scene, giving way to those equipped with the EA111 engine.

Reporter: Jason Vogel