July 23, 2013 • 48 mins
If you're a fan of cars, then odds are you can recognize a Karmann Ghia from a block away. But where did they come from? Join Scott and Ben as they explore the curious story of the Karmann Ghia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I am
Ben Buller. Ben. We've got a topic here from suggestion
from a listener. Oh cool, be a Facebook and I
(00:22):
know this is the one that is near and dear
to your heart in some way. Oh this, uh, if
it is what I'm thinking it is, I maybe this
one is from Isaac Salgado from our car Stuff Facebook page,
and I said, Hi, guys, have you ever done an
episode on the VW Carmen Gia. It's such a beautiful car.
I wish VW made a brand new version of this one.
(00:43):
And we said, of course, we replied, yes, it's a
great suggestion. We're gonna get the Carmen Gia into our
into our rotation soon, you know something like that. Well,
we'll get to it. And I guess what, Isaac, Today
is the day we've gotten to it. So the weight
is over exactly, Yeah, because we both like Karmen Gias.
But Ben, you may have a Karman Ghia in your past, right, Yeah, yeah,
(01:06):
that that is true. It is one of the episodes
that Old Man Bulan, by which I mean my father,
not me, has uh has always requested because he owned
a nineteen sixty six Karman Gia and Scott. These are
beautiful cars, really are, Isaac. You know to UM listeners
are familiar with this. Uh, so I think it's safe
(01:30):
to say that you and I were both pretty pretty
excited to do this one. Definitely. Yeah, these Uh, this
is a car, the Karmen Ghia that that's still to
this day will catch my eye on the road. I mean,
they're they're around. There are a lot of them around
and uh, I've seen a few of them here and there,
you know, even in the last week or two, Um,
you know, parked on the corner somewhere, just passing the
other direction. There, there, everywhere. They're kind of peppered all
(01:53):
over the place, and when you do see one, it
still turns my head. Yeah, it almost seems at this
point to they're iconic. You know, they're very much a
statement of the time and place in which they were made.
What we would like to do today is to talk
a little bit about the origin of Karma Gia. UM.
(02:14):
The subtitle for this podcast will probably be Karmen Gia,
A Tale of three companies, right, it's probably a good
way to put it. Okay, not my best. But but
then also talk about, um, what makes the karman Gia
karman Ghia. Maybe a little bit about the uh, the
engine and the different versions. Um. And then you know,
(02:35):
the way that we always like to do a show,
we'll probably throw in some sidebars, a couple other one
more things along the way. Why not hopefully some stuff
that is new even to Karmen Ghia fans. Yeah, there's
some stuff here just even about the Karmen factory that's
kind of interesting that we'll get to. I promise that
and UH and some tians with other podcasts that we've done,
now we've found some unusual kind of again tieans that
(02:59):
that I was pries to find out about about you know,
a German car factory UM in the nineteen sixties. It's
kind of strange. So UM, I promise we'll get to
that stuff. UM you want to let's do how about this?
Let's start with this UM just some general stats about
the car, some specs and uh, and then we'll go
from there. UM. And after this, I want to talk
(03:20):
about maybe why someone would want to buy a Karmen
Gear which is which is a good question, and it's
it's not a snarky question. Actually there are some there's
some great reasons, especially when we considered the time. I mean,
I mean these are yeah, this is the reason that
you would want to buy one. Maybe it's a better
way to put it, UM, but just in general, UM,
in general, the Volkswagen Karmen gear it was in production
(03:42):
in Germany and in Brazil. UM. In Germany it was
produced from nineteen fifty five until about nineteen seventy four.
UM in Brazil it was in production for a shorter
amount of time, from nineteen sixty two until nineteen seventy five,
and I believe it went through the nineteen seventy six
model year. And the body style kind of it stayed
the same throughout. I mean there's a two door convertible
(04:03):
and coupe. UM and we'll find out there's one variation
in that in the Brazil Brazil production in just a
moment um. The layout, rear engine, rear wheel drive, all
of them were the same. UM engines though were different.
There was a engine undred and six hundred. They were
all flat four cylinder engines. They were all air cooled engines.
(04:25):
It's big for for folks like in fans that there's
either air cooled or water cooled, and these were all
air cooled engines. UM. Early cars. Uh, they only had
about forty three horse power, but that was probably pretty
pretty decent for that car because it was very lightweight,
very small, very agile. Um. Not ridiculously fast or anything
like that, but as we'll find out, they were good
(04:47):
at handling. Um. The later cars. The top speed was
right around ninety miles per hour UM. And that's assuming
that it had the original engine, which was a again
a donor engine, Yeah, from the ch See and the
engine were from the Beatles, and and you know why not.
That's a very successful platform to build on, right, Yeah,
there's an interesting story there because now this is a
(05:10):
story you already know, Scott, but you feel free to
a surprise thanks. Um. So Volkswagen back in the back
in the fifties, right post World War Two, they have
cars that they want to sell to um, to the public,
and they have stuff like they have Beatles, right and
the bus and they've got the people's car right, yes, yes,
(05:34):
the people and they want to they want to sell this.
But there there are a couple obstacles. Um. First we
know that there's a boom in car purchases post World
War two era of prosperity. Um. And then that with
this boom, there these new markets emerging. And Volkswagen wants
(05:57):
to sell uh kind of a flagship car. You know.
They don't want their flagship car to be the bug.
Now they've had it for quite a while at this point, right,
so they want to they want to dress it up
a bit. Yeah, nobody wants to be one trick pony.
And Volkswagen was not the only company in this situation,
right true. And that's where Chrysler comes in. And maybe
(06:18):
that's where we should fix the story to be the
subtitle to be a tale of four companies or man,
you know what, if we want to include Chrysler, we
need to we need to talk about several other companies.
I mean that's true. Ford gets in there, Mercedes gets
in there, there's a MC gets in there. There's there's
so many different companies involved with this. This is this
gets to be a very interesting story, much more than
I had and any idea about when I started this
(06:41):
this research. Yeah, there's a lot behind this. So here's
here's what I know with uh with Chrysler. Chrysler contacts
a little Italian company called Gia and they ask they
asked Guia to help them build a Chrysler Dream Car. Yeah,
now this is interesting. Now, before you go much further,
and I want you to, I want you to tell
(07:01):
you and no, no, not yet, not yet. I don't
want to do that yet. But what I want to do.
What I do want to say is that I bet
a lot of people don't realize that Guia is actually
as a company, it's a it's an Italian design firm, yes,
and so that's that's part of the name, right. Carmen
is a is the manufacturing facility right there. They're like
their own factory, which we'll talk about as well. And
(07:23):
they're German and they're German. And then there's Volkswagen. So
the Volkswagen, Carmen, Guia're really talking about three different companies
that are coming together to create one vehicle, which doesn't happen, No,
it really doesn't. So I'm sorry, interrupted you know, I
just don't that we need to say that Gia is
its own thing, Carmen's its own thing, and of course
volks bagons its own thing. So all these are coming together,
(07:45):
and you mentioned Chrysler has now gone to Guia and
said we need your help, We need to design help. Right. Yeah,
they're premier designers, they're very old company. Um oh, I
guess I got a little mixed up. But we'll we'll
go into Guia and Carmen as well, definitely. Uh, this
is the part of the podcast where I'm doing though.
What had happened was so what had happened was, uh
(08:07):
that Chrysler approached Dida. They said, you guys are awesome,
will you help us make kind of a dream car,
a flagship vehicle that we can sell, And Gia kicked
around some ideas and some designs, uh, but they there
was one they didn't use. So let's fast forward a
(08:28):
little bit because while Chrysler was working with the good
folks at Ghia, Volkswagen made a deal with the German
company Carmen to build their flagship car. And Carmen, as
as you mentioned, Scott primarily manufacturing, right, so Carmen needs swank,
new design, something that really says post World War two
(08:51):
um success and prosperity. So they go to GIA. Yeah,
it seems like that was the place to go at
the time. Now Gia is a h let's just talk
about Gia. How about that. Let's let's talk nack that
out and uh, and we'll get to the Chrysler design,
We'll get to the Ford designs and all that. But
Gia has been around since nine yes, turin Italy. Uh
(09:13):
started by here we go, Man, I apologize. That's okay,
Jacinto Jacinto Gia. I am glad you attempted that instead
of me. You know, just a little backstage look for
everybody who listens to this show. Uh, Scott and I
do try to throw pronunciation duties. Uh, you know, distribute
(09:36):
the punishment equally. That's right, And I'm gonna avoid it
for this entire podcast if I can. But I think
I'm gonna end up at some point, uh flubbing some
kind of pronunciation. So so let's got you back. So
it starts as uh, Cadro's caros Aeria, Guia and Gariglio
very good. Then that's that's close enough, better than I
could hit it. And uh, And what it was was
(09:56):
it's it's one of the probably one of the most
famous Italian automobile design in houses. And it started out
as a coach building firm and they still I think
they still consider themselves a coach building firm. UM. But
what they did is they designed special lightweight bodies for UM. Well,
first they started with with with horse carriages as you
would expect, you know, the coach the coach building UM.
(10:18):
And then they eventually went been into automobiles as you
know all those coach builders did at some point, and
they were building exactly Yeah, they started building aluminium, very
lightweight bodies for companies like Alpha, Romeo and Fiat and Lancia.
And so you'll see these cars that are that are
gear design bodies on other manufacturer's chassis. So you'll find
(10:39):
like you'll you'll find a gear design Fiat or a
gear design Alpha. UM. And of course the Carmen cars
that we're going to talk about UM. Now Man you
mentioned just briefly, but there were some really notable cars
that have come from the GIA design boards or the
drafting boards. And one that stands out for me. I
know you're gonna mention the Chrysler. Yes, UM, there's another
(11:01):
one that we've talked about several times on our Protum
podcast and UM, I feel I have to mention it again. UM,
why not. When we're talking about Gia, the Lincoln Future
it's Lincoln Futurrea concept and which is the car that
eventually became the original Batmobile. Then that that original design.
(11:21):
Of course I love the Batmobile, right, it's the original
Batmobiles to me, gorgeous design. But the Future a concept car,
the dream car that they came out with, that design
is just so spectacular. It's amazing. Yeah, there's no mistaking it.
And and also just to be completely honest, I think
that is my favorite of the designs now the Chrysler
(11:44):
that UM sorr the Chrysler Gia that I was going
to mention was the Norseman. Oh, another beautiful design. That's
a that's a fantastic design. However, it never really made
it to the show. So no, it never made it
to the shows. And we have a show all about that,
Yeah we do. You can look up that one for sure,
but we have an entire show about the chryso Enorseman
(12:04):
and what happened with that, and I'll just leave it
at that. Um they also worked on the Volvo eighteen hundred,
which is very again very iconic design for for the
Volvo Um manufacturer, and also the Chrysler Crown Imperial limousines
were designed by Gia. Um. These are cars that were
own by Jackie Kennedy, Nelson, Rockefeller. Um. Really just anybody
(12:28):
who was anybody at that time had a had a
Chryser Crown Imperial limousine. It was it was the car
to have, I guess um. Also the day Tomasso Pantera. Um,
they get kind of partial credit for that one with Ford,
but that that's that's the one that uh infamously I
guess Elvis that's his shooting car. Yeah, the when he
(12:48):
when he shot when it wouldn't start and then it
started apparently, Yeah, he had the he had the magic time,
the magic bullet, the magic bullet, and um, the other
magic bullet. We we should also mention at this, just
to put a capstone on on that story with Diane Chrysler. Um. Well,
first let's talk about Carmon. Oh my gosh, we we
(13:08):
we almost didn't talk about Carmen. Well, I don't know
how we could forget that one. There's there's even more
information out there about Carmen because this this company has
been around since what nineteen o one I think right, well, yes,
nineteen o one. In his current incarnation, uh fellow named
Wilhelm Carmen purchase some when I've been building coaches since
the eighteen seventies and um, you know, of course weren't
(13:30):
talking like that. When we say coaches, we mean horse coaches, carriages. Um, oh,
that plays a big role later and and watch for
this later. I promise, I'm gonna mention it. Okay, okay,
there's a there's a direct tie in with the carriages,
I promise you, all right, So I'm gonna I'm gonna
hold you to it. So they let's see, they started
(13:53):
back in when we already said nineteen o one and
as a design production assembly company. Um. They worked on
you know, coach building and manufacturing, and specifically they had
these uh, these coaches that would have these these tops
that lowered and raised these cloth tops um I don't know,
I guessed would be leather at the time, the mare
(14:13):
quee features. It was kind of the thing. It was
like they had these uh, these these roof systems that
were kind of unheard of at the time, so you know,
they were they were specialty roof manufacturers also as well
as coach builders. And the headquarters is in a in
a town called I'm gonna mess this up, but Osna Brook, Oh, um, Germany.
It's in Germany. Yeah, that that was one of my
(14:34):
best shots. I think it's Osna Brook, and I'll just
say it's the German headquarters. How about that. Let's go
with the German headquarters, Germans point forwards. Um. But again,
they've been around doing what they're do for well over
hundred years now, and I'm going to guess a hundred
and thirty hundred forty years at this point if you
include you know, the coach building stuff. Um. But man,
since that, since that time, since nineteen o one, UM,
(14:57):
Carmen has built more than three million complete vehicles out
of this out of this headquarters in Germany. And it's
just it's an amazing story. But it goes all the
way back. I mean a lot of notable cars have
come out of there. Um. And I'm just going to
mention the notable ones here just briefly. But um, you
know the the VW Beatle, the cabriolet. You know, the
(15:18):
cabriolet is the fancy term I guess for convertible, and
everybody can picture of v W convertible. Well, all the
v W convertibles came out of the Carmon factory because
again remember the coach building thing that I mentioned with
with the tops that lowered up and down. Um, they
had kind of this knack for designing these roof systems,
and of course this went right is translated directly into
(15:38):
convertible automobiles. And ever since nineteen and one, even through
right now through two thousand thirteen, Carmen has been known
for the roof systems, as we'll find out, because they're
doing things like retractable hardtops um and and systems like that.
Of course soft tops, but even to today they're known
for their retractable hardtops and roof systems. Right. There's still
(15:59):
at doing the Volkswagen Gulf recently, uh in two thousand eleven. Yeah,
so I mean this this VW Beetle convertible. I mean
that was a no brainer for Volkswagen to go to
them and say, you know, let's let's make a really
good folding ragtop for our car, and we want Carmen
to do it. They want, we want them to build it. Um.
So they also they also produced the car that we're
(16:20):
talking about today, of course, the Karmen Gia from nineteen
seventy four, so it's a nineteen year run. Um about
four hundred close to five thousand cars came out of
the German factory. Um, and it's kind of like where
they of course they went to remember they went to Gia. Yeah,
oh that's the thing. They went to Guia and then
thank you for they went to Guia. Uh and they said, hey,
(16:43):
we need a design for a flagship card, like the
best car that Volkswagen will be selling in the future.
And then Gia said, well, we've got this one Chrysler
design that we never used. Yeah, that's right. And and
what's the crazy thing night I got a lot of
people don't really realize that that that was originally intended.
I'm sure that was modified because it was placed on
(17:06):
top of a VW Beetle chassis. So it's got the
rear engine um, you know, rear world drive it's which
is different than what Chrysler had at the They probably
shortened I'm sure that they did. Yeah, there's probably I'm
sure there's a lot of modifications that had to happen,
but they did use the basis of that Chrysler designed
to create what I'm gonna say arguably is their most
famous design to come out of the Carmen factory because
(17:27):
it bears the name Karmen g Again I think is unique,
is it? I think it is, yeah, because other cars
don't don't carry the name tag anyway, so that the
folks I have allowed them to call it the v
W Karmen Gia. In nineteen fifty five they came out,
but they were they were marked as fifty six models,
(17:48):
So so fifty six model your vehicle. Okay, all right,
and uh man, I'm just gonna skip ahead here because
we'll get back to the Karmen gi I promised. But Um,
they also assembled at this at this factory, they assembled
the Sharaco, the Karado, the Golf cabriolet. I'm just trying
to give you an idea of Carmen's presence, I guess
in the automobile world, because again I mentioned three million vehicles,
(18:09):
and you know, only five thousand of those of these
Carmen Gias. So there's another two and a half million
cars that came out very good all over the place.
So um, of course they made, uh the the cars
for the now defunct Markur brand for Ford Um with
the XR four t I that I think people will
remember in the Scorpio if you if you're a eighties
(18:31):
mercour fan. UM, I don't think there's probably probably not
many fans out there that um they assembled complete knockdown
kits that we mentioned in the Iron Cars episode. Yes,
remember whether Russia was making uh these the c K
D kits or the complete knockdown kids where cars would
have some would arrive in parts and then be assembled
(18:51):
on site and they would use that to reverse engineer.
Oh well you know, we have a whole show about it. Well, yeah,
they've been to that too. So so let's say these
Um it was am C with the Javelin car in
UM and these were all for European Distribution, which they
called the Javelin seventy nine K models. And there weren't
many of those. I think only about three hundred were
assembled at the German factory. Um. They've done convertibles for Mercedes.
(19:16):
We no vw um Man. There's a lot of stuff here,
ben Um they've got another facility another besides the HQ
and Uh'm gonna have to say it again, Osna Brook
and they've got this this Rhine facility which is in Westphalia, Germany.
It's the northern part of Germany, um where they also
built the golf caballe Um, the d A four Mercedes
(19:38):
been cl K and the Chrysler Crossfire recently U the Crossfire.
All the Crossfires came from Germany. So yeah, I can't
believe I didn't know that. Yeah, the Crossfires are all
German cars and um or assembled there. Anyways, I'm going
to write that though you should you should and um
you know, Chris, that's that's got a lot of time
with the Mercedes ownership. Remember when it was Diamlon, Chrysler
(20:00):
and UH and that whole thing. So that that's the
timing makes sense on that um Man all that. You know,
if you're seeing the supercar, the Spiker C eight, Yes, uh,
the the chassis and the body panels for the Spiker
C eight are created at the Carmen factory um at
the at the HQ UH. They're in Germany, um Man.
They also have a Brazilian factory, their facility where they
(20:23):
built the Carmen gears for a little while they we'll
talk about I promise they built about forty cars there. Um. Gosh,
there's so much there's but yeah, go ahead. Uh, just
just a note here. I don't know if are we
in modern times yet? Oh man, yeah, it kind of are.
I'm just I'm just there's so much to list about
the carbon factory and its accomplishments that I'm just going
(20:46):
through this long list. I know. But um, there's so
much about Carmen that I think people don't know. If you, yeah,
it isn't amazing because to most people, Carmen Gia is
um just in an oblist thing. But once you start
looking at this organization, they make so much stuff. Yeah,
(21:08):
I mean the list of just the vehicles that they made,
and some of these these lists include you know, one
hundred thousand cars in a run or five cars in
a run or fifty or whatever. Um, They've created so
many different products out of the Carmen Factory that I
just think people have no idea other than the karman Ghia, right,
that that these things even exist or that they came
from there. Yeah, there's an iceberg under the water. Definitely
(21:32):
one thing to drill down into the karman Ghia. One
thing that's interesting that we should probably talk about is, well,
let me preface this question, Scott. All right, So We've
got something looks like a sporty car, right, that's small, aerodynamic,
it's looks like it has zip uh. It also has
(21:56):
a beetle engine, which is not necessarily a sports car now,
but you know what that's to me personally, that's not
troubling because there's a there's a very good tie in
here that that I don't think a lot of people
are really putting together in their mind. There's a tie
in with Porsche. Okay, Yeah, that's all right, That's exactly
(22:17):
I was leading the witness. Okay, so you know that's
a that's a good question, Ben, I guess I mean, so,
why why would you buy it? Perfect? Perfect? And I
will answer that because the Carmen Gia is really I'm
telling you, like back when it was produced originally, and
I know they're you know, aged at this point, so
you know, it kind of varies, but it was a
very solid car. And the reason is because it hadn't
(22:40):
of course, it was you know, designed with German craftsmanship
and mind engineering as we'll mention, but um had this
Italian body. Um of course you know that. Everybody now,
I mean not everybody, but a lot of people talk
about it a German engineering is being extremely solid, extremely there,
and redundant in a lot of case reliable exactly, very
reliable and redundant. Saying redundant in a good way, and
(23:01):
that you know their safety is involved and you know
that they the overdue things. They tend to make them
stouter than they even need to be. But you know
it's a good thing. Um. All of these karmen Gias
were hand built cars. You gotta remember that too. They
were all hand assembled cars. Um. Now, the problem is
they were also said to be built with nineteen thirties technology. Now,
(23:22):
again that's not terrible because you know, you're talking about
a very very solid, very proven technology with the Beetle
Chassisan engine right now. The time body and then of
course wiring all that is another another issue. But um,
remember they can be a little finicky because of this
nineteen thirties technology. However, you've got to also remember that,
you know they're built with with kind of this older
(23:45):
Porsche design philosophy and the design design philosophy at the
time with Porsche and even now, um well maybe not
so much now, but handling is valued over acceleration at
this point. Yes, and if I can if I can
add a little something to this. Still. I was reading
this great article with the history of the Karmen Gia,
(24:07):
and there's a great passage in there about some of
Volkswagen's advertising campaign. Okay, what was it? So they would
do things, um where they would tell people to essentially
focus on the style of the Gia, on the Italian body, uh,
and say yeah, and say, well, you know, how big
(24:29):
of a deal is the engine? Sure, this is no
Matserati or a Lamborghini. It's like it's fast, but man,
it's so much cheaper. Yeah, and does it look good
when you park? It doesn't it look good when you park?
You look good in the driver's seat. I'll tell you that,
my friend. Right, that's probably what they are using to
sell a line. They're using to sell these things off
the lot, right. So yeah, I mean it's intended intended
(24:50):
to draw a lot of attention, um, even today. I
mean we mentioned that, you know, these things still are
or head turners. Really they're very very impressive, very very
beautiful body design. And they they originally so old for
around three grants. Yes, so they were not a terribly
expensive vehicle. Um, because of course, because they had this
the Beatle underpinnions and uh. But but again, you know
(25:10):
this this portion design design philosophy at the time where
handling is valued over acceleration. That's at the time. You
gotta remember the models that they're making, like the three
six and the the nine fourteen I think was around
at that time. Uh. You know, they kind of overlapp
at the point, and the nine eleven of course came
up in there at some point later in the game. Um.
But you know, of course, acceleration is big now everybody
(25:32):
wants a fast accelerating carpet. At the time, handling was
valued a little bit more than that, and that's kind
of the values that they put into the karman Gia
as well. Yeah, and uh, this investment paid off, this
priority because in nineteen sixty nine, the karman Gia was
named one of the most beautifully designed products in the world. Uh.
(25:53):
And I do the the article I'm referring to for
some of this, uh comes from a writer named Brandon
train Ham. You know, you and I like to credit
people when we of course we know when we can
trace that source that way. So this, uh, this article
is great and it has a lot of neat history
behind the Karmen Gia. But there's more to the story. Yeah,
(26:17):
there's quite a bit more. There's a you know, there's
a there's a time where these things eventually go away.
I mean for a reason. I mean there's a there's
a you know, it kind of reached the end of
its life cycle and uh, and then it was picked
up somewhere else with a with a very little known
model that was built in Brazil and uh and I
promised I want to get to that, but first I
want to tell you about something else. Yeah, I'm all
(26:38):
ears Okay, So here's what we've got. Um, you know,
we've been kind of poking around on audible dot Com
for these audiobooks, right oh yeah, man, Scott, you and
we're moving into the future. Well, I'm a bit excited
about this one, this this selection because um, it is
a former Um, it's a former Netflix pick. Think what
did I say that? Right, it's a former Netflix pick.
(26:59):
Also that that has kind of made us way over
to audible. And this is exciting because you could take
this one along with you. That's cool. Yeah, what is it?
It is Horatio's Drive, the audible version and uh, and
I'll tell you this is really cool. It's three hours
and nine minutes. So I would say this is like
the perfect length for a mid range road trip. You know,
we can maybe like weekend or day trip exactly like
(27:21):
a nice day trip. You know, they're and back and
um it's it's by Dayton, Duncan and ken Burns. Of course,
you know ken Burns to the documentary that we talked about,
but again, this is the audible version. It's about the
nineteen o three trip of Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson. He's
trying to win again been challenge, the challenge of fifty
dollar bet and um, this fifty dollar bet led him
(27:43):
to um the idea that he could drive across the
country in his Winton automobile from San Francisco to New
York City. Now, remember no roads. We talked about this
highway system. We've we've got quite a lengthy podcast on this,
you know, in our path, so definitely check it out.
But um, again, this isn't a time when there's only
(28:04):
a hundred and fifty miles of paved road in the
United States complete. I mean, that's that's it anywhere total.
And it took him about sixty three days in order
to make this journey and you know, kind of shows
this this pioneering spirit of of you know, the the
early American I guess, you know, like they're just getting
over and around any obstacle in this course. Um. And
(28:25):
I love what I love about this most is there's
an unintended race that happens. And remember this is just
like a kind of almost by accident. Doesn't even know
what's going on. But you know, suddenly midway through the
journey he's in a race. And uh, and that makes
it even more dramatic. It just gets really really tense,
I guess, really really tight at time times. But again,
(28:46):
this is a time and we said nineteen with three
this is at a time and I'll just use it
a descriptive term that they use in the in the
review of this the publisher. I think this is at
a time when just the site of of an actual
car would cause people to go into they called delirious excitement. Um.
It was that new automobiles were that new. Rose just
weren't around. They were it was they were referred to
(29:08):
his horseless carriage. It was an amazing, amazing time in
American history and automotive history, and it's well documented with
with these letters that he sent to his wife, and
you know the trials and troubles that they went through.
They picked up a dog named Bud, which is a
bulldog that I think he wore doggles for a while. Um,
you know on the dogles goggles. Yeah, yeah, doggles, say,
(29:29):
I say, like everybody knows what doggles are. And um,
he also had to write a mechanic with him. And
it was just a really intense journey. And I tell
you you're not going to be let down by this one.
This is something that is really it's a it's just
a fantastic story. You'll remember it for the rest of
your life. Yeah. And even if you don't listen to
(29:51):
our episode on it, or you listen to our episode
you want more information, you say, Hey, guys, I want
to check out this book. Well you were luck my friends.
You can go to audible podcast dot um slash car stuff.
I lost it there for a second. That's okay, you
picked it up and thanks, and uh, you can sign
up because we sent you. You You can get a free
audio book download of your choice. So it doesn't have
(30:12):
to be Horatio's Drive. Um, but you're missing out if
you don't listen to that story at some point absolutely,
And you know you mentioned I think what would be
really cool is that somebody listening to our podcast about it,
maybe watched the documentary about it and then also, uh,
you know, picked up this this audio audiobook, yeah, and
then recreated the drive. Oh no, well if I don't
(30:32):
know if you know, if you can do that, I
mean you can drive coast to coast, sure, but you'll
never be able to recreate what he had to go through. No,
it's it's it's intense, it's a head of a story. Um,
so let us know what you think about that and
getting back to uh amazing stories. We are back in
(30:53):
the karmen Gi. You know, when we've left briefly, Scott,
you had said that you wanted to talk a little
bit about a left field car from Brazil. Yeah. Now
they're there are actually three types of Karman gias. And
and this is probably gonna be shocking to some people because, um,
certain regions were kind of isolated from other types of
(31:15):
Karman Gias, and there there are three types and a
lot of times people will only think that they're too Um,
you know, that's kind of well known that there too
But the third one is is kind of surprised to
most people now. From the nineteen seventy four in Germany,
we talked about the type that they built, which was
actually they called the Type fourteen, and that's got worldwide,
worldwide recognition, I guess, is the best way to say that. Um,
(31:38):
that's the kind that U basically remained the same throughout production.
I mean there were little variations here and there between
model years, but not a whole lot of variation. And
that's the kind that your dad had. That's the kind
that was distributed here in the United States. It's kind
that we've been mostly mostly I've been thinking about that
one throughout this whole podcast, really, to be honest with you. Um,
(31:59):
there's another type that is called the European Karmen Gia.
And this one, this one's gonna be a shock to
some people. Not not as much as the next one,
but I think a lot of people won't even recognize
this one. But it was built from nineteen nineteen seventy
at the German factory. Again, and it looks and then
this is strange. It looks a lot like a Chevy
corvet and in appearance it has a very very similar
(32:23):
lines to a corve Air. UM. It was never exported
to the United States. UM. And that's the kind that
they call again, they called the European karmen Gia. And
if you haven't seen one of those, look it up
and tell me if you don't immediately think of Chevy Corver.
It really does look like that. UM. Now the last one,
this is the surprise. This is one that was later
in the production and it's when they picked up that
(32:43):
Brazilian factory. UM. And it was produced from nineteen seventy
two to nineteen seventy five, so pretty limited run. And
I think they actually came out with the nineteen seventy
six model year in nineteen five. So UM. This model
is called the TC and it was made in Brazil
for Brazil. It was the South American market car. Only
(33:04):
it was never exported. And this is kind of surprised
to a lot of people because you just never get
to see them outside of South America. Yeah, you can
see pictures of them, but you were not likely to
see one in Europe ord the States. No, No, I
don't think that's it has been you know, widely distributed anywhere.
I'm sure that someone has imported exported one somewhere elsewhere
(33:24):
in the world at this point, but it had what
they called UM. They were they were trying to look
for something new in the in the design at that point,
and that's why they passed it over again. It's late
in production again all the way to the nineties. UM,
they're looking for something that was innovative, athletic, and they
looked a lot UM a lot towards the Porsche design
at the time, which was the nine eleven that they
(33:45):
were building. And there's a lot of nine eleven in
this in this design. So the TC the back end
has kind of a pinched look like the nine eleven
has UM or maybe even the twelve at the time.
I'm not sure which was actually in production, but UM
got notes here somewhere, but UM, Yeah, there's a there's
a lot of Porsche design in the back end of
(34:05):
this thing, that's for sure. Yes. And I wanted to
plug some places where you can see the Karman gia
because sometimes when we're doing research for a show it uh.
I can't remember the name of this syndrome, but there's
there's a there's a phenomenon. I think it's better mine
Hoff maybe where you hear an interesting word or a
(34:29):
snatch of a song, and then you feel like you
hear it all the time, you know. And it happens
with commercial jingles or just words you don't usually hear.
It's like when you're paying attention for something, there it
is all the time, right, yeah, Like they will joke
about the number twenty three. Um, So I had a
situation like this with karman Gia because over over the
weeks we're talking about doing this episode. Uh, my girlfriends
(34:52):
had me start watching Good Times. I'll tell you about
this now you did not. Okay, Well, apparently I'm missed
out because I've never watched You're talking about the sitcom
from the nineteen seventies Good Times, right, yes, okay, we're
in a karman Gia is in the intro really yeah,
And and I stopped it at first and I went
(35:13):
back and checked it out. But you can see, um,
you can see a Karmen Gia in uh in the intro.
It is orange. You know what it sticks out. I'm
gonna have to say that, I bet if you watched
a lot of those sitcoms and documentaries dropped dramas. I
guess maybe from the nineteen seventies. I bet, I bet
karmen Ghia show up in the background a lot in
(35:34):
these things, like on chips maybe or something where. Um.
Remember they are the California high Ary Patrol, so they're
out on the highways all the time. I bet you
there's a ton of these things in the background all
the time. I heard, uh, I heard that they make
an appearance and get smart. I haven't. I haven't seen
it myself, but I did. I did wonder if I'm
gonna have to look at the Good Times intro now
and see where you're spotting a karmen Gia because I
(35:56):
can't picture that in my head and we can. It's uh,
you have to look for it. It's brief and it's orange,
and it's I will I will definitely look there for
that the moment we leave the studio. I'm pretty sure, man. Okay, now,
we don't not derailing you too much here. Remember they
mentioned that that, you know, they're kind of looking for
new design, and that's why they went from the the
(36:17):
the standard gear design, the Type fourteen and the what
was the other one, the Type thirty four I think um,
over to the TC and they were looking for something new. Well,
Volkswagen shifted gears. At that point. They stopped production on
the regular Karmen gear, the one that I call the
regular the Type fourteen UM, and they started producing the
v W Sharaco and that's produced from sevent two. That
(36:39):
was the first gen, and then there's a second generation
which went from and I only mentioned this then because um,
you know, I really liked it. I mean, it's it
was to replace the old and aging Karmen Gear design. Um.
The Sharaco design was and it's built on the golf
and rabbit platform and the JED I think um again
at the same German headquarters, you know, Carmen. It was
(37:00):
assembled by Carmen UM. But I mentioned this because I
thought the Shiaco was gone because here in the States,
we we don't see that anymore past the model year, right,
the second gen. While they're making a third generation Sharaco
which is being assembled in Portugal and they've been making
that since two thousand and eight and they're currently making that.
And you know, that's just one of those things that
(37:21):
kind of has alluded me to this point. I knew,
I think I read something about it a long time ago,
but I didn't realize that. You know, for the last
five years this thing has been in production. We just
we don't see them here. And and that's the reason.
I know other places in the world will say, well, yeah,
of course I see those, you know, ten times a
day on the road, you know, as I'm going to
and from work. But um, again, it's just something that
you know, is off our radar. Here, I have some
(37:43):
news about Carmen. This is what I have mentioned earlier.
Uh So in two thousand nine, Carmen ran into some
trouble and they filed for bankruptcy. And I did hear
about this, and um, Volkswagen made them an offer and
they said, you know, well we worked together for a while,
we'll take over it. Um. So they the business split
(38:06):
in a couple of different ways. Uh. Carmen's North American
operations went to a place called Wobosto Group. UH, place
called Valma Automotive bought the roof components stuff. But uh,
they're still producing cars, so they're making They made that
Volkswagen golf Golf rather they started in two thousand eleven.
You know, I don't want to end on a down note.
(38:28):
That's just the newest one of the newest development. No, no, no.
And as a matter of fact, I've got one more
thing that I do want to include here that we'll
talk about some car production and some surprising models that
came out of the Carbon Factory, because I I had
talked about that early on and there's some strange Yeah,
we've gotta delivered. But I don't want to say one
thing about what you just mentioned. You said the Valmy
Automotive Group UM, that is the company that does the
(38:49):
Fisker Karma. I think they assemble the Fisker Karma UM,
so that that's kind of a strange tie in there
that they they do, like the roof component sections I
think UM or they they took over Carmen's roof component
sections I think from Germany, and I think they had
a still in Poland as well. UM. So, I mean,
(39:10):
and that whole thing arose because it was, like, of
course everybody knows, it was a sharp decline in in
the demand for automobiles at that time, So you know,
it wasn't it wasn't that you know, Carmen did anything
particularly awful. It was just you know, the demand went down,
and you know a lot of businesses had trouble exactly. Now,
let's let's get back to one kind of one last thing.
(39:31):
I guess that's uh, that's a little more on the
positive side, because these are just some strange things that
stood up to me when I looked through Carmen's production numbers.
And you gotta remember, they built over three million cars.
They assembled over three million cars at their factory, and uh,
this is just the German factory, by the way, that
I'm going to mention now. We talked about the AMC Javelin,
and that was in night and if you haven't ever
(39:52):
seen an AMC Javelin, check it out. It was a
pony car from the late sixties. Obviously um out of
moderate um excitement about it here in the United States,
I guess it was. It never really took off, but
there were only three hundred of these cars that were
assembled for European distributions, so I guess those are kind
of rare over there to find you one of those.
(40:13):
I think it was a seventy nine K model, is
what I mentioned. Um, oh, this is a good one.
They also built the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, which was
a group a rally car that you know, it's one
of those deals been where for racing and they have
to build X number of street cars. Oh yeah, this
was one. So the Ford Escort U R S Cosworth
(40:34):
from ninety six. They built eight thousand and a two
of these cars. And again it's it's basically a rally
car race car for the street. Um. Now there's a
toned down street version obviously, and then there's the rally
car version. But um, these are this is a pretty
interesting car if you if you ever want to dig
into that and take a look at it. Um. Here's
(40:55):
some other notable ones. The Porsche of three fifty six
UM now production was from forty eight to sixty sixty
five UM. But I don't have any numbers on that
one or the dates that it was produced there at
the Carbon factory. But a lot of the Porst of
three fifty six is came from the Carbon factory, which
is kind of cool. The portion nine elevens from sixty
six to seventy one UM nine four teens, which are
(41:18):
you know, still kind of hanging around as uh, you know,
collector favorite. A lot of people enjoy those now and
they're talking they're still talking about a new nine fourteen design.
But I don't know if it's gonna happen. Um Triumph,
which I even it was out of left field. The
Triumph t R six was built from nineteen sixty nine
to nineteen seventy six at the Carbon factory. That's weird.
(41:39):
That is weird, and the overlaps and these are strange because, um,
you know you'll find that, like you know, at the
same time there were I don't know, Renault cars being
built on the factory at the same factory, or Mercedes
or Porsche's or or whatever. That I can imagine that
this place at a certain time would be pretty interesting
to walk through and see all the different cars they're
assembling or you know, build at this UM and just
(42:02):
a couple of interesting volks back if we mentioned Sharaco,
UM the Karado, which I'm a big fan of, and
of course the Carmen gi As that we talked about.
But this list, if you if you go through here,
you can find a list like this of the production
models and all three million cars are listed here. Um
that individually. Of course you can you can sort through
them by many, but um, you know, as few as
(42:22):
three hundred or as many as five hundred thousand with
the Carmen Gia models that we talked about. UM, so
this carbon factory is really something that's really something to
be cherished, I guess. I mean, you know, look at
it at a historic from a historical point standpoint, and
and realize what kind of cars came out of there.
And when you start looking at you know, like the
Crisis crossfire and some of the newer cars that are
(42:44):
coming out of there as well. UM, this place, this
has Uh, I don't know how to say it. It's
one of the biggest unknown deals, I guess. So yeah,
I mean, I just you didn't know what you didn't
know that the cross fact. Honestly, you know, I worked
for Drmond Chrysler at the time. I knew it came
from in Germany, but I did not came from the
carbon factory, so I didn't know either. UM, a lot
(43:07):
of surprises on the list. Just take a look. And
while you're checking that out, Scott, I think we should
do a little bit of listener mail. Why not? All right,
So this comes from pretty close to us. My friend
Mike from Athens, Georgia writes in UM, and I'm going
to read some highlights of this letter. He says, Scott
(43:29):
and Ben, just listen to your podcasts about the Iron
Curtain cars between new episodes. I've been working my way
through your back catalog and just listen to the Audubon
and Tanks episodes. It was all too much. I had
to send you a note. Uh. So he starts talking
about how he seems like he feels like he was
born a gear head. He was a mechanic by the
time he was eighteen. I worked in a race shop
(43:50):
growing up, where he was working with fabrication wilding building
to frame doors. Um, what a cool job, I know, right,
And so Mike says, we had a few Hugo's come
through the shop and the biggest thing I remember about
them was that they had Fiat drive trains. And he
at the time bought his first car, a yellow nineteen
seventy two Cutlass and near mint condition. He said it
(44:12):
was mostly stock, kind of a sleeper. It had a
four and fifty horse power three engine with high compression
four pistons. Right. And so he joins the army. Uh.
And he's a crewman on M one tanks. And then
he got transferred to Germany. He took the Cutlass with him. Scott,
he says there was a nice stretch of unrestricted Audubon
(44:34):
between my base and will Will Sick and Nuremberg, which
was about an hour away. I never got the cutlass
up over a hundred and twenty mph because it was
geared for low end, but the looks on people's faces
was priceless when it got passed. But when they got
passed by the big yellow American boat, how bet you know? Sorry,
go ahead up right there in a moment. But there
is still a huge market for those old American cars
(44:57):
in Germany and people go crazy for of things, the
big muscle cars. Yeah, I can imagine how how cool
that was at the time. And he says people in
Porsches were the most incredulous and uh so um. He
he talks about the last six months of his tour
when they were doing border patrols in Macedonia on the
border with Kosovo and Serbia. Um, and there was a
(45:20):
Zastava factory and he thinks they only made components, right,
And he said, the most common card you saw was
the domestic version of the Ugo. You really have seen
something when you see a Hugo slam to the ground
with six five smoke rims and a big wing hanging
off the back. Um. And he said they were rarely
in the cars in the countryside, and the most common
form of transportation you saw in the villages was a
(45:42):
horse pulling a flatbed trailer on car wheels. UM or
this weird thing that looked like a route tiller with
an engine, two wheels along, set of handlebars that reached
back to the driver who sat on the trailer, similar
to what the horses would pull. Um. And then the
last part of this letter that I want to mention,
he said there was one part of Camernovo that had
(46:02):
paid but heavily. Pothold wrote, And behind the store front
window there were three ferraris just sitting there. No kidding.
Rumor has it that they belonged to the mafia. It
was probably just g I talk wow. And so he
signs off with thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I wish I had never sold the cutlass while I
was in Germany. What an interesting letter that's got so
(46:23):
and there's so much there. Yeah, that's that's incredible. I mean,
the three mob on ferraris and that's a strange vehicle
you're talking about, that that route tiller. Yeah, with the
persist in and trailer strange. I'm gonna look up a
picture of that and send it your way. Well, I
just wanted to say thank you Mike for writing such
a great letter. Definitely, definitely, And I can see what
you mean about feeling like your gear head. There's probably
(46:45):
a good reason for that with all these and you're
paying attention to everything around you. That's why. Yeah, And uh,
you know, I I see you regret about selling the cutlasts,
but big American cars pretty hot in Germany. I mean
true would be it would be hard not to sell it,
and you gotta move on. Maybe you can find one,
you know, check out some of the sites the the
(47:06):
you know, I don't know, Craigslist, eBay, hemmings whatever. Maybe
you can pick up another one as a toy. There's
always time for a project car, right, not always? Not always.
Uh So we are going to go ahead and wrap
up today's episode. We hope that you enjoyed the story
of the Carmen Gia. Thank you again, Isaac to writing
to us. Uh. Scott and I are going to light
(47:28):
out for the territories here. I have to watch the
opening for Good Times now. Yes, it's part of your job. Now,
I gotta spot that Orange Carman game. And uh, while
we're scouring the internet, could be intro to good times.
Feel free to drop us a line on Facebook, give
us a suggestion for an upcoming episode on Twitter, or
send us an email directly. Any kind of feedback is welcome.
(47:50):
I mean, you keep it family appropriate. We don't curse
on the show. No, all right, we try not to.
We try not to. Our producer, no will fix it
at we slipped the end? Good at that? Oh, but
what is our email addressed? Email addresses car stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(48:11):
other topics, is how stuff works dot com. Let us
know what you think. Send an email to podcast at
how stuff works dot com.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin and I am
Ben Buller. Ben. We've got a topic here from suggestion
from a listener. Oh cool, be a Facebook and I
(00:22):
know this is the one that is near and dear
to your heart in some way. Oh this, uh, if
it is what I'm thinking it is, I maybe this
one is from Isaac Salgado from our car Stuff Facebook page,
and I said, Hi, guys, have you ever done an
episode on the VW Carmen Gia. It's such a beautiful car.
I wish VW made a brand new version of this one.
(00:43):
And we said, of course, we replied, yes, it's a
great suggestion. We're gonna get the Carmen Gia into our
into our rotation soon, you know something like that. Well,
we'll get to it. And I guess what, Isaac, Today
is the day we've gotten to it. So the weight
is over exactly, Yeah, because we both like Karmen Gias.
But Ben, you may have a Karman Ghia in your past, right, Yeah, yeah,
(01:06):
that that is true. It is one of the episodes
that Old Man Bulan, by which I mean my father,
not me, has uh has always requested because he owned
a nineteen sixty six Karman Gia and Scott. These are
beautiful cars, really are, Isaac. You know to UM listeners
are familiar with this. Uh, so I think it's safe
(01:30):
to say that you and I were both pretty pretty
excited to do this one. Definitely. Yeah, these Uh, this
is a car, the Karmen Ghia that that's still to
this day will catch my eye on the road. I mean,
they're they're around. There are a lot of them around
and uh, I've seen a few of them here and there,
you know, even in the last week or two, Um,
you know, parked on the corner somewhere, just passing the
other direction. There, there, everywhere. They're kind of peppered all
(01:53):
over the place, and when you do see one, it
still turns my head. Yeah, it almost seems at this
point to they're iconic. You know, they're very much a
statement of the time and place in which they were made.
What we would like to do today is to talk
a little bit about the origin of Karma Gia. UM.
(02:14):
The subtitle for this podcast will probably be Karmen Gia,
A Tale of three companies, right, it's probably a good
way to put it. Okay, not my best. But but
then also talk about, um, what makes the karman Gia
karman Ghia. Maybe a little bit about the uh, the
engine and the different versions. Um. And then you know,
(02:35):
the way that we always like to do a show,
we'll probably throw in some sidebars, a couple other one
more things along the way. Why not hopefully some stuff
that is new even to Karmen Ghia fans. Yeah, there's
some stuff here just even about the Karmen factory that's
kind of interesting that we'll get to. I promise that
and UH and some tians with other podcasts that we've done,
now we've found some unusual kind of again tieans that
(02:59):
that I was pries to find out about about you know,
a German car factory UM in the nineteen sixties. It's
kind of strange. So UM, I promise we'll get to
that stuff. UM you want to let's do how about this?
Let's start with this UM just some general stats about
the car, some specs and uh, and then we'll go
from there. UM. And after this, I want to talk
(03:20):
about maybe why someone would want to buy a Karmen
Gear which is which is a good question, and it's
it's not a snarky question. Actually there are some there's
some great reasons, especially when we considered the time. I mean,
I mean these are yeah, this is the reason that
you would want to buy one. Maybe it's a better
way to put it, UM, but just in general, UM,
in general, the Volkswagen Karmen gear it was in production
(03:42):
in Germany and in Brazil. UM. In Germany it was
produced from nineteen fifty five until about nineteen seventy four.
UM in Brazil it was in production for a shorter
amount of time, from nineteen sixty two until nineteen seventy five,
and I believe it went through the nineteen seventy six
model year. And the body style kind of it stayed
the same throughout. I mean there's a two door convertible
(04:03):
and coupe. UM and we'll find out there's one variation
in that in the Brazil Brazil production in just a
moment um. The layout, rear engine, rear wheel drive, all
of them were the same. UM engines though were different.
There was a engine undred and six hundred. They were
all flat four cylinder engines. They were all air cooled engines.
(04:25):
It's big for for folks like in fans that there's
either air cooled or water cooled, and these were all
air cooled engines. UM. Early cars. Uh, they only had
about forty three horse power, but that was probably pretty
pretty decent for that car because it was very lightweight,
very small, very agile. Um. Not ridiculously fast or anything
like that, but as we'll find out, they were good
(04:47):
at handling. Um. The later cars. The top speed was
right around ninety miles per hour UM. And that's assuming
that it had the original engine, which was a again
a donor engine, Yeah, from the ch See and the
engine were from the Beatles, and and you know why not.
That's a very successful platform to build on, right, Yeah,
there's an interesting story there because now this is a
(05:10):
story you already know, Scott, but you feel free to
a surprise thanks. Um. So Volkswagen back in the back
in the fifties, right post World War Two, they have
cars that they want to sell to um, to the public,
and they have stuff like they have Beatles, right and
the bus and they've got the people's car right, yes, yes,
(05:34):
the people and they want to they want to sell this.
But there there are a couple obstacles. Um. First we
know that there's a boom in car purchases post World
War two era of prosperity. Um. And then that with
this boom, there these new markets emerging. And Volkswagen wants
(05:57):
to sell uh kind of a flagship car. You know.
They don't want their flagship car to be the bug.
Now they've had it for quite a while at this point, right,
so they want to they want to dress it up
a bit. Yeah, nobody wants to be one trick pony.
And Volkswagen was not the only company in this situation,
right true. And that's where Chrysler comes in. And maybe
(06:18):
that's where we should fix the story to be the
subtitle to be a tale of four companies or man,
you know what, if we want to include Chrysler, we
need to we need to talk about several other companies.
I mean that's true. Ford gets in there, Mercedes gets
in there, there's a MC gets in there. There's there's
so many different companies involved with this. This is this
gets to be a very interesting story, much more than
I had and any idea about when I started this
(06:41):
this research. Yeah, there's a lot behind this. So here's
here's what I know with uh with Chrysler. Chrysler contacts
a little Italian company called Gia and they ask they
asked Guia to help them build a Chrysler Dream Car. Yeah,
now this is interesting. Now, before you go much further,
and I want you to, I want you to tell
(07:01):
you and no, no, not yet, not yet. I don't
want to do that yet. But what I want to do.
What I do want to say is that I bet
a lot of people don't realize that Guia is actually
as a company, it's a it's an Italian design firm, yes,
and so that's that's part of the name, right. Carmen
is a is the manufacturing facility right there. They're like
their own factory, which we'll talk about as well. And
(07:23):
they're German and they're German. And then there's Volkswagen. So
the Volkswagen, Carmen, Guia're really talking about three different companies
that are coming together to create one vehicle, which doesn't happen, No,
it really doesn't. So I'm sorry, interrupted you know, I
just don't that we need to say that Gia is
its own thing, Carmen's its own thing, and of course
volks bagons its own thing. So all these are coming together,
(07:45):
and you mentioned Chrysler has now gone to Guia and
said we need your help, We need to design help. Right. Yeah,
they're premier designers, they're very old company. Um oh, I
guess I got a little mixed up. But we'll we'll
go into Guia and Carmen as well, definitely. Uh, this
is the part of the podcast where I'm doing though.
What had happened was so what had happened was, uh
(08:07):
that Chrysler approached Dida. They said, you guys are awesome,
will you help us make kind of a dream car,
a flagship vehicle that we can sell, And Gia kicked
around some ideas and some designs, uh, but they there
was one they didn't use. So let's fast forward a
(08:28):
little bit because while Chrysler was working with the good
folks at Ghia, Volkswagen made a deal with the German
company Carmen to build their flagship car. And Carmen, as
as you mentioned, Scott primarily manufacturing, right, so Carmen needs swank,
new design, something that really says post World War two
(08:51):
um success and prosperity. So they go to GIA. Yeah,
it seems like that was the place to go at
the time. Now Gia is a h let's just talk
about Gia. How about that. Let's let's talk nack that
out and uh, and we'll get to the Chrysler design,
We'll get to the Ford designs and all that. But
Gia has been around since nine yes, turin Italy. Uh
(09:13):
started by here we go, Man, I apologize. That's okay,
Jacinto Jacinto Gia. I am glad you attempted that instead
of me. You know, just a little backstage look for
everybody who listens to this show. Uh, Scott and I
do try to throw pronunciation duties. Uh, you know, distribute
(09:36):
the punishment equally. That's right, And I'm gonna avoid it
for this entire podcast if I can. But I think
I'm gonna end up at some point, uh flubbing some
kind of pronunciation. So so let's got you back. So
it starts as uh, Cadro's caros Aeria, Guia and Gariglio
very good. Then that's that's close enough, better than I
could hit it. And uh, And what it was was
(09:56):
it's it's one of the probably one of the most
famous Italian automobile design in houses. And it started out
as a coach building firm and they still I think
they still consider themselves a coach building firm. UM. But
what they did is they designed special lightweight bodies for UM. Well,
first they started with with with horse carriages as you
would expect, you know, the coach the coach building UM.
(10:18):
And then they eventually went been into automobiles as you
know all those coach builders did at some point, and
they were building exactly Yeah, they started building aluminium, very
lightweight bodies for companies like Alpha, Romeo and Fiat and Lancia.
And so you'll see these cars that are that are
gear design bodies on other manufacturer's chassis. So you'll find
(10:39):
like you'll you'll find a gear design Fiat or a
gear design Alpha. UM. And of course the Carmen cars
that we're going to talk about UM. Now Man you
mentioned just briefly, but there were some really notable cars
that have come from the GIA design boards or the
drafting boards. And one that stands out for me. I
know you're gonna mention the Chrysler. Yes, UM, there's another
(11:01):
one that we've talked about several times on our Protum
podcast and UM, I feel I have to mention it again. UM,
why not. When we're talking about Gia, the Lincoln Future
it's Lincoln Futurrea concept and which is the car that
eventually became the original Batmobile. Then that that original design.
(11:21):
Of course I love the Batmobile, right, it's the original
Batmobiles to me, gorgeous design. But the Future a concept car,
the dream car that they came out with, that design
is just so spectacular. It's amazing. Yeah, there's no mistaking it.
And and also just to be completely honest, I think
that is my favorite of the designs now the Chrysler
(11:44):
that UM sorr the Chrysler Gia that I was going
to mention was the Norseman. Oh, another beautiful design. That's
a that's a fantastic design. However, it never really made
it to the show. So no, it never made it
to the shows. And we have a show all about that,
Yeah we do. You can look up that one for sure,
but we have an entire show about the chryso Enorseman
(12:04):
and what happened with that, and I'll just leave it
at that. Um they also worked on the Volvo eighteen hundred,
which is very again very iconic design for for the
Volvo Um manufacturer, and also the Chrysler Crown Imperial limousines
were designed by Gia. Um. These are cars that were
own by Jackie Kennedy, Nelson, Rockefeller. Um. Really just anybody
(12:28):
who was anybody at that time had a had a
Chryser Crown Imperial limousine. It was it was the car
to have, I guess um. Also the day Tomasso Pantera. Um,
they get kind of partial credit for that one with Ford,
but that that's that's the one that uh infamously I
guess Elvis that's his shooting car. Yeah, the when he
(12:48):
when he shot when it wouldn't start and then it
started apparently, Yeah, he had the he had the magic time,
the magic bullet, the magic bullet, and um, the other
magic bullet. We we should also mention at this, just
to put a capstone on on that story with Diane Chrysler. Um. Well,
first let's talk about Carmon. Oh my gosh, we we
(13:08):
we almost didn't talk about Carmen. Well, I don't know
how we could forget that one. There's there's even more
information out there about Carmen because this this company has
been around since what nineteen o one I think right, well, yes,
nineteen o one. In his current incarnation, uh fellow named
Wilhelm Carmen purchase some when I've been building coaches since
the eighteen seventies and um, you know, of course weren't
(13:30):
talking like that. When we say coaches, we mean horse coaches, carriages. Um, oh,
that plays a big role later and and watch for
this later. I promise, I'm gonna mention it. Okay, okay,
there's a there's a direct tie in with the carriages,
I promise you, all right, So I'm gonna I'm gonna
hold you to it. So they let's see, they started
(13:53):
back in when we already said nineteen o one and
as a design production assembly company. Um. They worked on
you know, coach building and manufacturing, and specifically they had
these uh, these coaches that would have these these tops
that lowered and raised these cloth tops um I don't know,
I guessed would be leather at the time, the mare
(14:13):
quee features. It was kind of the thing. It was
like they had these uh, these these roof systems that
were kind of unheard of at the time, so you know,
they were they were specialty roof manufacturers also as well
as coach builders. And the headquarters is in a in
a town called I'm gonna mess this up, but Osna Brook, Oh, um, Germany.
It's in Germany. Yeah, that that was one of my
(14:34):
best shots. I think it's Osna Brook, and I'll just
say it's the German headquarters. How about that. Let's go
with the German headquarters, Germans point forwards. Um. But again,
they've been around doing what they're do for well over
hundred years now, and I'm going to guess a hundred
and thirty hundred forty years at this point if you
include you know, the coach building stuff. Um. But man,
since that, since that time, since nineteen o one, UM,
(14:57):
Carmen has built more than three million complete vehicles out
of this out of this headquarters in Germany. And it's
just it's an amazing story. But it goes all the
way back. I mean a lot of notable cars have
come out of there. Um. And I'm just going to
mention the notable ones here just briefly. But um, you
know the the VW Beatle, the cabriolet. You know, the
(15:18):
cabriolet is the fancy term I guess for convertible, and
everybody can picture of v W convertible. Well, all the
v W convertibles came out of the Carmon factory because
again remember the coach building thing that I mentioned with
with the tops that lowered up and down. Um, they
had kind of this knack for designing these roof systems,
and of course this went right is translated directly into
(15:38):
convertible automobiles. And ever since nineteen and one, even through
right now through two thousand thirteen, Carmen has been known
for the roof systems, as we'll find out, because they're
doing things like retractable hardtops um and and systems like that.
Of course soft tops, but even to today they're known
for their retractable hardtops and roof systems. Right. There's still
(15:59):
at doing the Volkswagen Gulf recently, uh in two thousand eleven. Yeah,
so I mean this this VW Beetle convertible. I mean
that was a no brainer for Volkswagen to go to
them and say, you know, let's let's make a really
good folding ragtop for our car, and we want Carmen
to do it. They want, we want them to build it. Um.
So they also they also produced the car that we're
(16:20):
talking about today, of course, the Karmen Gia from nineteen
seventy four, so it's a nineteen year run. Um about
four hundred close to five thousand cars came out of
the German factory. Um, and it's kind of like where
they of course they went to remember they went to Gia. Yeah,
oh that's the thing. They went to Guia and then
thank you for they went to Guia. Uh and they said, hey,
(16:43):
we need a design for a flagship card, like the
best car that Volkswagen will be selling in the future.
And then Gia said, well, we've got this one Chrysler
design that we never used. Yeah, that's right. And and
what's the crazy thing night I got a lot of
people don't really realize that that that was originally intended.
I'm sure that was modified because it was placed on
(17:06):
top of a VW Beetle chassis. So it's got the
rear engine um, you know, rear world drive it's which
is different than what Chrysler had at the They probably
shortened I'm sure that they did. Yeah, there's probably I'm
sure there's a lot of modifications that had to happen,
but they did use the basis of that Chrysler designed
to create what I'm gonna say arguably is their most
famous design to come out of the Carmen factory because
(17:27):
it bears the name Karmen g Again I think is unique,
is it? I think it is, yeah, because other cars
don't don't carry the name tag anyway, so that the
folks I have allowed them to call it the v
W Karmen Gia. In nineteen fifty five they came out,
but they were they were marked as fifty six models,
(17:48):
So so fifty six model your vehicle. Okay, all right,
and uh man, I'm just gonna skip ahead here because
we'll get back to the Karmen gi I promised. But Um,
they also assembled at this at this factory, they assembled
the Sharaco, the Karado, the Golf cabriolet. I'm just trying
to give you an idea of Carmen's presence, I guess
in the automobile world, because again I mentioned three million vehicles,
(18:09):
and you know, only five thousand of those of these
Carmen Gias. So there's another two and a half million
cars that came out very good all over the place.
So um, of course they made, uh the the cars
for the now defunct Markur brand for Ford Um with
the XR four t I that I think people will
remember in the Scorpio if you if you're a eighties
(18:31):
mercour fan. UM, I don't think there's probably probably not
many fans out there that um they assembled complete knockdown
kits that we mentioned in the Iron Cars episode. Yes,
remember whether Russia was making uh these the c K
D kits or the complete knockdown kids where cars would
have some would arrive in parts and then be assembled
(18:51):
on site and they would use that to reverse engineer.
Oh well you know, we have a whole show about it. Well, yeah,
they've been to that too. So so let's say these
Um it was am C with the Javelin car in
UM and these were all for European Distribution, which they
called the Javelin seventy nine K models. And there weren't
many of those. I think only about three hundred were
assembled at the German factory. Um. They've done convertibles for Mercedes.
(19:16):
We no vw um Man. There's a lot of stuff here,
ben Um they've got another facility another besides the HQ
and Uh'm gonna have to say it again, Osna Brook
and they've got this this Rhine facility which is in Westphalia, Germany.
It's the northern part of Germany, um where they also
built the golf caballe Um, the d A four Mercedes
(19:38):
been cl K and the Chrysler Crossfire recently U the Crossfire.
All the Crossfires came from Germany. So yeah, I can't
believe I didn't know that. Yeah, the Crossfires are all
German cars and um or assembled there. Anyways, I'm going
to write that though you should you should and um
you know, Chris, that's that's got a lot of time
with the Mercedes ownership. Remember when it was Diamlon, Chrysler
(20:00):
and UH and that whole thing. So that that's the
timing makes sense on that um Man all that. You know,
if you're seeing the supercar, the Spiker C eight, Yes, uh,
the the chassis and the body panels for the Spiker
C eight are created at the Carmen factory um at
the at the HQ UH. They're in Germany, um Man.
They also have a Brazilian factory, their facility where they
(20:23):
built the Carmen gears for a little while they we'll
talk about I promise they built about forty cars there. Um. Gosh,
there's so much there's but yeah, go ahead. Uh, just
just a note here. I don't know if are we
in modern times yet? Oh man, yeah, it kind of are.
I'm just I'm just there's so much to list about
the carbon factory and its accomplishments that I'm just going
(20:46):
through this long list. I know. But um, there's so
much about Carmen that I think people don't know. If you, yeah,
it isn't amazing because to most people, Carmen Gia is
um just in an oblist thing. But once you start
looking at this organization, they make so much stuff. Yeah,
(21:08):
I mean the list of just the vehicles that they made,
and some of these these lists include you know, one
hundred thousand cars in a run or five cars in
a run or fifty or whatever. Um, They've created so
many different products out of the Carmen Factory that I
just think people have no idea other than the karman Ghia, right,
that that these things even exist or that they came
from there. Yeah, there's an iceberg under the water. Definitely
(21:32):
one thing to drill down into the karman Ghia. One
thing that's interesting that we should probably talk about is, well,
let me preface this question, Scott. All right, So We've
got something looks like a sporty car, right, that's small, aerodynamic,
it's looks like it has zip uh. It also has
(21:56):
a beetle engine, which is not necessarily a sports car now,
but you know what that's to me personally, that's not
troubling because there's a there's a very good tie in
here that that I don't think a lot of people
are really putting together in their mind. There's a tie
in with Porsche. Okay, Yeah, that's all right, That's exactly
(22:17):
I was leading the witness. Okay, so you know that's
a that's a good question, Ben, I guess I mean, so,
why why would you buy it? Perfect? Perfect? And I
will answer that because the Carmen Gia is really I'm
telling you, like back when it was produced originally, and
I know they're you know, aged at this point, so
you know, it kind of varies, but it was a
very solid car. And the reason is because it hadn't
(22:40):
of course, it was you know, designed with German craftsmanship
and mind engineering as we'll mention, but um had this
Italian body. Um of course you know that. Everybody now,
I mean not everybody, but a lot of people talk
about it a German engineering is being extremely solid, extremely there,
and redundant in a lot of case reliable exactly, very
reliable and redundant. Saying redundant in a good way, and
(23:01):
that you know their safety is involved and you know
that they the overdue things. They tend to make them
stouter than they even need to be. But you know
it's a good thing. Um. All of these karmen Gias
were hand built cars. You gotta remember that too. They
were all hand assembled cars. Um. Now, the problem is
they were also said to be built with nineteen thirties technology. Now,
(23:22):
again that's not terrible because you know, you're talking about
a very very solid, very proven technology with the Beetle
Chassisan engine right now. The time body and then of
course wiring all that is another another issue. But um,
remember they can be a little finicky because of this
nineteen thirties technology. However, you've got to also remember that,
you know they're built with with kind of this older
(23:45):
Porsche design philosophy and the design design philosophy at the
time with Porsche and even now, um well maybe not
so much now, but handling is valued over acceleration at
this point. Yes, and if I can if I can
add a little something to this. Still. I was reading
this great article with the history of the Karmen Gia,
(24:07):
and there's a great passage in there about some of
Volkswagen's advertising campaign. Okay, what was it? So they would
do things, um where they would tell people to essentially
focus on the style of the Gia, on the Italian body, uh,
and say yeah, and say, well, you know, how big
(24:29):
of a deal is the engine? Sure, this is no
Matserati or a Lamborghini. It's like it's fast, but man,
it's so much cheaper. Yeah, and does it look good
when you park? It doesn't it look good when you park?
You look good in the driver's seat. I'll tell you that,
my friend. Right, that's probably what they are using to
sell a line. They're using to sell these things off
the lot, right. So yeah, I mean it's intended intended
(24:50):
to draw a lot of attention, um, even today. I
mean we mentioned that, you know, these things still are
or head turners. Really they're very very impressive, very very
beautiful body design. And they they originally so old for
around three grants. Yes, so they were not a terribly
expensive vehicle. Um, because of course, because they had this
the Beatle underpinnions and uh. But but again, you know
(25:10):
this this portion design design philosophy at the time where
handling is valued over acceleration. That's at the time. You
gotta remember the models that they're making, like the three
six and the the nine fourteen I think was around
at that time. Uh. You know, they kind of overlapp
at the point, and the nine eleven of course came
up in there at some point later in the game. Um.
But you know, of course, acceleration is big now everybody
(25:32):
wants a fast accelerating carpet. At the time, handling was
valued a little bit more than that, and that's kind
of the values that they put into the karman Gia
as well. Yeah, and uh, this investment paid off, this
priority because in nineteen sixty nine, the karman Gia was
named one of the most beautifully designed products in the world. Uh.
(25:53):
And I do the the article I'm referring to for
some of this, uh comes from a writer named Brandon
train Ham. You know, you and I like to credit
people when we of course we know when we can
trace that source that way. So this, uh, this article
is great and it has a lot of neat history
behind the Karmen Gia. But there's more to the story. Yeah,
(26:17):
there's quite a bit more. There's a you know, there's
a there's a time where these things eventually go away.
I mean for a reason. I mean there's a there's
a you know, it kind of reached the end of
its life cycle and uh, and then it was picked
up somewhere else with a with a very little known
model that was built in Brazil and uh and I
promised I want to get to that, but first I
want to tell you about something else. Yeah, I'm all
(26:38):
ears Okay, So here's what we've got. Um, you know,
we've been kind of poking around on audible dot Com
for these audiobooks, right oh yeah, man, Scott, you and
we're moving into the future. Well, I'm a bit excited
about this one, this this selection because um, it is
a former Um, it's a former Netflix pick. Think what
did I say that? Right, it's a former Netflix pick.
(26:59):
Also that that has kind of made us way over
to audible. And this is exciting because you could take
this one along with you. That's cool. Yeah, what is it?
It is Horatio's Drive, the audible version and uh, and
I'll tell you this is really cool. It's three hours
and nine minutes. So I would say this is like
the perfect length for a mid range road trip. You know,
we can maybe like weekend or day trip exactly like
(27:21):
a nice day trip. You know, they're and back and
um it's it's by Dayton, Duncan and ken Burns. Of course,
you know ken Burns to the documentary that we talked about,
but again, this is the audible version. It's about the
nineteen o three trip of Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson. He's
trying to win again been challenge, the challenge of fifty
dollar bet and um, this fifty dollar bet led him
(27:43):
to um the idea that he could drive across the
country in his Winton automobile from San Francisco to New
York City. Now, remember no roads. We talked about this
highway system. We've we've got quite a lengthy podcast on this,
you know, in our path, so definitely check it out.
But um, again, this isn't a time when there's only
(28:04):
a hundred and fifty miles of paved road in the
United States complete. I mean, that's that's it anywhere total.
And it took him about sixty three days in order
to make this journey and you know, kind of shows
this this pioneering spirit of of you know, the the
early American I guess, you know, like they're just getting
over and around any obstacle in this course. Um. And
(28:25):
I love what I love about this most is there's
an unintended race that happens. And remember this is just
like a kind of almost by accident. Doesn't even know
what's going on. But you know, suddenly midway through the
journey he's in a race. And uh, and that makes
it even more dramatic. It just gets really really tense,
I guess, really really tight at time times. But again,
(28:46):
this is a time and we said nineteen with three
this is at a time and I'll just use it
a descriptive term that they use in the in the
review of this the publisher. I think this is at
a time when just the site of of an actual
car would cause people to go into they called delirious excitement. Um.
It was that new automobiles were that new. Rose just
weren't around. They were it was they were referred to
(29:08):
his horseless carriage. It was an amazing, amazing time in
American history and automotive history, and it's well documented with
with these letters that he sent to his wife, and
you know the trials and troubles that they went through.
They picked up a dog named Bud, which is a
bulldog that I think he wore doggles for a while. Um,
you know on the dogles goggles. Yeah, yeah, doggles, say,
(29:29):
I say, like everybody knows what doggles are. And um,
he also had to write a mechanic with him. And
it was just a really intense journey. And I tell
you you're not going to be let down by this one.
This is something that is really it's a it's just
a fantastic story. You'll remember it for the rest of
your life. Yeah. And even if you don't listen to
(29:51):
our episode on it, or you listen to our episode
you want more information, you say, Hey, guys, I want
to check out this book. Well you were luck my friends.
You can go to audible podcast dot um slash car stuff.
I lost it there for a second. That's okay, you
picked it up and thanks, and uh, you can sign
up because we sent you. You You can get a free
audio book download of your choice. So it doesn't have
(30:12):
to be Horatio's Drive. Um, but you're missing out if
you don't listen to that story at some point absolutely,
And you know you mentioned I think what would be
really cool is that somebody listening to our podcast about it,
maybe watched the documentary about it and then also, uh,
you know, picked up this this audio audiobook, yeah, and
then recreated the drive. Oh no, well if I don't
(30:32):
know if you know, if you can do that, I
mean you can drive coast to coast, sure, but you'll
never be able to recreate what he had to go through. No,
it's it's it's intense, it's a head of a story. Um,
so let us know what you think about that and
getting back to uh amazing stories. We are back in
(30:53):
the karmen Gi. You know, when we've left briefly, Scott,
you had said that you wanted to talk a little
bit about a left field car from Brazil. Yeah. Now
they're there are actually three types of Karman gias. And
and this is probably gonna be shocking to some people because, um,
certain regions were kind of isolated from other types of
(31:15):
Karman Gias, and there there are three types and a
lot of times people will only think that they're too Um,
you know, that's kind of well known that there too
But the third one is is kind of surprised to
most people now. From the nineteen seventy four in Germany,
we talked about the type that they built, which was
actually they called the Type fourteen, and that's got worldwide,
worldwide recognition, I guess, is the best way to say that. Um,
(31:38):
that's the kind that U basically remained the same throughout production.
I mean there were little variations here and there between
model years, but not a whole lot of variation. And
that's the kind that your dad had. That's the kind
that was distributed here in the United States. It's kind
that we've been mostly mostly I've been thinking about that
one throughout this whole podcast, really, to be honest with you. Um,
(31:59):
there's another type that is called the European Karmen Gia.
And this one, this one's gonna be a shock to
some people. Not not as much as the next one,
but I think a lot of people won't even recognize
this one. But it was built from nineteen nineteen seventy
at the German factory. Again, and it looks and then
this is strange. It looks a lot like a Chevy
corvet and in appearance it has a very very similar
(32:23):
lines to a corve Air. UM. It was never exported
to the United States. UM. And that's the kind that
they call again, they called the European karmen Gia. And
if you haven't seen one of those, look it up
and tell me if you don't immediately think of Chevy Corver.
It really does look like that. UM. Now the last one,
this is the surprise. This is one that was later
in the production and it's when they picked up that
(32:43):
Brazilian factory. UM. And it was produced from nineteen seventy
two to nineteen seventy five, so pretty limited run. And
I think they actually came out with the nineteen seventy
six model year in nineteen five. So UM. This model
is called the TC and it was made in Brazil
for Brazil. It was the South American market car. Only
(33:04):
it was never exported. And this is kind of surprised
to a lot of people because you just never get
to see them outside of South America. Yeah, you can
see pictures of them, but you were not likely to
see one in Europe ord the States. No, No, I
don't think that's it has been you know, widely distributed anywhere.
I'm sure that someone has imported exported one somewhere elsewhere
(33:24):
in the world at this point, but it had what
they called UM. They were they were trying to look
for something new in the in the design at that point,
and that's why they passed it over again. It's late
in production again all the way to the nineties. UM,
they're looking for something that was innovative, athletic, and they
looked a lot UM a lot towards the Porsche design
at the time, which was the nine eleven that they
(33:45):
were building. And there's a lot of nine eleven in
this in this design. So the TC the back end
has kind of a pinched look like the nine eleven
has UM or maybe even the twelve at the time.
I'm not sure which was actually in production, but UM
got notes here somewhere, but UM, Yeah, there's a there's
a lot of Porsche design in the back end of
(34:05):
this thing, that's for sure. Yes. And I wanted to
plug some places where you can see the Karman gia
because sometimes when we're doing research for a show it uh.
I can't remember the name of this syndrome, but there's
there's a there's a phenomenon. I think it's better mine
Hoff maybe where you hear an interesting word or a
(34:29):
snatch of a song, and then you feel like you
hear it all the time, you know. And it happens
with commercial jingles or just words you don't usually hear.
It's like when you're paying attention for something, there it
is all the time, right, yeah, Like they will joke
about the number twenty three. Um, So I had a
situation like this with karman Gia because over over the
weeks we're talking about doing this episode. Uh, my girlfriends
(34:52):
had me start watching Good Times. I'll tell you about
this now you did not. Okay, Well, apparently I'm missed
out because I've never watched You're talking about the sitcom
from the nineteen seventies Good Times, right, yes, okay, we're
in a karman Gia is in the intro really yeah,
And and I stopped it at first and I went
(35:13):
back and checked it out. But you can see, um,
you can see a Karmen Gia in uh in the intro.
It is orange. You know what it sticks out. I'm
gonna have to say that, I bet if you watched
a lot of those sitcoms and documentaries dropped dramas. I
guess maybe from the nineteen seventies. I bet, I bet
karmen Ghia show up in the background a lot in
(35:34):
these things, like on chips maybe or something where. Um.
Remember they are the California high Ary Patrol, so they're
out on the highways all the time. I bet you
there's a ton of these things in the background all
the time. I heard, uh, I heard that they make
an appearance and get smart. I haven't. I haven't seen
it myself, but I did. I did wonder if I'm
gonna have to look at the Good Times intro now
and see where you're spotting a karmen Gia because I
(35:56):
can't picture that in my head and we can. It's uh,
you have to look for it. It's brief and it's orange,
and it's I will I will definitely look there for
that the moment we leave the studio. I'm pretty sure, man. Okay, now,
we don't not derailing you too much here. Remember they
mentioned that that, you know, they're kind of looking for
new design, and that's why they went from the the
(36:17):
the standard gear design, the Type fourteen and the what
was the other one, the Type thirty four I think um,
over to the TC and they were looking for something new. Well,
Volkswagen shifted gears. At that point. They stopped production on
the regular Karmen gear, the one that I call the
regular the Type fourteen UM, and they started producing the
v W Sharaco and that's produced from sevent two. That
(36:39):
was the first gen, and then there's a second generation
which went from and I only mentioned this then because um,
you know, I really liked it. I mean, it's it
was to replace the old and aging Karmen Gear design. Um.
The Sharaco design was and it's built on the golf
and rabbit platform and the JED I think um again
at the same German headquarters, you know, Carmen. It was
(37:00):
assembled by Carmen UM. But I mentioned this because I
thought the Shiaco was gone because here in the States,
we we don't see that anymore past the model year, right,
the second gen. While they're making a third generation Sharaco
which is being assembled in Portugal and they've been making
that since two thousand and eight and they're currently making that.
And you know, that's just one of those things that
(37:21):
kind of has alluded me to this point. I knew,
I think I read something about it a long time ago,
but I didn't realize that. You know, for the last
five years this thing has been in production. We just
we don't see them here. And and that's the reason.
I know other places in the world will say, well, yeah,
of course I see those, you know, ten times a
day on the road, you know, as I'm going to
and from work. But um, again, it's just something that
you know, is off our radar. Here, I have some
(37:43):
news about Carmen. This is what I have mentioned earlier.
Uh So in two thousand nine, Carmen ran into some
trouble and they filed for bankruptcy. And I did hear
about this, and um, Volkswagen made them an offer and
they said, you know, well we worked together for a while,
we'll take over it. Um. So they the business split
(38:06):
in a couple of different ways. Uh. Carmen's North American
operations went to a place called Wobosto Group. UH, place
called Valma Automotive bought the roof components stuff. But uh,
they're still producing cars, so they're making They made that
Volkswagen golf Golf rather they started in two thousand eleven.
You know, I don't want to end on a down note.
(38:28):
That's just the newest one of the newest development. No, no, no.
And as a matter of fact, I've got one more
thing that I do want to include here that we'll
talk about some car production and some surprising models that
came out of the Carbon Factory, because I I had
talked about that early on and there's some strange Yeah,
we've gotta delivered. But I don't want to say one
thing about what you just mentioned. You said the Valmy
Automotive Group UM, that is the company that does the
(38:49):
Fisker Karma. I think they assemble the Fisker Karma UM,
so that that's kind of a strange tie in there
that they they do, like the roof component sections I
think UM or they they took over Carmen's roof component
sections I think from Germany, and I think they had
a still in Poland as well. UM. So, I mean,
(39:10):
and that whole thing arose because it was, like, of
course everybody knows, it was a sharp decline in in
the demand for automobiles at that time, So you know,
it wasn't it wasn't that you know, Carmen did anything
particularly awful. It was just you know, the demand went down,
and you know a lot of businesses had trouble exactly. Now,
let's let's get back to one kind of one last thing.
(39:31):
I guess that's uh, that's a little more on the
positive side, because these are just some strange things that
stood up to me when I looked through Carmen's production numbers.
And you gotta remember, they built over three million cars.
They assembled over three million cars at their factory, and uh,
this is just the German factory, by the way, that
I'm going to mention now. We talked about the AMC Javelin,
and that was in night and if you haven't ever
(39:52):
seen an AMC Javelin, check it out. It was a
pony car from the late sixties. Obviously um out of
moderate um excitement about it here in the United States,
I guess it was. It never really took off, but
there were only three hundred of these cars that were
assembled for European distributions, so I guess those are kind
of rare over there to find you one of those.
(40:13):
I think it was a seventy nine K model, is
what I mentioned. Um, oh, this is a good one.
They also built the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, which was
a group a rally car that you know, it's one
of those deals been where for racing and they have
to build X number of street cars. Oh yeah, this
was one. So the Ford Escort U R S Cosworth
(40:34):
from ninety six. They built eight thousand and a two
of these cars. And again it's it's basically a rally
car race car for the street. Um. Now there's a
toned down street version obviously, and then there's the rally
car version. But um, these are this is a pretty
interesting car if you if you ever want to dig
into that and take a look at it. Um. Here's
(40:55):
some other notable ones. The Porsche of three fifty six
UM now production was from forty eight to sixty sixty
five UM. But I don't have any numbers on that
one or the dates that it was produced there at
the Carbon factory. But a lot of the Porst of
three fifty six is came from the Carbon factory, which
is kind of cool. The portion nine elevens from sixty
six to seventy one UM nine four teens, which are
(41:18):
you know, still kind of hanging around as uh, you know,
collector favorite. A lot of people enjoy those now and
they're talking they're still talking about a new nine fourteen design.
But I don't know if it's gonna happen. Um Triumph,
which I even it was out of left field. The
Triumph t R six was built from nineteen sixty nine
to nineteen seventy six at the Carbon factory. That's weird.
(41:39):
That is weird, and the overlaps and these are strange because, um,
you know you'll find that, like you know, at the
same time there were I don't know, Renault cars being
built on the factory at the same factory, or Mercedes
or Porsche's or or whatever. That I can imagine that
this place at a certain time would be pretty interesting
to walk through and see all the different cars they're
assembling or you know, build at this UM and just
(42:02):
a couple of interesting volks back if we mentioned Sharaco,
UM the Karado, which I'm a big fan of, and
of course the Carmen gi As that we talked about.
But this list, if you if you go through here,
you can find a list like this of the production
models and all three million cars are listed here. Um
that individually. Of course you can you can sort through
them by many, but um, you know, as few as
(42:22):
three hundred or as many as five hundred thousand with
the Carmen Gia models that we talked about. UM, so
this carbon factory is really something that's really something to
be cherished, I guess. I mean, you know, look at
it at a historic from a historical point standpoint, and
and realize what kind of cars came out of there.
And when you start looking at you know, like the
Crisis crossfire and some of the newer cars that are
(42:44):
coming out of there as well. UM, this place, this
has Uh, I don't know how to say it. It's
one of the biggest unknown deals, I guess. So yeah,
I mean, I just you didn't know what you didn't
know that the cross fact. Honestly, you know, I worked
for Drmond Chrysler at the time. I knew it came
from in Germany, but I did not came from the
carbon factory, so I didn't know either. UM, a lot
(43:07):
of surprises on the list. Just take a look. And
while you're checking that out, Scott, I think we should
do a little bit of listener mail. Why not? All right,
So this comes from pretty close to us. My friend
Mike from Athens, Georgia writes in UM, and I'm going
to read some highlights of this letter. He says, Scott
(43:29):
and Ben, just listen to your podcasts about the Iron
Curtain cars between new episodes. I've been working my way
through your back catalog and just listen to the Audubon
and Tanks episodes. It was all too much. I had
to send you a note. Uh. So he starts talking
about how he seems like he feels like he was
born a gear head. He was a mechanic by the
time he was eighteen. I worked in a race shop
(43:50):
growing up, where he was working with fabrication wilding building
to frame doors. Um, what a cool job, I know, right,
And so Mike says, we had a few Hugo's come
through the shop and the biggest thing I remember about
them was that they had Fiat drive trains. And he
at the time bought his first car, a yellow nineteen
seventy two Cutlass and near mint condition. He said it
(44:12):
was mostly stock, kind of a sleeper. It had a
four and fifty horse power three engine with high compression
four pistons. Right. And so he joins the army. Uh.
And he's a crewman on M one tanks. And then
he got transferred to Germany. He took the Cutlass with him. Scott,
he says there was a nice stretch of unrestricted Audubon
(44:34):
between my base and will Will Sick and Nuremberg, which
was about an hour away. I never got the cutlass
up over a hundred and twenty mph because it was
geared for low end, but the looks on people's faces
was priceless when it got passed. But when they got
passed by the big yellow American boat, how bet you know? Sorry,
go ahead up right there in a moment. But there
is still a huge market for those old American cars
(44:57):
in Germany and people go crazy for of things, the
big muscle cars. Yeah, I can imagine how how cool
that was at the time. And he says people in
Porsches were the most incredulous and uh so um. He
he talks about the last six months of his tour
when they were doing border patrols in Macedonia on the
border with Kosovo and Serbia. Um, and there was a
(45:20):
Zastava factory and he thinks they only made components, right,
And he said, the most common card you saw was
the domestic version of the Ugo. You really have seen
something when you see a Hugo slam to the ground
with six five smoke rims and a big wing hanging
off the back. Um. And he said they were rarely
in the cars in the countryside, and the most common
form of transportation you saw in the villages was a
(45:42):
horse pulling a flatbed trailer on car wheels. UM or
this weird thing that looked like a route tiller with
an engine, two wheels along, set of handlebars that reached
back to the driver who sat on the trailer, similar
to what the horses would pull. Um. And then the
last part of this letter that I want to mention,
he said there was one part of Camernovo that had
(46:02):
paid but heavily. Pothold wrote, And behind the store front
window there were three ferraris just sitting there. No kidding.
Rumor has it that they belonged to the mafia. It
was probably just g I talk wow. And so he
signs off with thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I wish I had never sold the cutlass while I
was in Germany. What an interesting letter that's got so
(46:23):
and there's so much there. Yeah, that's that's incredible. I mean,
the three mob on ferraris and that's a strange vehicle
you're talking about, that that route tiller. Yeah, with the
persist in and trailer strange. I'm gonna look up a
picture of that and send it your way. Well, I
just wanted to say thank you Mike for writing such
a great letter. Definitely, definitely, And I can see what
you mean about feeling like your gear head. There's probably
(46:45):
a good reason for that with all these and you're
paying attention to everything around you. That's why. Yeah, And uh,
you know, I I see you regret about selling the cutlasts,
but big American cars pretty hot in Germany. I mean
true would be it would be hard not to sell it,
and you gotta move on. Maybe you can find one,
you know, check out some of the sites the the
(47:06):
you know, I don't know, Craigslist, eBay, hemmings whatever. Maybe
you can pick up another one as a toy. There's
always time for a project car, right, not always? Not always.
Uh So we are going to go ahead and wrap
up today's episode. We hope that you enjoyed the story
of the Carmen Gia. Thank you again, Isaac to writing
to us. Uh. Scott and I are going to light
(47:28):
out for the territories here. I have to watch the
opening for Good Times now. Yes, it's part of your job. Now,
I gotta spot that Orange Carman game. And uh, while
we're scouring the internet, could be intro to good times.
Feel free to drop us a line on Facebook, give
us a suggestion for an upcoming episode on Twitter, or
send us an email directly. Any kind of feedback is welcome.
(47:50):
I mean, you keep it family appropriate. We don't curse
on the show. No, all right, we try not to.
We try not to. Our producer, no will fix it
at we slipped the end? Good at that? Oh, but
what is our email addressed? Email addresses car stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(48:11):
other topics, is how stuff works dot com. Let us
know what you think. Send an email to podcast at
how stuff works dot com.
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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