VOLKSWAGEN TYPE 4

The 'Volkswagen Type 4' was a mid-sized 2 or 4-door saloon or 2-door estate built by Volkswagen (VW) of Germany. It was produced between 1968 and 1974.
The Type 4 was larger than the Volkswagen Type 3 and had a more powerful engine (1.7 - 1.8 litres, as opposed to 1.5 - 1.6 for the Type 3). The Type 3 and Type 4 were the last of the company's air-cooled models, following on from the Volkswagen Type 1 ("Beetle"). They were succeeded by the massively successful Golf/Rabbit and Dasher/Passat.

Contents

Features

Models

Sales and Marketing

Popular perception

Powerplant

External links

Features

The Type 4 introduced many firsts to the Volkswagen range. These included: unibody construction, MacPherson strut front suspension, rear suspension with coil springs and trailing wishbones, a hydraulic clutch (for models equipped with a manual transmission), and one of the first fully automatic transmissions (the first was in the 1969 Type 3 models) in a Volkswagen. (Previous cars had used an automatic (vacuum-actuated) clutch, but gears still had to be changed manually.) The Type 4 was also Volkswagen's first 4-door car. The MacPherson strut front suspension was later successfully employed in the 1302/1303 ("Super Beetle").
The Type 4's battery was located under the driver's seat. In the rear of the car was located a gasoline-operated heater (an Eberspächer BA4) that was fired by a glow plug accessible from a hidden rear window deck plate. The cloth covered rubber fuel hoses made the engine prone to fires.

Models

The Type 4 included the 411 (produced from 1968 to 1972) and the optimized 412 (produced in 1973 and 1974). Each model included a fastback saloon and an estate version. Both models were fuel injected (except for the 1968 model with 68 HP), making this one of the first mass production vehicles to include this electronic feature — along with the Volkswagen Type 3, which also received fuel injection in 1968.
The design of the Type 4 was used when the Volkswagen Brasilia was produced for the Latin America market.

Sales and Marketing

During a six year production span, just 367.728 Type 4s were produced. That was better than the 210.082 achieved by the contemporary Volkswagen K70 (which admittedly had only a five year model life). Nevertheless, Type 4 sales levels must have been disappointing when set against the volumes achieved by the Type 1 (Beetle) and Type 3 models. The domestic market dominance of GM's Opel Rekord, its production running at about 300.000 cars annually, was not seriously threatened by Volkswagen's 411/412 in the family sedan sector.
In the United States, where the Type 4 was on sale for four seasons, it was regarded as too underpowered. The Type 4 was in fact a sales disaster in the U.S., selling only 117,110 units over a four-year-period.

Popular perception

In contemporary German vernacular, the 411 was called "Langnase" ("long nose") or "Vier Türen elf Jahre zu spät", meaning "four doors coming eleven years too late" because it was Volkswagen's first 4-door sedan.

Powerplant

Main articles: Volkswagen air cooled engine

While the Type 4 was discontinued in 1974 when sales dropped, its engine became the power plant for Volkswagen Type 2s ("Kombis") produced from 1972 to 1979: it continued in modified form in the later "Vanagon" which was air-cooled from 1980 until mid-1983. The engine that superseded the Type 4 engine in late 1983 retained Volkswagen Type 1 architecture, yet featured water-cooled cylinder heads and cylinder jackets. The Wasserboxer, VW speak for a water-cooled, opposed-cylinder (flat or boxer engine), did not enjoy the reputation for longevity that the original air-cooled design had forged. From the very start, the engine suffered cylinder-to-head sealing problems, mostly due to galvanic corrosion, often a result of slack maintenance schedules. Volkswagen discontinued the engine in 1992, upon the introduction of the Eurovan.

External links

★ Volkswagen Type 3 & 4 club