VOLKSWAGEN Superbug

IF THE POINT of a ‘modern classic’ is to refocus attention away from traditional automotive icons to more modern machinery, then the Volkswagen 1303 Superbug L (1973-75) sneaks its way in via a loophole. If any VW Beetle was ever going to be deemed modern, or even remotely ‘plastic’, it’s this final development of Wolfsburg’s original Type 1 wunderkind.

With its body swollen and reconfigured to accommodate the engineering required to make it roomier, safer, better to drive and better to crash in, the super-sized Superbug was prepped to face the 1970s like freshly flared denim in an Amco jeans commercial. Except that the Volkswagen take on things was driven by pragmatism, not vanity, and a desire to defy age by keeping on moving. The Volkswagen Beetle of the mid-’70s may have remained faithful to the air-cooled, rear-engined concept, but it was almost a completely