For most European and north American VW enthusiasts, Brazil is a bit of an enigma when it comes to air-cooled production. The faraway land has a rich Volkswagen heritage and a vibrant scene today, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the number of residents (over 200 million and counting) and the success of the VW brand in the country.
Founded in 1953, VW do Brasil managed to remain largely independent from the suits at Wolfsburg, largely we suspect due to being located some 6,000+ miles away from Germany!
But Brazil also has a vastly different socio-economic climate, and so several distinctly unusual models were conceived to fulfil the needs of the large Brazilian market. These include the sporty looking SP-2 (1973-’76) and the Brasilia (1973-’82), a smaller, more modern looking version of the perenially popular Type 3 Variant / Squareback.
Even late model domestic Beetles had a look of their own, with held over production tooling meaning some of them mix a large windscreen
