Our 1944 KdF-Wagen type 82e . What's up lately?

[KdF1]

Good Morning!
I wanted to give an update on our 1944 KdF-Wagen type 82e Car Show & Concours results and to again thank ALL of you who helped us here in the US & from around the World achieve our cars wonderful restoration & Award results. Your individual beautiful work made all the difference and you all share in these celebrations with us!

In October 2024 we debuted the car @ The AACA Hershey Fall Meet in Class 35B. Class 35B is the Limited Production & Prototype Class for which I was responsible for having all 1938-1944 KdF-Wagen type 60 and type 82e Beetles be designated into this Class & the AACA Rulebook. AACA is the world's largest Antique Car Club. Now any KdF-Wagen Beetle has a place to show their KdF in any State that AACA has a National Meet in.
That day, our car showed great and we was welcomed with a HUGE amount of enthusiasm by all who saw it. We had a big crowd around it from the moment we drove up & all day long as it was the first time a 1944 KdF was shown @ a Carshow here in the US. We are relatively certain it was also the first time a 1944 Passenger Car was shown in the US tGat day as well! The Judges weaved between the crowd and did thier job and asked questions. We received or First Junior Award & months later received a letter stating our KdF was Nominated for a National Award of some kind. In February, at the Antique Automobile Club of America's Annual Convention which was held this year in Charlotte NC, we found out what it was at the red carpet lined Awards dinner. The W. Emmert Swigart Memorial Cup for Outstanding Restoration of a Rare and Unusual Automobile shown at a National Meet for 2024! This is an Award that has been given to one car only, each year since 1950. Our car was added to the Trophy kept at the AACA National Headquarters & Library in tge glass cabinet. We were sooo very humbled by this to say the least.

Next, our KdF was on the Cover of Crankshaft Magazine #9 and was the featured car! When Jay Leno read it, he called me 3 times! Between Jay and Executive Director Nic Waller, our KdF was invited to The Audrain Newport Concours and Auto Week! Because of our cars rarity, it was difficult to place into a Class. We were placed into Class 01, The Post War European Class, 1945-1965. To give you a perspective, the spectacular cars the selction committe chose for this Class were as follows: A 1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Touring Superleggera Coupe, A 1953 Siata 208 CS Vignale Coupe, An Aston Martin DB2/4 Coupe, A Lancia Aurelia B20 Farina Coupe, A 1948 Triumph 2000 Roadster, A 1960 Aston Martin DB4 GT Series I Saloon, A 1962 Morgan Plus 4 Roadster and our 1944 KdF-Wagen type 82e! I was ready for the Judges with a thick book of restoration photos spanning 22 year. After the Judging, I continued having fun sharing our cars story and restoration photos with the public. The Judge Team walks up and we were then presented with a Blue Ribbon 3rd Place with Honorable Mention! Awesome achievement I thought! BTW, the day before, with Ryan Pribyl by my side, our almost 80 mile Tour along the Newport Coastline and countryside, was amazing and our KdF performed flawlessly.

A few days later, we were back at The AACA Hershey Fall Meet 2025 where the weather was equally wonderful for us. The enthusiastic crowd greated us as we drove in and were around our car just like last year. We did a interview for a YouTube Automotive Group and again we were ready for the Judges. Happy to report we received our Senior Award that evening! This now enables us to compete for our next goal, an AACA Grand National Award. Wish us luck!

All of this is great news for the entire VW Community as its putting our VWs in the public eye more, which I just love to see.

Thank you again to all the countless folks who helped us with our Car over the years. You know who you are! 2026 should be a fun one. Stay tuned!

_________________
Feb 1944 KdF Type 82e.
Nov 1947 CCG type 11

[finster]

congratulations for the show awards. sounds like it might feature in a Jay Leno's garage you tube soon...

what was the history of the car, is much known?
_________________
"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[KdF1]

Thanks finster, yes it was built Feb 18th 1944 and was sent to Kassel Germany. As the passed on story goes, the car ended up in Krakow Poland and was found abandoned there by a Polish resident. The car was in bad condition, found with bullet holes, shrapnel and front body damage. The Krakow resident sourced parts from Kübelwagens and other vehicles in an attempt to get it usable again. A Kubel motor was found as a replacement as supposedly the motor had a bullet hole through it. This seems to add up as we found some bullet holes in the engine firewall. We counted 11 that we could identify, with one high velocity round slowly piercing the drivers rear quarter panel, coming out into the door jam, into the door coming out somewhere else. Damaged sheet metal was mearly banged out and damage gas welded. The doors were removed at somepoint trying to replace them with used 1951 doors which look like that idea had failed. At somepoint the car was considered unusable, stored in a shed and stripped. It was discovered in 1990 by Christian Grundmann who brought it back to Germany. After a while he reconsidered feeling the car was too rough to restore and being that it was stripped would take way too long to find everything. Remember, this was now the early 90s, and info and skilled people who made parts for these cars were far and few between. He decided to sell it & it went to UK Collector Richard Cotton. After several years, he too found little to no info and parts, although he received & verified everything with a VW Museum Birth Certificate. A Mr Miller in the UK was next in line to purchase the car. In 2002 I found an ad on the internet for a 1944 VW beetle for sale. I called it, and it was Richard Cotton. He knew of me and I knew of him through the VVWC of America. Richard was suprised I found his Ad, because it was years old and the KdF had been sold long ago. I figured that's it, but Richard said that he ran into Mr Miller recently and that he also hadn't made any progress with it. He sounded a bit frustrated about it he said. So Richard offered to connect me with Mr Miller to see where he was at with his KdF. He did, and Mr Miller and I talked, several times. Mr Miller basically tried to talk me out of it at first. Stating that I better think about this long and hard as this was not a project for the faint of heart and it will be the hardest thing I tried to do. I appreciated his honesty with me and it did make me think hard about taking this on. I believe he was really trying to make me think and didn't want to see the car getting passed on yet again to someone who thought they could do it like he did. If we were to buy it from him I needed to promise him that I was "the last guy" and that I would see it through to the end. I thought about that seriously and talked about it with my friend Simon Mitchell in Germany. Simon said that If I was to take this on it wouldn't be easy, but that he would help me search for everything for as long as it took. Now that's a friend! I made the promise to Mr Miller, we made a deal and the car was shipped to us landing in the Port of Newark in October 2002.
https://www.crankshaftmagazine.com/store/p/xx2cyrolufe35vfkev2k1ub7yo7uwo
_________________
Feb 1944 KdF Type 82e.
Nov 1947 CCG type 11

[originalo]

Dear Alex,
great news about you and your KdF 82e! Sincerest congratulations for the awards and true, it is a great achievement you succeeded to place those rare and early Volkswagens in the focus of the general classic car scene.
I am so happy you suceeded to finish your KdF, I know it took over 20years and I had the pleasure to receive updates from you as time went by...be it via email or at the occasions of our very pleasant personal meetings.
The duration of the restoration was due to the utmost care you took in doing it correctly and right.
Now have greatest fun with your treasure and all the best wishes to you and your wife- enjoy!
Best personal regards from Germany and hope to meet you soon.
Jan

Some impressions from the 2nd KdF only meeting at the Richard Hausmann Collection:

You are on this photo inspecting the site filled with KdF VW´s "only"...

That´s you inspecting a KdF engine lid together with (from left to right) Markus Lottermann, Hanss Lange (partly covered) and Markus Dippl...great memories...

[René R.]

That's a wonderful car and an epic restoration. Congratulations on getting the awards you fully deserve.

I hope to see it on Jay Leno's Garage someday!
_________________
Gone but not forgotten: 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1966) - another 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1996)

[KdF1]

Thank you for the congratulations and the photos! We appreciate it!
_________________
Feb 1944 KdF Type 82e.
Nov 1947 CCG type 11

[johnshenry]

Link to the Youtube inteview??
_________________
John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[sinclair]

Nice feature in Crankshaft magazine

[bugger me]

was this car owned by john miller from enfield london back in 92. does any one no john and does he still have the bordeaux red 49 thanks

[sinclair]

[KdF1]

Thank you for the kind words. I am doing what I can to spread the word about these early misunderstood cars to the public.

Yes, this is John's old KdF type 82e. We bought it direct from him in 2002 after I promised to finish it and do it justice. I kept my word to him. John is thrilled with the results and accolades it is getting. He a copy of Crankshaft #9 as well. www.crankshaftmagazine.com He told me he was very glad I ended up being the curator of it. That pleased me very much.
_________________
Feb 1944 KdF Type 82e.
Nov 1947 CCG type 11

[bugger me]

o wow that makes me so happy that the cars been restored i met john in 92-93 when i was about 17 he done a deal with a mate on a 49 john showed us his cars then the next day i picked up my first car a rolling shell rhd 54 then i bumped into him at the last peppercorn show it was raining so we sat in his split to keep dry, i'm now 50, thanks for the reply,

[scarabee]

^^^ Whew! I'm out of breath from reading that sentence!

[MLockwood]

Alex, so glad you posted for the VW community to enjoy. I'm amazed that you not only brought this car back from the ashes but to such an incredibly high level. Split parts are rare and expensive, especially NOS...but you did it with a KDF car. unreal.
Mark

[banana split]

How about posting up some "before" photos or "restoration in progress" stuff? The final outcome looks fantastic!
_________________
My Beetles :
1951 Crotch Cooler 11G Split Ragtop
1953 Zwitter
1964 Chop Top

[Martin Southwell]

[Martin Southwell]

Here is a picture of it after purchase by Richard Cotton. Not as bad as I had imagined! More photos to follow later.

[KdF1]

Thank you for the kind words,
There are some photos taken that will be used in different publications, and I am not sure which ones they would like to use yet. Out of respect for them, for now I will be having some restoration photos posted on the KdF-Registry page on the link below for those that want to see them. Thanks
https://kdfregistry.com/restoration-of-1212/
_________________
Feb 1944 KdF Type 82e.
Nov 1947 CCG type 11