April 12th - It's National 412 Day

[raykinsella]

I will be driving both of my 412s today ( not at the same time, of course ) in honor of our big day that comes but once a year, just as yesterday I drove my 411.

[steve_1125]

Bravo! I drove my Alaska Blue wagon today to celebrate and it was a beautiful day!

[raykinsella]

Hey Steve! Where in the world are you? I live in the Seattle area and we just got back from a 200-mile trip out on the Olympic Peninsula, where it was warm and sunny and everywhere people stared at my 412 and smiled and gave me the thumbs-up. These cars are so rare anymore most people don't even know what they are, but seem to love the weird exoticness of them. Both of my 412s are totally-restored beauties and always generate compliments. That feels real nice; too bad VW didn't get the same treatment when they brought this model out back in the early 70s. Both the 411 and 412 were considered un-lovely and undesirable and they flopped and disappeared. All but a few, sad to say. Well, mine are well-loved, at least.

[wildthings]

VW dumped the T4's just when sales were finally taking off, maybe do to the oil embargo. As typical for VW since that time period I think that they misjudged the American market. Look at the percentage of 4sp T4's that have survived compared to auto boxers. Stupid not to have made the 4sp more available, sale may well have been double or triple. Just because the American automakers were doing all they could to make cars with standard transmissions undriveable and undesirable doesn't mean that it was a good idea or that the public really wanted it.

I know that I grew up thinking that VW's were slow, cramped, and trashy. A big part of this came from their own ads and it was well known that trying to get parts to fix your VW from a dealer or a regular auto parts was all but impossible.

[Marc]

It was VW's purchase of Audi that did in the Type 4. The Audi 80/Fox and its VW Passat/Dasher brother were both in the same market sector (and showed greater promise for passing future US emissions standards). Sales weren't strong enough to warrant keeping both in the showroom, and the waterpumpers won.

[raygreenwood]

Yup. Thats so sad too....considering a lot of NSU parts and technology went into the 411/412. Ray

[Lars S]

Never thought of the NSU parts Ray, what is there to mention...?

/Lars S

[raygreenwood]

Its really odd. If you start poking around in nooks and crannies inside of the car....like in places one would normally never go...under the dash, under the seats etc.....you find a lot of NSU stickered parts. On one of my cars in teh past, I found so many NSU stickers that I stsrted to believe that the car may have been assembled at an NSU plant.

I think Marc set me straight at one time that the 411/12 was indeed a sole production of a vw production line. But...there were a lot of NSU parts here and there. And...being after 1969 (I think that was after the Audi deal)....who knows what the real deal was. I am wondering if NSU was just being treated as another OEM to provide parts into the mill.

The headlight outer bezels on my car have NSU decals on the inside. I think Ifound one under the dash at one point and a couple more on some other components...mainly body and trim parts. Ray

[Lars S]

Yes, that was odd...another coincidence(?) is the similarity of the 411's headlight outer bezels and the NSU TT ones:



I believe the TT came in to the market in 1967, two years before VW bought the Auto Union.


/Lars

[steve_1125]

Hi Ray K., getting back to your question, I am in the SF bay area. I grew up here and my folks bought their 411 '71 wagon new in this area. I remember people would ask my mother what kind of car we had. They were pretty uncommon when they first were imported here.

My '74 412 was sold new in Santa Ana. It's been a joy to drive and, knock on wood, not too much to repair since I have owned it!