First Wash in 50 Years: VW Thing w/ 6800 Original Miles! | Satisfying Restoration

Hidden inside this barn for the last 50 years, we found what might be the most rare Volkswagen on the entire internet. I've never seen one of these before in my life. Not only is it completely filthy for sitting for over five decades, but then I got a good look at the odometer, which showed 11,000 kilometers, which translates to 6,800 original miles. And then it became crazier. It's possibly the first one imported here. The first one in America? Oh, these are pretty cool too. Holy smokes. Wow, it looks straight out of Jeeper Creepers. Wow. Holy crap. I've never seen one of these before in my life. I actually don't know all that much about them, but I do know that this is considered the Volkswagen thing or the Type 181. And it was a military vehicle that the Germans used after World War II, I think in like the mid-1960s. And I'm pretty sure it actually is derived from another German military vehicle, but that vehicle was derived from a Volkswagen Beetle. So if I'm not mistaken, this has a Volkswagen Beetle engine. I mean, it looks nuts. It looks like a little... It looks like a little hummy. It's really freaking cool. Over here, the BMW motorcycle. Holy smokes. This is really, really cool. I want to get more information about how this car... How this car got here. So I'm going to go ahead and get the owner and get some background information. Hold on, guys. Guys, wait. Before we talk about the thing, we have no room in this shop to work. And that's perfect timing because we need to get rid of this truck, meaning we want to give it away to one of you. And right now we're offering 20 times entries to win this 1960 Chevy C10 Apache. And we decided because things are going so great and you guys have been supporting us so much, we want to sweeten the deal for you just for this next week. So we added a PlayStation 5 with Gran Turismo 7 and an Xbox Series X with Forza Horizon 5. Personally, I've always been an Xbox guy. You guys leave a comment down below which one of the two you like. From now, Saturday until Monday, you get 20 times entries into this truck and one of these two. And all you have to do is buy even one thing off of our website. You could buy one bottle of soap. You could buy one of our merchandise products. Or you could buy the entire Ultimate Pack, whatever you guys are feeling. But you get 20 times entries into either of these. And that only lasts until Monday, but we're going to be giving away these until our next video which launches next Saturday. So you guys can continue to purchase things to try to win an Xbox or a PlayStation 5. And also really quickly, I wanted to mention, if you guys get any messages from anybody that's claiming to be WD Detailing and you won our big giveaway, that's not us unless it's a completely verified page. We will not reach out to you until the giveaway is over. So if someone says that you won, chances are it's a scam. So do not pay attention to that. But don't miss your chance to win this beautiful truck and one of these awesome gaming consoles. We have a really cool car to take care of. Let's get back to it. All right, guys. So I went and got the owner, right? You do own this or it's your... It's my... My grandfather was the original owner and my father now owns it. Okay, cool. Gotcha. How did it get into this barn and how long has it been here? Since the early 70s. My grandfather had it imported from Germany. He imported several cars from Germany. What was he in Germany for? Or did he just import these because he... Just for import cars, just a hobby. Just a hobby? Hey, he's got a good hobby. He's got good taste too. So it's been in here your whole entire life? Yep. Wow. Have you ever seen... So you've never seen it drive or run or anything? I've never seen it move, no. Never even seen it outside? Nope. Wow. So that license plate from Germany on it. Oh, cool. It's possibly the first one imported here. They didn't start importing them until 74 and then my grandpa bought this over in 70. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Holy, the first one in America? We're going to have to try and verify that because we're definitely going to be using that on the thumbnail and the title. That thing is amazing. I've never seen one before. And I know that, if I'm not mistaken, shares a lot of components with the Beetle. At least the engine, I'm sure the frame and... Yep, the drivetrain and stuff. What these were actually used for in Germany's military and how they became such a cult favorite out here in the US because, again, I've never seen one of these at the show. I bet it would turn heads. It's based on a Kuppelwagen, a German military vehicle. The windshield folds down. This one does? Yeah. Oh, it does have hinges right here. Oh, cool. Doors come off. The windows can come off. They also snap off. I can't thank you enough for giving us the opportunity and taking the time to tell us about the car and how it got here. But now we have to figure out how we're going to get it out of here, which is going to be a bit of a challenge. And while we get it out, I want to mention you guys do not, and I repeat, do not want to miss the video that we are posting next week. So make sure you're subscribed to our channel with your post notifications on because it's probably the most rare and expensive vehicle we've ever featured on this channel. So do not miss that video. And also, I want to take a second to say if you have any vehicles in this condition or like in barn find condition and you want us to come detail it absolutely 100 percent for free for you and make a video on it, reach out to us either at our email or Instagram with a DM sending us a picture and the location of the vehicle. We'll check it out. And if it fits the criteria of what we're looking for, maybe we'll come make a video on it. Oh, yeah. And while we were looking at history, they wanted to show us in their other barn. They had a couple of Model A's, all three different types that were made, along with what they're saying is the first fifth wheeler to ever be created and a V12 Lincoln all sitting in the same barn. All right. We made it back with the Type 181, otherwise known as the VW thing. And this is my first time ever seeing one, right? It's my first time ever seeing like a military style one. I've seen them yellow or white in person before at some VW shows. But I think this thing is super cool. I've not seen one like this ever in person. So I guess the only ones that were green were the ones that were built in Germany. All the U.S., Mexico builds were the colored varieties that you're talking about. But this one in particular is very special. The first thing was imported in 1973, and this could have been the first one to ever reach the United States. Really? Mm-hmm. That is bonkers actually. And that's not even the craziest part, or at least not to me. I think the craziest part is the mileage. Would you like it in kilometers or miles? Let's do mileage just for our viewers at home. Go for it. 6,800 miles. Really? Mm-hmm. That's it? It's like 10,000 kilometers on this thing only? I think 11,900 or something. What the heck? 11,900 kilometers. That's why it looks so nice. It's so clean underneath, and everything's intact. So when I was pulling this, when we were getting this out of the trailer, that's when I first initially saw the back of the car. I went under it to take off the straps, and it is perfect underneath this thing. It looks like a new vehicle almost. I mean, it's perfect on the outside too. The only little bump is right here on the nose, but outside of that, every panel's straight. There's no dents. There's no major rust, except for a little bit of surface rust on the wheels, but this thing is kind of mint, and in full mileage, and it might be the first one ever imported here in the US. So are they selling it? You'll have to pick that up. I believe it's a three-generation car. The gentleman who bought it handed it down to his son, and then his son handed it down to his son, and that's the gentleman that we dealt with when we picked this car up. So their goal is to get it back up and running, and it absolutely deserves that because it's in such good shape. Mike, did you notice something unique about the windshield here? Yeah, this, I know for a fact that this windshield goes down just like this and attaches. These little nubs attach right here, similar to the old-style Willie Jeeps. I don't know the full history on these cars, but I know that definitely this was used in the military, and even from the lower suspension and the hubs of this car, you can tell that it was lifted up and meant to go off-road, which is pretty cool. My favorite part is the five lugs on the wheels, which are massive. For a little beetle motor, it is silly to have a five-lug lug kit on there. Do you polish this paint? I don't think so. Yeah, to me, it looks like it's supposed to be a matte finish. It also looks like single-stage enamel, which is the paint I'm about to polish, so I'm gonna elect to probably avoid it unless I can see some areas that should be shiny. But it is supposed to be matte, and if you polish matte paint, it becomes shiny. And I don't wanna do that to what could be potentially the rarest Volkswagen thing in the United States, so I'm gonna avoid that liability. I think my favorite thing about this car is when I first saw this when I was a little bit younger, it looked almost identical if I was a little kid trying to draw a car. It's such a crude shape. It doesn't look like any actual aerodynamics were used here. It was just draw a car, and that's what it looks like to me. But I still love it. When I was a kid, I drew a Cybertruck. The same idea. It's just hard lines, you know? Just line, line, line, like, it's not that different. So the first thing we're gonna do is clean the wheels, which we thought were completely rusted out and were not savable. But as you'll see as we start using our Purple Rain wheel cleaner, we were quite mistaken. And then after that, we had to go on a little bit of a hunt. And again, the coolest part about this whole video is anybody who's interested in winning the truck that we're giving away, we're using all of the detailing products that are on our website in this video, so you get to see them live and in action, and you could literally buy one bottle of wheel cleaner and win an entire truck. Alright, before we wash the car, we need to find the missing window and replace it so no water gets on the inside, even though there's no carpet or any upholstery in there anyway. Yeah, this vehicle actually is probably the best one to get water on the inside because I think it has just drain plugs, you know? Easy peasy. But Brent already actually snuck a peek in here, and he said it looks pretty cool in there, so... I have not seen in here yet. Oh, oh, that's gross. Stinky. A little nest action here on our window. What is all this in here? We got a big old spare tire. Oh, dude, this is so beefy. Is this a gas tank? Yes. That's a fuel tank. It smells like varnish. Holy smokes. Oh my god, dude. Whoa. I didn't see that. I didn't think there were mice in here, but I was definitely wrong. I was too focused on the varnish. That's disgusting. I hope that window's okay. That thing looks really bad. Yeah. Oh no. This discoloration, I don't know if we're going to be able to get it out, but we'll try. But look how nice this is. God, this is beautiful. And this? Yeah. Just brand new looking, dude. That is pretty cool. We got a tool kit here. It doesn't really have much in it, though. All things considered, not bad. Wow. Beautiful. That's how those looked initially? Uh, I guess. I'm just not sure if it's supposed to be silver or if it was originally white, but this looks completely original. I'm just upset that we don't have the hubcaps for these wheels, because I think it would seriously tie this VW thing together. But we did not find them, which is a bummer. They're probably in that barn out in Indiana. But now that we have everything removed from the front, we should probably pull all this mouse house out of the front there, and then try and clean this up before we start the wash. What do you think? Definitely. I got to say, though, this has to be by far the easiest serviceable fuel tank of any vehicle I've ever seen. Well, if you're in the field. Country mile. If you're in the field, you got to work quick sometimes. You got to work with what you got. the condition it's in, plus the mileage, the history, all of that combined, leave a comment down below what you think this thing is worth. All right, now to the trunk or the hood of this Volkswagen thing. This is very similar to the VW Beetle, and the engine is back here. Now, you guys will have to correct me if I am wrong, but I think that this is the very same 1.6 liter four cylinder that goes into the Volkswagen Beetle. I'm sure there's some modifications to this engine, being that it is used for their military, but as we can see, it is all here. There's no signs of any damage to the wires, so this thing's in really good shape. It's just pretty greasy, and there's one more thing that I found in here earlier that I have to show you. Now, I know a lot of you don't like seeing dead animals on our show, but this one died in quite a unique way, so if you don't want to see it, don't look now, but we're going to show you. This poor little guy tried to crawl up through a hole. As you can see, that little guy died in quite a gnarly way. He tried to crawl up in this engine bay and got stuck. That was the end of the road for him. So what lesson does that teach us, Mike? Don't squeeze through holes you can't fit. Don't try and go through holes where your rumpus can't fit. That's exactly right. So, to be cleaning this engine bay, as you can see, there is a lot of grease buildup all throughout here from sitting over the years, so we'll be using our citrus degreaser and a little bit of abrasion from a brush, but I think this is going to come out really, really nice. All right, Mike, before we start your interior talking time, I think we need to go right into the most interesting part of this entire vehicle. Should we do it? Talk about the windshield? Yeah. All right, let's show them. So what's interesting about this vehicle and the windshield? So very similar to the military Jeeps from the US, this guy can drop its windshield down just like those ones do, which is super easy. You just, as I say, super easy and then I have trouble doing it. You just undo these latches and then it goes straight forward and it goes down into its little holes and then just like that, no windshield on here. So was the point of that, okay, this is a 1970s vehicle, right? Was the point of that to mimic something from World War II and you would put it down in World War II and you would basically shoot out of it? The only thing that I can think of is it's useful if ever they had to, for some reason, fire forward or if there was something broken down and you need to make this vehicle very short because you pop all these windows down, put this all the way down and then you reduce the height of this thing by a lot. Oh yeah, so you could have it very, very low. So if you needed to go under something, I think that could be useful but I'm not sure what else you would use that for. Let us know if you know the actual reason they did this because all I know is it makes like newer Jeeps and stuff leak water in them a lot. Well, I know now if you took it to a car show and you pulled up with the windshield down like that, a lot of people would be looking at you like you're the coolest guy there. Oh yeah, I do the car shows that have limbo, I would do this. Oh yeah, limbo, you'd probably win. Maybe, I don't know. Some cars are really, really, really low but for the rest of this interior, I fit like a glove in here, I got to say and man, is it bare bones. They really didn't want to put a lot of extras in here that could go wrong. You literally have a speedometer, a shift knob, pedals, a horn, some lights, that's about it. Like you really don't have a lot to go wrong and it's so easy to take everything apart in here. I just can't believe it like it's so simplistic. What's cool that I noticed is the shift pattern and for some reason, someone had to drive this car, I'm assuming, and didn't know how they could hop in and know what they're doing. It's just to make it easy, as easy, simple, anybody can figure it out, it's right there for you. I love the simplistic design, I think this is one of the coolest vehicles that we've ever had here actually. Okay, so this is the one thing in the interior that I'm not really sure what it is, you guys can help me out. Now, when I first saw this, I was like, oh, is this diesel, does this have glow plugs? I don't think so, but I'm not sure what this does, so if you guys could let me know, that'd be great. I know if I turn it, I don't know if you guys are going to be able to hear this, so I don't know what kind of timer this is, but it's something. Maybe it's the ejector seat that's counting down when it's going to shoot you up. I don't think there's an ejector seat in here, luckily, but this is one of my favorite cars we've ever done. I've always liked Volkswagen things and I've never spent a lot of time with them, especially not a military one. So, first things first, me and RJ are going to get these seats out and start cleaning them. Okay, now that RJ got the seat out, I'm going to show you how difficult and complex it is to take this back window out. You just lift it up and that's it. Pretty nice and easy for us. And although we couldn't polish the paint, we are going to polish all the metal. All right, guys, so we're back in Indiana dropping off the thing. This is Robert, who is the owner of the car, and we're really excited to show it to him because we were even questioning when we were picking it up if we were going to be bringing it back at all. They thought it might end up on the black market, but it did not. We cleaned it and we got it back in our trailer. Now it's back home. You guys ready to see it? Awesome. Yes, we are. Ready to see it. All right, cool. Let's do it. Let's do the reveal. Oh, my. Look at that. That's the way I remember it. Yeah. Look at that interior. That's nice. You guys do a good job. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. We still had troubles with the door latches, so we got them open. Couldn't get them to shut. We tried everything. We lubed them up, but no dice there. We'll figure that out. That's the least of the worries here. Yeah. But we went ahead and cleaned everything from the frunk to the trunk, the engine. We taped everything off, made sure no water got into the carburetor or air box. Man, did you get that chrome looking real good? Yeah. Yeah, the canvas came out incredibly. Oh, yeah. It was covered with bird dew. You should have seen the faces of all the people who saw this in the garage. We had the UPS guy, the Uline guy, all the people that were dropping off boxes and whatnot to us came in and go, oh, my God, that's a thing. I go, this is the thing. The thing, yeah. This is the thing. Yeah. Especially once I told them that it was the 108th ever made, maybe the first to ever make it to the United States. Yeah. People were blown away. Yeah. It was a complete privilege. We had friends that came in from Columbus to see it because they're big Volkswagen fans, so it made a lot of people happy. Well, when I get it running, I'll take some more videos and show it to you guys running, going. That would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I can see the fire in your eyes. Oh, yeah. That's like the whole point of what we do. Well, you know, that one was the same way, that bugle, the same way. Engine wasn't stuck, but you know, so it was just a matter of gas line and a little bit of stuff, you know, that needed done, and I'll do the same to this, and hopefully in a week or two, I'll have it running. I don't think it's going to take that much to get it going because remember when those back wheels, when we dragged it into the trailer, they were locked up. We just sprayed them a little bit, gave it a rock, and it popped right off. This is a true survivor. Oh, yeah. It definitely is the 11,600 kilometers. I might be messing that up a little bit. 11,700. Yeah. That it says on the odometer. Yeah. This is a true survivor and quite possibly one of the coolest cars we've ever got. No, it is one of the coolest cars we ever got the privilege of working on. Awesome. You guys, we love you. Oh, thank you very much. Feel free to get some more work done by these guys because they do a fantastic job, man. Every time I see a video and obviously see this, it's like I just love it, man. I just love it. That's the best. Thank you so much, and thank you so much, you guys, for watching. We can't appreciate the support enough. And if you want to get entered to win that truck, then definitely go to WDautosupply.com, buy some merchandise, or buy some products, and get entered because 20 times ends what? In three days, Brent? Yeah. You only have three days left to not only get 20 times the entries, but to potentially win a PS5 or an Xbox. So don't wait. Click the link below, but we also want to say thank you so much for watching. And if you like this, give it a like. If you want to see more like this, subscribe. But now we have to actually go grab a different car that is definitely more my speed. So we'll see you next week.