Volkswagen Beetle time capsule: seven classics found at Comercial Gaúcha

This story features the Volkswagen Beetle - in fact, several Beetles. It is another of those reader-submitted tales we enjoy receiving and passing on.

To understand it, you need to go back to 2002, when Comercial Gaúcha, a Volkswagen dealership in Estrela, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), closed its doors. The business shut down, yet for years afterwards the premises remained in pristine condition - preserved like a genuine time capsule.

Volkswagen Beetle time capsule at the Comercial Gaúcha dealership

The person behind this carefully kept snapshot in time was Otmar Essig, Comercial Gaúcha’s owner. For many years he maintained the building and everything inside it as though the showroom were still trading, essentially as a hobby. And within that dealership were some real gems.

Every vehicle was a Volkswagen, and every one was built in the last century. Most striking of all were the Beetles, still showing zero kilometres… well, almost zero. The roughly 10 km indicated on the odometers came from the factory test route each car completed after leaving the production line.

That detail also makes one thing clear: even though the dealership only closed in 2002, these Beetles had already been standing still for a long time.

One of the highlights is a 1986 “Final Series Beetle”, number 625 from a limited run of 850 cars that brought production of the model to a close - one allocated to each Volkswagen dealer operating in Brazil at the time.

The return of the Beetle: the Gold Series “Itamar”

However, 10 years later, Brazil’s then-president, Itamar Franco, managed to “convince” Volkswagen to restart production of the iconic model - helped along by the introduction of certain tax incentives. That revival became known as the Gold Series “Itamar”.

Inside Comercial Gaúcha, two examples of this Gold Series, both from 1996 and matching in specification, were discovered. They still had protective plastic on the seats and the factory-applied wax on the bodywork, used to safeguard the paint before customer handover. Even the original factory stickers were still in place.

Other rarities

Alongside these three cars, the find also included a 1996 Volkswagen Santana Quantum 2.0 Evidence estate (22 km covered) and an original 1975 Volkswagen SP2 with just over 8,000 km on the clock. The SP2 is no longer in its original shade - it left the factory in a dark brown - but instead wears a silver-grey chosen simply because Mr Otmar Essig preferred it.

Rounding out the group of seven vehicles are a Volkswagen Kombi pick-up (open bed) and another Beetle. This last one was Essig’s personal car: it has accumulated more than 83,000 km and remained in use until 2017, the year he stopped visiting the premises due to health reasons. He would pass away five years later, in 2022.

After that, the family decided to sell the cars and the remaining contents, doing so with a notably low profile. At present, all the vehicles are on display at FuelTech’s site in Porto Alegre, where they feature in various events and enthusiast visits.

What is next for the seven classics?

Based on the information available, all seven vehicles will continue to stay at FuelTech in Porto Alegre for the time being. They are on show there and are receiving some maintenance.

Even so, the overriding goal is conservation: keeping the cars in their original condition, in line with Otmar Essig’s wishes. Although they were not being driven, Essig still carried out all scheduled servicing and oil changes for every one of these vehicles.

In fact, when they were found, the two Gold Series “Itamar” Beetles were stored in a room with the doors welded shut and shielded from sunlight. As a result, they are effectively like new and run without difficulty - as can be seen in the video by Anderson Dick, FuelTech’s owner and one of the people involved in this story.

Within a few weeks, the seven vehicles will be sent to their new owner: a Brazilian living in the United States who keeps a collection of supercars and other historic vehicles.