I Wonder What It Would Take To Import A VW SP2 From Brazil

[vanapplebomb]

Coolest looking air cooled VW by far in my book... Very sporty looking, and only made in Brazil. It was based on the Type 3, but the original 1600cc dual carbed engine was enlarged to 1700cc for a whopping 75hp. Hahaha. But seriously, a seriously cool looking car...

[MadMike]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[81pumagtc]

There are a number of them here in the US.

Price seems to be about $17,000 for a decent one.

You would want an SP2, which is a lot better driving car than the SP1. I looked at on in Atlanta years ago. The car was very white, and very pretty. Overall, though, it looked a little like a kit car...

The interior was not well finished, especially for a VW product.

I talked the owner about it, and he said he was disappointed by the car dynamically. He was looking towards putting a type IV engine in one, and doing some suspension work to bring it up to more modern standards. He was interested in what I had done to the Puma, and how I had made it handle better. The biggest issue I could see was that the SP2 was almost 2000 pounds heavier, which is very difficult to overcome. Also, ventilation is very poor, and with the big back window, it gets very hot.

By the way, the chassis is not a Karman Ghia, it's the chassis for the Brazila, or the Variant. Same as the Puma, although the Puma. Parts other than mechanics things would be difficult.

Mad Mikes observation is correct!


Dave Riedle

[vanapplebomb]

I thought it was built around the Type 3? No? It has the goofy Type 3 front beam with the crisscrossing torsion bars and a punched out T3 engine...so I just assumed that chassis is what they started with. Hmm...

Someday an SP2 would be really cool to have just because it is so dang pretty to look at. That back end is one of the best on a car I have ever seen. Front lines are cool as well.

[gokart]

On a related note, with bus prices skyrocketing, I've noticed several Brazilian buses for sale on the Samba. Brazil had split widows until 1975 and Bay windows until 2013. But, it has to be 25 years or older to import to the US without safety and emissions updates.

There's someone here in Michigan that has a Brazilian 23 window. I saw it at a Busses by the Beach campout.

[MadMike]

Yepper those buses are weird, their's one up here in Mio
some had a rhino case type 1 transmissions in them

[krafty]

Importing classic cars isn't that horribly difficult (I just did it with a Norton motorcycle last summer) as long as they're old enough to be exempt from both EPA and DOT standards. There's a bunch of forms to fill out if you were doing it yourself but since you'd probably have to have it shipped via an importer using a brokerage service is probably the easiest route. It does get tricky if the paperwork on the car is sketchy.