Actually..now don't laugh..I also talked to German mechanics.. Of cour*se, that was back in the 1960s..
There is no difference in the quality of workmanship b8etween the b8eetle and the Porsche 356 or 911.
However, you get more features, and with the Porsche 911 a couple extra cylinders, seats leather rather than cloth.
maybe a more capable Blaupunkt or Grundig radio, and higher rated tires.
It was the 1950s and 1960s workmanship..panel alignments, paint finish one looked into rather than onto etc, that brought on the sudden rise of the beetle in the US back then.
I worked with a local US car dealer in the 1950s, and one had to be there to see the sloppy work coming out of
Detroit at the time! Over time, we got some beetles in for service, and it was then that I decided I would go with a
beetle as soon as I could do so.... which I soon did.
It may have been an over statement at the time, but I recall Tom McCahill, the auto writer for Popular Mechanics of the 1950s, calling the beetle, "a watch bob Rolls Royce".
That may have been simply a reaction to the sad work coming from our own manufacturers.
You may not agree in the least...but I worked on those cars coming fresh out of Detroit. For one thing, we were allowed 4 hours to "prep" a car once it arrived at the dealers.
Too often the 4 hours were up, and we were still aligning body panels struggling to get the doors, trunk, hood etc.
in fairly good alignment.
Most egregious were the "4 door hardtops" of the time. Most often we just has to "split the difference".
Under the hood, on face of the firewall..it was clear, the builders had taken gobs of that old, heavy black mastic in their gloves and just smeared it around the wires, cables etc, where they came through the firewall.
After the sales of German and Japanese cars, *showing more careful assembly started cutting heavily into the
market..that Detroit started to clean up it's act.
OK..cuss me out and hurl your brick bats..but I was there..seen that, done that.
