This 23-Mile 1964 Volkswagen Beetle Barn Find Is Selling for a Cool $1 Million

The original owner bought it as a backup to his 1957 Beetle, but it turned out he never needed it.

byRob Stumpf|
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The Volkswagen Beetle is arguably the most recognizable car to ever be produced, even if Volkswagen finally made the decision to squish the bug in 2019. After all, the automaker did manufacture over 21 million examples of its iconic people's car, with 948,370 of them being built in 1964 alone. Surprisingly enough, one of those bugs is now going up for sale and it will cost the new owner quite a bit more than it did back in the day.

When Rudy Zvarich was 37-years-old, he owned a 1957 Beetle as his daily driver and was very particular about the features and looks of his automobile. When Volkswagen decided to facelift the bug in 1965, he couldn't bear to imagine himself driving the new design so he decided to buy a backup. So, he bout a second pre-facelifted model to fill the space in his garage so that he could ensure that his preference was preserved once his '57 was ready to be retired. Zvarich searched high and low until he found one of the last remaining 1964 models and immediately shelled out $1,756.90 of his hard-earned cash to take delivery.

When picking up the car, Zvarich brought his own battery (so as not to activate the Beetle's dry-charge system) and drove the car to a friend's storage space where it would sit for two years. Soon after, Zvarich finished constructing his own dedicated storage facility for the Beetle and allowed the car to stretch its legs in the sunlight one final time. 

But the time never came where Zvarich needed to take the beetle out of storage to replace his 1957 model. His car collection grew, so he drained all of the fluids out of the beetle and it sat in the corner of his facility with a car cover draped over it to protect it from dust. For the next half-century, the 22-mile Beetle would remain parked, alone and untouched. Zvarich never registered or insured the car, never attached any of the OEM accessories, unboxed the hubcaps, or even attached the factory wipers.

In 2014, the owner of the car passed away at the age of 87, handing the Beetle down to his nephew along with his other vehicles. Two years later, the time capsule of a car was unsealed and was brought back to running condition.

While pulling the car out of storage, the odometer clicked over to 23 miles, but still remains in pristine condition. It would be a hard stretch to claim that one might ever find a similar condition Beetle with such low miles in their lifetime. This truly is the definition of an ideal barn find.

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