VW 1500 S proved its reliability with four world records
As a friend wrote in my father’s obituary: “...apart from his passion for motorcycles, he also needed a profession to earn his living...” And that profession was public relations work for automobile companies. In the early 1960s he served as PR manager for Porsche in Salzburg.
As in later years, he was always searching for interesting stories and activities for the press. While going through his archive he discovered that the long‑distance record for production cars with 1.5‑litre engines was still held by an Adler‑Triumph from 1935 (set on the AVUS in Berlin). He felt it was time to break that record.
The 1935 record covered 10,000 km at an average speed of 126.3 km/h. Ford had already attempted a record in January 1964 over 15,000 km, achieving an average of 119.73 km/h.
In April of the same year, twelve Austrian journalists prepared to break the record at the Monza race circuit in Italy. Naturally, they first asked the FIA whether “national records” would be recognised if achieved abroad. Between 7 and 12 April 1964, four new world records were set with two completely standard VW 1500 S models (sedan and Variant).
The cars were driven around the clock, with about 80 laps between driver changes. Time continued to run during refuelling, oil changes, driver swaps and tyre changes – from start to finish. There were moments of shock and moments of amusement, such as the singing track caretaker “Mr. Caruso”, who cycled the entire 4.259 km circuit every morning searching for stones, lost screws or run‑over rabbits.
Despite many small and large obstacles, despite the different temperaments of the twelve “driving journalists”, and despite one car failing (only the second car completed the attempt), the final result was:
World record!
4 days (96 hours): 12,096.103 km = 126.001 km/h
5 days (120 hours): 15,132.082 km = 126.100 km/h
15,000 kilometres: 118 h 57'57.1" = 126.086 km/h
10,000 miles: 127 h 19'51.1" = 126.390 km/h
In total, the surviving car completed 3,793 laps, corresponding to a running time of 127 hours 47'40" and a distance of 16,154.500 km. The fastest lap, of course, was driven by my father, with an average speed of 143.832 km/h on the 10th lap.
Unfortunately, the Austrian journalists’ record did not stand for long. Only one month later, between 14 and 20 May 1964, Ford reclaimed the records over 15,000 km and 10,000 miles – also at Monza – with a Ford Corsair GT.
And finally, regarding “records of 1964”: the fastest record of that year was set by Craig Breedlove with his “Spirit of America” at Bonneville (USA), reaching 843.590 km/h over one mile on the salt flats.
Of course, I have not told every detail of the VW record week at Monza – that would go far beyond the scope of this page.