Wilhelm Karmann was a man of great ambition, much like that of Dr. Porsche. His company, Karmann began talks of a joint VW/Karmann project with Volkswagen in the early 1950s. The idea was to produce a sporty vehicle based on the Beetle's mechanical components. Karmann turned to the Italian Ghia styling studio in 1954 to design the body. The result was a gorgeous two-seat body in a coupe and cabriolet version. Finally, in 1955, Herr Nordhoff agreed to produce this car and the result was the Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia. Many enthusiasts find it the epitome of its genre in cars- styled in Italy and engineered in Germany. They were produced until 1974. Only 361,401 coupes and 80,899 cabriolets were produced.

It very nearly created its own market when shown and had the look and feel of a hand built sports car, with the running costs of the worlds most inexpensive to own car and a vast dealer network already in place. It relied heavily on its reliability, cost of ownership, build refinement and looks as it was undoubtedly a sheep in wolfs clothing. With a 1192cc engine and pushing out a feeble 30bhp, which was only increased in 1960 to 34bhp. Hardly inspirational when compared with the similarly-priced MGB with it's 95bhp power plant and over 100mph performance, or the much cheaper Triumph Spitfire with a similar sized engine, which provided nearly twice the horsepower.

In the end, the car's very reason for being turned against it. Despite still being a pretty, if underpowered car, the mainstay US market legislation meant that it became increasingly uneconomical to refine the Ghia further. So it was then, that in 1974 after the 361,401 coupes and 80,899 cabriolets had been built, the Karmann factory's production switched to the Scirocco as the Karmann-Ghias' replacement.