Car No. 302
7/1989
Motor: 3,2 L
In June 1987 Volkswagen had just decided to put their six-cylinder engine on ice. They tried 11 pieces by replacing the existing engine with a 3,2 l Porsche Carrera motor, but a lot of modifications were needed and as such it would become a very expensive vehicle.
As such Volkswagen handed over the opportunity to the company Oettinger – the famous company located just north of Frankfurt – who decided to develop a water-cooled flat 6 engine and managed to run the project from prototype to production within short time. Much shorter than this project would have been within the Volkswagen organisation.
The close relation to the water-cooled 4-cylinder Boxer engine is remarkable. In principle they just added 2 more cylinders to the existing engine and developed a new crankcase, crankshaft, and cylinder heads. The engine was constructed in a way that allowed it to run on Euro super lead-free gasoline (95 octane). They called this engine WBX6, and it could be equipped with the VW 3-speed automatic gearbox or with a 4-/5-speed manual gearbox. The engine output of the 3,2-l fuel injected gasoline engine resulted in 165 hp resulting in 0–100 km in 13,6 seconds with 0–140 km in 16,8 seconds – top speed was about 190 km per hour. The vehicle was a luxurious VW Bus with the full “Carat” trimming package, with rear wheel drive and installed with an 85 l fuel tank.
Suspension system was improved and made a bit stiffer. Wheels/tyres were 225/55R/15. The Oettinger WBX6 bus had power steering system as well as disc brakes on all 4 wheels with brake servo.
The car was introduced in 1988 and was sold at a basic price of about 100.000 DM - Expensive!
History
This Oettinger bus was originally sold from the Essen dealer Gottfried Schultz to the first lucky German owner, who owned the car until end of the 90-ies.
After some years in France, where yellow head lamps were installed, it was exported to the UK in 2004, where it remained in the area of Exeter until it was finally exported to Denmark in 2020.
I purchased it in 2021 after several months of admiring this car at a
Danish dealer.
