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In 1968, Volkswagen decided that some American Beetle buyers wanted the car without the third pedal. Its answer was the Automatic Stickshift, better known as Autostick, and it remains one of the stranger factory options the company ever sold. A 1970 Beetle convertible with the Autostick transaxle is live on Bring a Trailer, and the auction ends Monday, October 26 at 5:04 p.m. ET. At the time of writing the bid sits at $5,200 after seven bids.
A shifter with a switch inside it
Autostick was not an automatic in the usual sense. Underneath was a three-speed manual gearbox, and the driver still chose every gear, but there was no clutch pedal. A torque converter sat between the engine and the transaxle, so the car could idle in gear and pull away from a stop without stalling, the way a conventional automatic can. The actual clutch work was handled by a vacuum servo.
The clever part was the lever. The top of the shifter housed an electrical switch. Push the lever to change gears and the switch fired a 12-volt solenoid, the solenoid opened vacuum to the clutch servo, and the clutch released so the gears could move. Let go and the clutch re-engaged on its own. It also meant a driver who rested a hand on the shifter could disengage the clutch without meaning to, which is not what you want halfway through a corner.
Why Volkswagen offered it
The pitch was aimed at American drivers who did not want to deal with clutches, at a time when stop-and-go traffic was getting heavier and automatics were becoming the default in everything bigger than a Beetle. The Beetle never had a conventional automatic, so Autostick was the way to skip the clutch pedal. It arrived partway through the 1968 model year, and it was offered on the Karmann Ghia as well.
It came with trade-offs. The torque converter soaked up some of the flat-four's modest output, shifts were slower than with a four-speed, and the system needed to be kept in good order. Porsche had introduced a similar idea a year earlier with the 911's Sportomatic, and Citroën took the clutchless idea in a hydraulic direction with the DS21's hydraulic gearbox. If you like oddball shifters in general, the three-lever Lightning Rods setup on the 1984 Hurst/Olds is another good one.
Why you rarely see one
Autostick ended with the 1976 model year. By then the Beetle sedan was a year away from leaving the US market, and the convertible hung on through 1979. The system adds a vacuum servo, a solenoid, a switch in the lever and a torque converter to the list of things that can wear out, and a commenter on this listing recalls losing the vacuum system on a road trip. A four-speed swap is the obvious way out for an owner with a tired one, which is part of why original Autostick cars are harder to find than the standard Beetle.
Motorious has shown off other convertible Beetles, including a 1972 example offered with classic simplicity, but a clutchless one is a different thing entirely.
What to know before you bid
This Beetle is finished in red with a black soft top and sits on 15-inch Lemmerz steel wheels with BFGoodrich Silvertown whitewall tires fitted in 2021. The 1.6-liter flat-four has an EMPI carburetor, Pertronix electronic ignition and a Bosch 009 distributor, and all four corners have drum brakes. The interior was retrimmed in black leatherette and has wood-veneer dash accents, a Wolfsburg crest steering wheel and a Kenwood Bluetooth stereo. The odometer shows about 70k miles, roughly 100 of which were added by the seller.
The car was refurbished about four years ago, with new floor pans, replacement axles installed in 2021 and a range of replaced mechanical parts. The seller bought it on BaT in August 2025 and notes that the rear window seals are loose. It comes with a Pennsylvania title in the seller's name.
The listing describes the car as equipped with the Autostick transaxle, which is the whole point, so it is worth asking the seller to confirm that it is the original unit and how the vacuum clutch and shifter switch behave in use. The listing includes cold start, brief drive and road test videos, and the full details are on the Bring a Trailer listing.
