Vintage Enigma - The late 1970s were a lively time for automotive experimentation, especially among enthusiasts who preferred building cars with their own hands rather than buying them from a showroom. Within that world of creative engineering, few vehicles are as intriguing—or as elusive—as the yellow sports car known simply as the Largo. Completed around 1978 by Danish builder Godfred Jensen, the car surfaces only through a handful of photographs, yet those images are enough to place it firmly among the most distinctive one-off creations of its era. Without brochures, technical documents, or media coverage, the Largo exists almost entirely as a mystery shaped from fiberglass, imagination, and personal ambition.
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| The Largo is a unique automotive creation built in 1978 by Danish designer Godfred Jensen, based on the Volkswagen Beetle. (Picture from: Kanaltdk) |
What survives visually is striking.
The Largo wears a bold yellow finish and features a T-top targa roof,
an unusual design choice for independent builders at the time. The twin removable roof panels give the car a playful, open-air personality while still preserving a rigid center bar for structure.
Its smooth,
flowing body lines and compact sports-car profile evoke the style language of late-70s European custom vehicles,
blending the low,
clean nose of period sports cars with homebuilt ingenuity. Even without interior photos, the exterior proportions alone suggest a car shaped more by creativity than convention.
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| The Largo wheelbase, body proportions, and rear weight balance all hint at Volkswagen origins, even if official confirmation has never surfaced. (Picture from: Kanaltdk) |
The foundation beneath that distinctive bodywork is believed to be drawn from the Volkswagen Beetle platform, a favorite among hobbyists throughout Europe during that period.
The Beetle’s simple backbone chassis,
rear-engine layout,
and easily sourced mechanical parts made it a natural starting point for ambitious individuals hoping to create unique personal vehicles. Countless kit cars and homebuilt projects relied on
Beetle underpinnings for exactly these reasons, and
the Largo fits that pattern both in size and stance. Its wheelbase, body proportions, and rear weight balance all hint at
Volkswagen origins, even if official confirmation has never surfaced.
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| The Largo wears a bold yellow finish and features a T-top targa roof, an unusual design choice for independent builders at the time. (Picture from: VWNetTet.dk) |
Using a Volkswagen platform would have offered Jensen the freedom to shape the Largo’s identity without wrestling with the complexities of designing suspension, drivetrain, or structural components from scratch. Instead, he could focus on the aesthetics and personality of the car, building a low-slung sports machine with a cockpit suited to his vision. The likely pairing of fiberglass body panels with a familiar VW core was a practical approach used by many independent builders of the era, allowing them to achieve ambitious designs with manageable engineering demands.
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| The Largo's twin removable roof panels give the car a playful, open-air personality while still preserving a rigid center bar for structure (Picture from: VWNetTet.dk) |
The Largo was never meant to become a production model, and everything about its story reflects that. It appears to have been a deeply personal project—built by one man, tested on Danish roads, and reportedly used for several years before being sold. Its registration plate, DT 62521, remains the only formal clue to its existence in Denmark’s vehicle records. Without surviving technical paperwork or magazine features, the car slipped through the cracks of automotive history once it changed hands, leaving no confirmed trail of ownership or location.
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| The Largo smooth,
flowing body lines and compact sports-car profile evoke the style
language of late-70s European custom vehicles, blending the low, clean
nose of period sports cars with homebuilt ingenuity. (Picture from: VWNetTet.dk) |
This scarcity of information is part of what makes
the Largo such a compelling artifact today. Built in the pre-internet era, its documentation relied entirely on physical photographs, workshop notes, and personal stories—items that can vanish easily if not deliberately preserved.
Many one-off vehicles from the 1970s met similar fates: they lived full and enthusiastic lives locally, only to fade into obscurity once the builders moved on to other pursuits or the cars themselves were stored, sold abroad, or dismantled.
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| The Largo is a unique automotive creation built in 1978 by Danish designer Godfred Jensen, based on the Volkswagen Beetle. (Picture from: VWNetTet.dk) |
Yet
the Largo endures in the imagination of enthusiasts precisely because so little is known about it.
It reflects an era when passion and ingenuity could bring an entirely unique sports car to life in a modest garage. Its bright yellow body, T-top targa layout, and likely Volkswagen underpinnings tell the story of a builder who sought something different—and had the skill and determination to make it real. Whether
the Largo still exists today or vanished long ago, its legacy remains a quiet reminder of how powerful individual creativity can be in shaping automotive history.
Finally,
if any part of this article is inaccurate,
incomplete,
or if you have additional information about this car,
you are warmly encouraged to share it in the comment section below.
*** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | KANALT.DK | ALLCARINDEX | CCDISCUSSION | VWNETTET.DK ]Note: This blog can be accessed via your smart phone.
