Car Specialist Dave Kunz shows us how this iconic car survived the fire.
The owner, Drew Kogon, lives in Boston but had the car parked at his childhood home in Pacific Palisades.
As soon as he got word of the fire, he called his family members to try to save it.
"He contacted his dad and his brother and said, 'Is there anything you can do to move the car?' They moved it to the end of the driveway," said his friend Jeff Shein, who has been helping Kogon with the situation.
When Kogon traveled back to Southern California, they realized the Beetle was better off leaving the area altogether. However, the keys had burned up inside the house.
Shein, who is an auto engineer, was able to help.
"I gave him instructions on how to break in. How to disable the ignition," he said.
Not wanting to start it, Kogon and his brother coasted the Bug down to PCH, where it could meet a tow truck. The family home was a total loss, but they managed to get most of their valuable possessions out, including the Volkswagen.
Air-cooled VWs are bona fide classics. We still see a lot of them running around Southern California, and this Beetle is not the only one of them that was fortunate during the Palisades fire.
A blue and white second-generation VW bus survived amid the gray and black starkness of a destroyed Malibu neighborhood. An AP photographer's image of it went viral.
Comedian and bus collector Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias posted on social media that many people had sent him the image.
"I had no less than 50 people send me this," he posted on Instagram.
Kogon is thankful that his classic VW only had a close call.
Shein already started working on the car. He's replacing various melted plastic items and is happy to provide temporary storage for the car.
"It's a horrible situation, but at least one tiny little bright spot occurred in this. It's a miracle," he said.