By Rolf Schraa
They stopped making the air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle in Germany in 1978 and by then the cheeky car had long since gained a cult following. The original has remained an icon for tuners who are keen to breath more performance into this humble saloon — hardly surprising since the final production models boasted a modest 37hp.
Take the dark-blue 1968 example owned by enthusiast Matthias Budde who lives in Essen. He can hardly close the bonnet properly since the uprated engine behind it takes up much more space than the puny unit fitted at the factory.
Wide alloys with low-profile tyres, lowered suspension and 139 brake horsepower on tap — the engine was transplanted from a Golf GTi At the traffic lights this Beetle show many a modern sportscar a clean set of wheels. “The ride is harder and you are really close to the road. Not only that, it always seems to smell of petrol,” enthuses Matthias Budde.
Thirty years after the Beetle production line fell silent, the pulse of a true fan still quickens at the mention of the rear-engined runabout with its idiosyncratic, horiontally-opposed flat engine. Since the ex-factory performance is nothing to write home about a whole tuning industry has grown up around the desire to make this classic go much faster.
Despite the German appetite for buying new cars, there are still 51,800 elderly, air-cooled Beetles registered with the country’s vehicle licencing authority — at least in 2010. This is the most recent year for which figures are available.
An estimated 10,000 of these VWs have either had a new engine shoehorned into the narrow compartment which houses the original motor or have been fitted with entirely new motive power. Another 10,000 Beetles are reckoned to be in workshops undergoing conversion or are used only temporarily on the road until their owners have completed extensive modifications.
A number of specialised companies thrive on the fans’ demand for Beetle tuning goodies. Custom Speed Parts (CSM) based in Bargteheide near Hamburg is one of them. The firm’s catalogue runs to 1,264 pages. “There are more Beetle parts available today than there were 15 or 20 years ago,” said employee Johannes Sagner.
The lively demand means than many components are being remanufactured since supplies of the original ran out long ago. In some cases, machinery used to make the factory VW parts has been rescued from the scrapyard and put to new use.
Tafel, a tuning company based in Witten, offers complete reconditioned engines based on the air-cooled Type 4 VW engine which was fitted to the VW bus models and the Porsche 914 from 1968 onward. These have been bored out to 2.8 litres capacity and offer up to 250hp. At €23,500 ($30,480) the engine is admittedly not cheap. In order to cope with such an upsurge of performance the entire superstructure of the car must be beefed-up as well. That means bigger brakes, uprated suspension and a host of other alterations.
Sagner recomends potential tuners to go for an unrestored example of the Beetle that has not been “messed about with” by over-enthusiatic modifiers. “Otherwise you will find yourself getting worked up about panels that have been badly welded.” Budde has a few tips too: “Ask questions, questions and more questions,” said the Beetle owner. “Don’t just get all blue-eyed and buy without thinking first.”
Fans swap views on the Beetle online forum Bugnet or via the car network Motor-Talk and members are always happy to point novices in the right direction. Many tuners eschew the uprated Type-4 engine because of the expense involved and fit engines from other makes. The 2.2-litre boxer engine from Japanese maker Subaru is a favourite and it provides an adequate 136hp of power.
Heavily-modified Beetles attract media attention too. Thomas Kemp from Duisburg has appeared on television with his bright-red Beetle which has been retro-fitted with a Type 4 engine turning out a strapping 332hp. This car can easily out accelerate a Ferrari or the most powerful road-going motorcycle available, the Yamaha V-Max.
The car performs a wheelie when Kemp unleashes the enormous power of his Beetle — namely the front wheels rear up a metre into the air before the vehicle shoots off down the road. “Funny when I think that this car only had 44hp when my father presented it to me on my 18th birthday,” said Kemp. “The acceleration is nothing short of brutal. It can leap from zero to 100 km/h in 2.4 seconds.”
Such dragster-like performance is the exception rather than the rule. Most of the Beetle fans are enthusiasts who enjoy tinkering in their spare time and are keen to retain their cars in near-original condition. The Beetle tuning scene is very varied, said Sagner. Some fans are mechanics who buy up Beetles for next to nothing and restore them for resale while others are doctors and lawyers who always wanted to get their hands dirty working on a car and never got around to it when they were young.
Beetle lovers with plenty of money to spend and no mechanical ambitions can choose from a range of models restored to a high standard. The Memminger company in Reichertshofen always has a selection on offer. The firm builds drophead Beetles to order and prices for these start at around €50,000. Another specialist is Kaeferschmiede in Essen. The German name for the Beetle is “Kaefer” — the German word for the insect.
Early May sees the annual Beetle get-together at Hannover when thousands of VWs are on display and owners talk shop about the trials and tribulations of their restoration projects and the joy of driving their charges. At times like these the four or even five figure sums invested in a born-again Beetle are far from their minds. “I’ve got all the bills for my Beetle but so far I have always refused to tot up all the money I’ve spent,” said Budde. – DPA