Here’s a shot of Tip’s engine bay. Pretty nasty, huh? You can still see the grass that was growing up around and under the car. Fortunately, I neither wanted nor needed another 1.7l engine, as this one’s headless. The engine side of the wiring harness looks pretty cut up, too, so I’ll be using the one from Jinjur when the time comes. The transmission is reportedly good, so I’m returning it to the previous owner. The bell housing on this unit is too small to work with the larger clutch I’ll need once I get the G60 built.

When the brown Rabbit arrived, one of the first things I did was pull the interior. Two reasons: it was trashed, and it smelled bad. The source of the smell was a bottle of Power Service Diesel anti-gel additive that had overturned under the driver’s seat. The law of unintended consequences applied in my favor – it had soaked into the asphalt-based sound deadening material (that weighs about 20 pounds!) and softened it sufficiently that I was able to scrape it off. I had a friend record the event as it seemed too good to be true. I’ll be experimenting with the other side of the car to see how to replicate this excellent mess and will report back when I figure it out. Meanwhile, check the video.

Every now and then you come across a vehicle that is, well, a bit unusual. Such was the case at a recent car show I attended. This creation was attracting more attention than some of the hot rods on display, and you can probably see why…

Continue reading "What the..?" »

Mark Smith of Factory 5 (yes, that Mark Smith) popped up on the Car Lounge asking about fitments for turbo kits on the Volkswagen VR6. Turns out, he’s plotting a mid-engined kit based on the VW MkIV (Golf, Jetta, GTI, and presumably New Beetle) platform. He didn’t start with the VR6 - he started with the TDi, VW’s turbodiesel lump. There’s a more serious build thread going on over at tdiclub.com. This has the fixin’s to be the new cool VW kit, reminiscent of days when you could slap a kit over a Type 1 (Beetle) chassis and have yourself a new car. I might just have to hold on to my Diesel MkIV for a bit longer, as I’d love to have all that torque behind me, rather than in front, especially for the sub-$20K pricetag Mark is talking about.

While I might be using the term sport compact a little loosely here, I thought all these cars were wicked, so I was able justify shoehorning them into this category. Sue me. Anyway, I’m a sucker for an old-school VW, so I loved Paul Newman’s 351-powered Beetle, and I was really impressed with Rhys Millen Racing’s mid-engine Genesis Coupe, the Fiesta—stock, but awesome—in the Ford booth, the ferocious Fiat 500 and the Scion xB that won the Tuner Challenge. Vote for your favorite below!

I was reading Yoshi Shindo’s Passat story the other day and it really jumped off the page at me when he said he had “never been the greatest fan of VWs”. Not that there’s anything wrong with liking what you like. It just reminded me of something my boy Steve told me about the VW scene awhile back. He said (I’m paraphrasing): “There’s nothing new about aggressive offset and rolled fenders. VW guys have been doing that for over 30 years.” Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

This car is getting famous all over the world and has been featured in many VW magazines, blogs and forums. When you look closely at this build, it’s clear why it was recently on the cover of Performance VW magazine; this Golf is a top-end, high quality car. Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Kevin Raekelboom

From compact commuter cars and SUVs, to GTs and supercars, most in our “scene” have seen just about every imaginable car “upgraded”- with the possible exception (in my case) of Zach Dunn’s 2007 Volkswagen Passat. I must admit that I had yet to see one of these cars done right. And, since I seem to be in the mood for confession, I’m not going to lie, I’ve never been the greatest fan of VWs. However, the more I see of them (especially this one), the more they’re starting to grow on me. Zach’s 2007 Passat was the first I’d seen that had been slammed and enhanced with superior fitment – and that made all the difference in the world. Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

To make the decision about my Rabbit rot issue, I called on a few of my friends in the MkI VW world. The answer was unanimous: major frame repair on a unibody car is an expensive ordeal that is not always successful. Even if I restored the rear end, I’d still have to deal with the front end, which has its own host of rust and rot problems. By the time I got done with it all, I’d have the most expensive 160K mile VW Rabbit on the planet. I put out some feelers to see what I was looking at in the way of replacing it and turned up a tired but structurally sound example sitting in a field about 50 miles from my house. It was delivered last week for the princely sum of $50, and I’m well into stripping it bare after filling up every trash can I own with the ratty interior. It’s another 1982 (yay!) – a big plus as all of my year-specific trims will transfer over nicely. The few parts that require welding can be cut out of Jinjur’s shell. So here it is – meet my new bunny, Tip!

Earlier this summer, I posted about some of the problems I’d been having with my Rabbit. My rear axle swap turned into a nightmare of cut studs, mangled metal, and major frame rot. It seemed like every time I thought I’d found some good metal to weld to, well, I was wrong. I realized that the unitbody was pretty much beyond salvaging at that point, so I faced the decision no car person likes to make: scrap it and move on, or kill myself trying to fix it. I spent two months meditating on the matter. I made my decision last week. What would you do if you were staring at this, and this was the good side?

Looks sweet with those custom billet wheels! More pics on James’s ride page.

If this this real, this is the most amazing vehicle stunt I have ever seen, and a much better attempt than the Jeep half pipe flip blogged about earlier. To learn more about this stunt sponsored by Bridgestone, visit Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

Remember the movie Cannonball Run (back when Burt Reynolds had a full head of hair)? It was bad ass cars and madmen drivers on an all out road race across America’s highway system. Well, Beetleball has the same concept, only the bad ass cars have been replaced with air cooled Volkswagens. Good news for the drivers, it’s hard to get a Volkswagen to go fast enough to get thrown in jail. The Beetleball Long Beach to Las Vegas Endurance Rally was run October 3, 2009. Nobody was imprisoned but a few VW motors died trying. You can read coverage (now on Memorex) at Jalopnik.

Too much camber? Definitely looks unsafe at any speed… Via VWVortex More pics after the jump!

Continue reading "Busted!" »

In our quest to feature things that inspire us to think outside of the box, I must thank fellow car nut Alex Butti for the lead on this story! Inspiration of the day is a 1972 VW Bug with a Impreza STi motor swap, Porsche OEM Brembo brakes and BBS LM wheels.

More pics after the jump!

Continue reading "VW Bug x EJ20 x BBS LMs = WIN" »