Taken December 24, 2021 in downtown Santa Cruz, California
Wordless Outtake: Rare V-Twin Front Engined VW Beetle
– Posted on January 6, 2022
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Curbside Classics Archives
Taken December 24, 2021 in downtown Santa Cruz, California
Trompe l’oil?
Cylinder Banksy?
Nice work. It did fool me for a moment.
Funny and really nice artwork.
When I first saw the title of this post on the Calendar, I was a bit curious.
Porsche tried to make a two-cylinder engine work in early prototypes, but he was just not satisfied. It would have been easier to meet Hitler’s unrealistic price target with a twin, but Porsche wisely refused to compromise. He wanted a legitimate car that would be solidly head and shoulders above anything in its price class. Good call, because if it had been a twin, maybe the Brits wouldn’t have bothered resurrecting it.
The 2CV (barely) made do with a flat twin, but it was ~200kg lighter. If I remember my post-WWII history at all, Germany had highways, whereas France barely did.
I’m fairly certain that I don’t want to take a 9hp 2CV on the Autobahn!
Well I drove one on the A1 from London to York. There were a few lorry drivers that were not impressed. At some point one of the plug wires was shorted out so I guess it was only a 1CV.
G, I have fond memories of racing Semi tractor trailers up the Sierra in a VW transporter. 20 mph!!!
The artwork isn’t really my style but the bodywork, paint, interior and trim were extremely high quality and very tastefully done. But what was most impressive was the owner’s willingness to parallel park this bumperless Bug on a busy street full of impatient last-minute holiday shoppers.
Not my thing, but nice little beetle otherwise.
However since the paint is falling off the hood and decklid of my beetle perhaps I should have a scene from the Muir VW book airbrushed onto it instead..
Clickbait!
(But the good kind! Fun picture & thanks for the post!) 🙂
I thought that the Transformer Bumble Bee was a Camaro. 😉
Nice artwork though…
“Volkswagen reluctantly concluded that its first power steering system prototype was over-engineered.”
Someone here is a daemon with an air brush .
This looks to be a 1964, I’m surprised they painted over the door handles and broken radio aerial .
I too cringe every time I see a bumperless Beetle, too many have been ruined carelessly .
-Nate
Ah, the exceptionally rare second attempt at a 4 wheel drive Beetle!
Reportedly an entrepreneur named Malcolm Brocklin saw a market for an even more snow capable VW in the early ’60s. The engineering was subcontracted to successful racer, Karen Selby and, as there was no space for the flat 4 under the Bug’s hood a 74cu in Harley Pan Head V Twin was tried with a see-through hood to show it off. This, being from the US, would keep costs down and was planned to be fitted at an assembly plant located above a private gentleman’s club in Laguna Beach, displacing the fuel tank to the passenger footwell. The powertrain worked fine in slippery conditions, but the odd resonances that occurred between its uneven “potato-potato-potato” sound and the regular throb of the flat 4 behind caused NVH problems. Managing the sequential front gearshift and conventional floor shift to take account of the different power curves required skill. The chain driven front axle without a differential led to what testers described as “interesting” steering feel. Although heating was improved for sub zero conditions by routing the front exhausts directly through the cabin vents, drivers complained of drowsiness, quickly followed by expiration.
The final nails in the coffin for the “BugPan 2400” were that it invalidated both the VW and Harley warranties and VW’s threats of legal and other “unspecified” actions against Mr. Brocklin.
The German company were already planning the Iltis, so presumably feared the competition provided by this.
😂
The amount of Harley stuff painted on VWs is hilarious. One of my friends made joke recently that he’s going to buy a Harley and paint VW logos on it.