“the paint glistens, falling from highs to lows as the sun passes over the curves of the body”
I started attending VW events with friends in the late ’80s and bought my first VW – a ’72 1200 – in 1991. I built a 1641cc motor, welded adjusters into the front beam and fitted Center Line replicas, but it wasn’t long before I felt the need for more speed, so moved up to a hot 2180cc motor. These days everyone seems to run a 2.0-litre plus motor, but in the early ’90s a stroker motor in a street-driven Beetle in the UK was quite something.
I spent many weekends at Santa Pod and even won a few RWYB events, including the Fast Car Challenge two years in a row. For me, it was all about driving the car to the track, beating a few dedicated drag cars, and then driving home at the end of the day.
Take two
Then, in 1994, I spotted a stunning yellow ’67 on polished Porsche cookie cutters for sale. It had recently been featured in VolksWorld and had a full Scat Pro-Car interior. More important to me, though, it had recently been kitted out with a John Maher Racing-built close ratio gearbox and four-wheel disc brakes, which suited my plans for a more serious street ’n’ strip car to a tee.
Keen to get thing moving, my next stop was Stateside Tuning where James Calvert agreed to build me a 2276cc motor with Street Eliminator heads and Engle FK87 cam. I went
