I am officially giving up the gost as far as the German Look goes. There are a number of factors contributing to this;
1) I don't own/have access to a shop or garage, and when I move to LA, I might not even have a driveway.
2) I'm pretty good at math. I started adding up the cost of doing things the way I wanted on my bug (well, the one I woulda bought). Then I compared it to what I'd have to do to, say, a late 80's GLI, 240SX, or my dream car, a 67-69 Camaro (flame on! I love that car no matter what people say about old american ****boxes). Simply put, even if I didn't go turbo and went the cheap route with nitrous, building a motor to take the abuse (then adding the EFI induction, exhaust, ignition, on and on) would be comparable to, say, a Chevy 350 EFI buildup or just buying an SR20DET and throwing it in a 240SX. Both have the capability to make some insane power, and the air cooled VW just really doesn't have the same potential (at least without custom everything, paying a shop to build my motor for me, and having it be comepletely unstreetable). Even if I just wanted to do basic mods to a 1600 to give it some balls, it's just futile. An A2 chassis Jetta is a mere 150-200lbs heavier, has a much better suspension (stock), has more room, a cavernous trunk, 5 speeds, a better after market...and even the 1.8l sohc motor puts out a lot more than a mildly breathed on 1600 variant, and the 16v... forget it. I'm not denouncing anyone's decisions here - I still love beetles, and do think that they have absolutely huge potential as a chassis, but I just don't have the ability or wallet to upgrade or fabricate every single f-ing component on the car to make it enjoyable. I love what you all are doing, it's a lot more interesting to see people actually making their own stuff instead of just bolting things onto a Honda, but I just don't have the necessary environment to be able to do that. I wanna go fast, really fast, and handle (remember my spouting first post about going after the SCC magazine's Ultimate Street Car Championship?), brake, the whole deal. I don't see this happening for me with a Beetle, at least not right now.
3) My main project, automotive-wise, has to my Dad's Type III/Honda Goldwing hybrid trike. Unfortunately, he passed away last year, and he never got to finish it after it basically got ruined by the Long Island winter (everything chrome rusted, water got everywhere in the engine, the wiring's a mess, and my old dog Bandit buried the back half of it the summer after it began sitting while digging to avoid the heat
). I'm going to customize it, rebuild everything, basically from the ground up, and try my damndest to make it into a worthy tribute to my Dad. It's about the only thing I'm going to be able to pour my time and money into, and I'm too emotionally attached to let it sit - it might be different if my cousin were helping, but his fox-bodied Mustang and house payment are more than enough of a money-sponge, and he works a lot. This thing has huge potential, though - completely custom, looking like something from WWII that Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth got ahold of (and did tastefully), it only weighs about 700lbs, and does wheelies in 2nd!!! Granted, it won't be able to do much more than go fast in a straight line, but it'll make one hell of a drag bike. Er, trike.
So I'm trading one air cooled project for another. Hopefully, I'll be back to messing around with four wheeled projects soon enough - I'm looking into cobbling together a semi-homebrew turbo kit for my 87 Jetta GL from same-era Dodge/Chrysler Turbo parts (they used a VW-sourced sohc 1.7l for the turbo LeBarons, Daytonas, etc). I'll still be around from time to time - more so after I relocate and find a place to keep the trike (and not have to worry about it getting stolen
). So I'm going over to the water-cooled camp for now, but still working on some aircooled projects. Hopefully I won't get crucified for it
.
-<M13>-