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An Unusual Volkwagen Beetle Pick Up Truck

The Volkswagen Beetle overcame its ignominious beginnings as one of the The Third Reich’s pet projects to become one of the most beloved automobiles of all time. Over 21 million of them were manufactured in a wide array of configurations – but the factory never offered a pick up truck version.

The Beetle you see here was built to right this historic wrong, taking a standard 1971 Volkswagen Beetle, the pick up truck back from a Type 2, and the engine from a Type 3 to create a 100% VW pick up that could feasibly have been built by the German automaker back when the car was in production.

Fast Facts – The Volkwagen Beetle Pick Up Truck

This unusual Beetle is the result of a full ground-up custom rebuild, it has a chopped roof, a Type 2 tray back rear, a rebuilt 1.6 liter Type 3 engine with twin Weber ICT 34 carburetors, and custom suspension.
VW never offered a tray back version of the original Beetle, however this vehicles gives a good idea of what it might have looked like.
The project to build this car cost over £25,000, or approximately $34,300 USD.
The car is currently being sold out of the United Kingdom, where it’s 100% road-legal.

The Volkswagen Beetle

Almost everyone knows the origins of the Volkswagen Beetle, it was designed by Ferdinand Porsche as an affordable car for the masses, a project that was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. The company name “Volkswagen” as in German it means the “people’s car.”

The car is essentially a VW Type 1, 2, 3 – it uses a Type 1 Beetle body, with a Type 2 tray back, and a Type 3 engine.

After WWII the brilliance of Porsche’s design became clear and production of the car would skyrocket. Factories around the world would build Beetles in countries as far afield of South Africa, Thailand, Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela, Finland, Brazil, and many others.

The Beetle became a Hollywood icon thanks to the Herbie movies, and the car fulfilled an essential role as cheap daily transportation for countless millions of people, both in developing countries and the industrialized west.

Today there are still millions of them on the road around the world, many have been customized into race cars, novelty cars, kit cars, and the Beetle forms the underpinnings of the legendary Meyers Manx beach buggy.

Volkswagen Beetle Pick Up Truck

Volkswagen developed a few other models from the original Beetle (the Type 1), including the Type 2 which is often called the VW Bus or the VW Kombi, and the Type 3.

The team behind the creation of the unusual Beetle you see here wanted to create a vehicle that looked like what Volkswagen themselves might have created if they’d ever decided to build an official Beetle pick up, or a “ute” as they call it in Australia.

The interior now features black bucket seats and a wood rimmed steering wheel.

They started with a tidy 1971 Beetle, once they had the floors replaced and other restoration jobs completed they set to work chopping the roofline to give a lower profile, then they fitted custom glass to all four corners.

The original suspension was swapped out for lowered McPherson Struts up front and Megabug coilover springs and shock absorbers in the rear. A custom interior was fitted, with black bucket seats and a wood-rimmed Mountney steering wheel.

The original engine was replaced with a rebuilt and re-tuned 1.6 liter Type 3 “Suitcase” engine with twin Weber ICT 34 carburetors, mated to a 4-speed manual gearbox. That tray back rear end was sourced from an original VW Type 2 Pick Up, and it was all finished off with Gemini Blue Metallic.

This unusual Beetle pick up is now for sale through Collecting Cars, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

The post An Unusual Volkwagen Beetle Pick Up Truck appeared first on Silodrome.

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Custom Built Superbike Perfection: The Walt Siegl SBK Nr4

This article was written by Walt Siegl of Walt Siegl Motorcycles. When possible we like to bring you the story of a vehicle in the words of the person who built it, to cut out the middle man and give you direct insight into their thought process and methods.

I built this SBK the way I would have built it for myself, and that’s exactly what the owner asked me to do: Build the bike I would want to own.

In fact, I actually used the engine that Bruce Meyers built for my personal SBK (that I never got around to building). I love Ducati’s long stroke motors, but instead of a big monster Corsa engine, I wanted an engine that is as spritely and responsive as possible, matching the lightness and agility of my SBK chassis.

The idea behind the SBK was to build a machine as agile as possible, that steers significantly better than anything you can buy off the showroom floor. Such a bike allows its owner to become a better rider.

Although he’s often classified as a custom motorcycle builder it’s more accurate to say that Walt is a motorcycle designer. He often designs and builds everything from the frame on up, resulting in an entirely unique bike.

Because riding well and having fun is what it’s all about. High horsepower engines are not necessarily really conducive to having fun.

That’s why I picked this engine configuration: 848 crank case, lightened and balanced crank with updated crank bearings, titanium connecting rods, 1040 big bore kit with Pistal race pistons, ported and flowed cylinder heads with high lift cams, lightened 1098 gears with open clutch housing. It picks the throttle up like a shotgun blast. The engine breathes through a WSM carbon fiber airbox and ram air tubes.

Suspension is Ohlins all around. Since the bike weighs only 328 lbs wet, the front forks are specially built for the weight of this bike, with lighter springs and custom designed shim stock. The rear shock received the same treatment.

The electronics includes custom made fuel, air delivery, and engine speed map. Traction control and quick shift. I’m always trying to build the perfect machine, but I don’t want to give up the visual clues to the fact that a big part of my bikes are designed by me and built with my hands.

This is always a conversation I have with myself: Which components should carry that visual language of the handmade. I worry sometimes that some streamlined, high-tech looking parts might lose that visual aspect, of all the love and effort that I put into these machines. Also, because of the demands of a race bike, not all components can be made by hand.

The one request the owner had was color choice. He sent me a picture of a Ferrari SP2 painted in a limited color. It’s always a bit tricky to try to transfer color combinations that work on a car onto motorcycles. It’s not always successful.

Walt Siegl’s SBK series of motorcycles look like official factory prototypes or concept bikes designed for the show circuit, but they’re also exceptionally quick on track.

Cars, with their big panels, reflect light and show shadows much differently than on bikes, since bikes have much more intricate surfaces. But it was definitely a risk worth taking, and I think it really works for the SBK.

The Walt Siegl SBK Nr4 – Specifications

I have made changes to the air box, the air filtration system and designed a new fuel injection system within the air box to create as little air turbulence as possible. I also redesigned the fuel tank to gain fuel capacity and to change the way the air enters the air box. ( to save as much weight as possible, I designed the floor of the carbon fiber tank as the lid for the SBK specific air box).
I also did some changes to the structural carbon fiber components within the subframe, which is entirely built with carbon fiber, and now weighs only 3 pounds. I have added additional support for the exhaust headers and muffler.
There is no specific donor for the engine. It’s a complete custom built unit. (See description in my last email)
The exhaust headers are specifically built for this engine to support rideability without sacrificing full throttle flow. The muffler is titanium with a removable DB killer. Removing it gave me a gain of 5 horsepower but elevates the decibels a bit.
The frame design turns the bike into a scalpel. I just recently had a professional racer ride SBK NR 3 on the track and he told Bruce Meyers ( my engine builder) that he has never ridden a bike that steers and finishes turns as well as my SBK.
The fork is Öhlins with SBK specific internals. The shock is a Öhlins TTX model with SBK specific internals.
Brembo radial calibers with track pads and Spiegler Performance brake lines built with the SBK required lengths.
Yes, indeed
All my carbon fiber parts are built now by Indy Perfomance based on my in-house made tooling masters.
Ducati Corsa Magnesium upper tripple tree. Ducati bike switches. Brembo RC master cylinders. Ducati 1198S Speedo. Öhlins steering damper. WSM foot controls. Kellermann blinkers.

Visit Walt Siegl’s website here

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