A Volkswagen Beetle Reborn To Keep Up With Modern Life

Hate to be the bearer of bad news not to mention raining on your parade but as long as there are cell phones , repair shops around every corner , GPS , broom wagons and support vehicles , tow trucks on demand , email . social media etc it doesn’t matter what you drive be it classic [ restored ] , resto mod or brand spanking new you are not nor have you ever had a classic driving experience regardless of the delusions involved unless you actually lived and drove back when it was authentic and real . Fact is I’d bet the farm if I took you out on as close to a genuine classic driving experience as can be replicated by removing or avoiding as much of the support we now have in the modern era as is humanly possible … you’d hate it !

And that is why I love resto-mods so much . They are an honest and authentic expression of classic cars with no hypocrisy or pretense involved ! Not trying to recreate that which unrepeatable but rather enjoying the driving experience as it really is today instead of trying to pretend that it might be something else

In my world Mr Levin its like the poor souls out there playing 1930’s Gibsons with rusted out antique strings somehow fooling themselves into thinking they’re playing authentic classic blues as Robert Johnson would of wished . My typical response being ; Get a clue ! If Robert Johnson were alive today he’d be playing the newest and the best guitar he could afford with the best strings available and in the finest recording studios he could find . That … is authentic !

As to the fashion accessory commentary . Well here’s the ugly fact . Your classic assuming you own one is in reality nothing more than a fashion accessory as well because you don’t need it / its certainly does not work on todays roads and in modern traffic very well / pollutes the air at least ten times that of the worst modern offender and in the long run may soon no longer be legal for you to drive on a regular or otherwise basis if the powers that be have their way . Hence its a fashion accessory .

In closing in response to your ‘ fully restored ‘ commentary . Hate once again to rain on your parade but the simple fact is no one’s classic regardless of the price tag involved has been ‘ fully restored ‘ . Not unless that is the craftsmen involved used the very same tools that were used to build the car originally with all the original [ and usually poor quality ] materials from back in the day using the exact same techniques and replicating each and every flaw done by the original builder rather than over restoring with new tools , materials etc

In other words Mr Levin . Get off your high horse and just drive !

Hey, it still has all the crash-worthiness of the original. Heck, it might be even more dangerous given that the larger engine makes it go faster. Drive tastefully, hit nothing.

I put as many miles on my 1970 Lancia as my ‘daily driver’. Yes, it pollutes more than my modern, but it absolutely works just fine on modern roads and highways, and there’s no reason to believe it’ll be legislated off the road any time soon.

I’m not arguing that we can completely replicate the driving experience of decades past, nor that we’d want to. But there’s a world of authenticity between that and dropping modern motors, gearboxes, a/c, power windows, &c into every classic shell because it’s easier and more convenient to drive that way.

The Robert Johnson analogy is simply foolish. If Tazio Nuvolari was racing today, he’d be driving a current car, so why have vintage racing at all. In fact, because modern cars are so much more capable, we shouldn’t bother with old cars at all–resto-mod or otherwise. Even the resto-mod you love so much isn’t nearly as capable as a current Mercedes.

In short, it’s an argument of infinite regression. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, because no historic object can be perfectly genuine, we shouldn’t care about the question of authenticity at all. And if that’s the case, why even bother with a car that looks like an old VW? Why bother with a resto-mod at all? After all, by your argument, Robert Johnson would be driving a modern car now–not a modern car inside an old body and interior.

Guys–I think some of you are over-reacting here. If you actually read my first post, I said “[i]And with the increased reliability of modern components, there may be plenty of reasons to not want a classic driving experience. As an retro-chic urban commuter for everyday use, there’s a lot to like here. And as an exterior accessory for the owner’s fashion boutique, it’s hard to argue with it[/i].”

You’ve got a problem with that? This obviously isn’t a car I dislike. And the first sentence in the quote clearly acknowledges that resto-mods have their place. I just don’t want us to confuse [i]customization[/i]–whether bad or good, as here–with [i]restoration[/i]. They’re not the same.

If you want to argue with what I said in my first post. Fine; let’s discuss that. But let’s argue about what I actually said, not what knee-jerk assumption you leapt to[i] without actually reading what I wrote[/i].

Wagoner, no–I was absolutely NOT directing that comment specifically at you.

Resto-mods and perfect, untouched original cars are two ends of the same spectrum, with neither extreme actually being achievable in practice. So with a car like this one being somewhere closer to the center of the spectrum, it’s possible to argue it either as a resto-mod or a modified classic. And that’s particularly true in this instance given that the engine is the same basic architecture.

Unlike the straw-man argument made earlier (not by you), I’m not arguing that we can recreate the “as-new” driving experience of a 40- or 50-YO car, nor that we need to maintain absolute originality. The Lancia I mentioned earlier has breakerless ignition, and the engine has lightweight pistons that are matched and balanced to a higher standard than original. I run full synthetics in the engine and gearbox, waterless coolant, and modern spark plugs; you couldn’t pay me enough to run original-spec Champion R61s. But the driving experience is still fundamentally similar to the original, and substantially different than if I had swapped in a more modern engine and suspension components.

So, as I said, I don’t really dislike this VW. And because it’s somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, it’s certainly not the most clear-cut example for my argument that resto-mods and classics are fundamentally two different things, and that a resto-mod shouldn’t be called a restoration. But that was my point.