Building A 10 Year Long Dream From A Single Photo
Building an epic car from a picture on the internet isn't something most people would do, but that's exactly what Adonis did
Chapter 1A picture speaks a thousand parts
Now before anyone inevitably asks, this is not some official or affiliated Speedhunters ride, but simply someone who is such a massive Speedhunters fan that they made it part of their cars design.
Adonis Verkuil says his love for Beetles came from a very young age, when their family used to go down to the beach in their uncles one as kids.
Him and his siblings used to run to the car at the end of the day, arguing about who gets to sit in the back. It used to be nice and warm from baking in the sun all day and he simply loved it. Even as a kid then, he said to himself, one day when he’s big, he’d have one of his own.
Chapter 2Starting With A Purpose
Then one day a few years ago, a friend of his, Clint Kirkwood, invited him one Friday to take a ride in a Subaru powered Beetle and this was the moment he was even more hooked. He knew he had to look for that Beetle he promised himself one day, and also fill it with a Subaru motor.
A few years prior, around a decade ago, Adonis saw an internet photo of a Beetle with Speedhunters stickers on that looked pretty wicked, so when the whole idea of the Beetle build came along, after going for that ride, he knew that he was going to build it according to this singular photo that he saw so many years ago.
It also helped that he has been a massive fan of Speedhunters for many years, always following all the awesome builds on the site over the years, which was the whole reason he built his whole car around the theme.
When Adonis got the car, a 1975 Beetle 1303s, which was originally imported for a student at a local university, it was in an alright state, running a 1600 Twinport engine and being pretty stock otherwise.
Adonis started the build by taking the car down to a bare shell, sanding down panels and fixing some holes and dents in the bodywork.
A good friend of his then started the paintwork on the car, which took a long 6 months to complete, as their was some issues along the way, and he wanted it to be perfect before they moved onto the next part of the build.
The three tone colour scheme is all painted, with only the Speedhunters stickers on the side being vinyl.
The car was built to be fast and light, so all around the car, circular holes was cut in the body and even the door handles. This helps a little bit with weight, while the holes by the engine and the ones behind the front fenders helps for heat dissipation as well.
It’s also not a bad thing that it looks pretty cool as well.
Other visual exterior changes on the car is a black front lip that was riveted into place, as well as HID projector headlights.
Around the back, the stock taillights were tinted for a more suited look, while there’s a side exhaust that was specifically built for the car, with a circular shape and a heat-shield to protect the bumper itself.
Keeping with the racing look and for added some functionality there’s also a drag rear wing fitted to the car and painted in black.
Adonis also replaced all the side windows with lexan items and installed custom air ducting vents and tubing, which runs into the intercooler to aid with cooling. Definitely not something you see often.
The wind down windows were replaced with rad sliding windows, which I’m sure makes getting food at a drive-thru a little bit more tricky than usual.
CHAPTER 3RUNNING GEAR
The wheels are 15 inch multispoke items that were widened to 9 inches in the front and 10 inches in the back, with the center painted the same red as on the car and the lips finished in gloss black.
They’re wrapped with super sticky Bridgestone Potenza RE11s semi-slick tyres which was finished off with some custom tyre lettering.
Hidden behind the front wheels are BMW discs and calipers while in the back the drums were also upgraded with VW discs and calipers.
Suspension wise, the car uses customised H&R coilovers and springs, for much improved handling. In the front there’s poly bushes, which replaced the stock ones.
Finally getting to that new powerplant, it’s a Subaru 2L EJ20 unit, which was already a pretty well built modified motor when Adonis bought it. It was running a twin-turbo setup though and Adonis opted to change it to a single turbo setup, mostly because of space issues, but also for more simplicity.
In the back of the engine bay, you’ll also see the duct system from Crawford Composites, situated in North Carolina, where the ducts from the rear side windows feed in to the intercooler.
The turbo he chose for the build is an off-the-shelf T3/T4 unit, with fuelling taken care of by 1000cc injectors, fed by a Walbro 044 fuel pump.
There’s also polished inlets and outlets, a Turbosmart Hyper Gate 38 wastegate and and Excel BOV, along with a D1 spec oil catch can. To get the power, all 280kW of it, to the rear wheels, a VW Kombi gearbox was chosen and installed.
For fuel, Adonis uses a mixture of E85 ethanol and normal 95 unleaded pump fuel.
The custom aluminium fuel cell sits under the hood, with compression fittings. Inside here you can also easily adjust the camber plates on the suspension. Luggage space wasn’t needed, obviously.
The interior is a very focused place, first and foremost with a thick and shiny full rollcage staring back at you, as soon as you pop open the doors.
A three spoke alcantara steering wheel sits on the steering column, which along with the steering rack, was taken from a VW Transporter.
The seats are leather covered buckets, in black with red stitching, and perforated bottom sections. 5 point harnesses are used to keep you firmly rooted in your seat while smashing the throttle.
For any possible incidents there’s a FlameFighter extinguisher mounted in the passenger footwell.
An aluminium EMPI shifter helps with gear shifts and there’s also a machined hydraulic handbrake for some drift action if you ever feel the need to let loose.
An Acewell digital display shows you most of the vitals like speed, rpm, oil temp and so forth.
There’s also a start button system instead of the traditional key start you’d expect. A Matrix boost controller keeps an eye on boost levels and also allows you to make on the fly adjustments.
The Spitronics Pluto2 ECU which sits inside the car, is the last piece of this puzzle and controls all the engine management aspects.
This project has been a long term dream of Adonis, which with the help of a few good friends along the way and not forgetting that low-resolution internet picture, converting this car from a simple idea to something real, something unique and something he can really call his own.
Be sure to also check out this awesome short film www.cars.co.za did on this unique ride:
Stefan Kotzé - www.stefankotze.com
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Comments (4)
Thats pretty awesome, big Ups to him, its definitely nothing like one's average beetle plonking around.
(Woohoo!, VW!)
Well done! Not a big Subaru fan but that is using the best part of an average car and putting it in the best part of a classic body.
Did they make it look like Porsche's livery on purpose?
Job well done 👍
I have subaru powered Westfalia my self and I love it !!!