The nice folks over at the Kaddy Shack in LA who built the engine in my Beetle also build much, much more powerful engines. As you can see in this clip of one of Kaddy Shack’s Beetles at the dragstrip, where it embarrasses the hell out of a hairy-chested V8 Mustang.
You can feel the smirking in the announcer and the crowd as the two cars line up, the dopey-looking little powder blue Beetle staging next to the black, semi-murdered-out Mustang. People in the crowd are wondering aloud at the Kaddy Shack name (it comes from the Kadron carburetors that the shop specializes in), and I don’t get the sense anyone around the cameraperson would have laid money on the Bug.
Of course, that’s why the little wheelie-punctuated victory is so satisfying. It’s not always about raw power, friends.
Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.