A Front Engined Water Cooled Bug,
Oh Yeah and V8 Power

Miles and the project car some time before the transformation!

Club Member Miles Marshall has been into VWs for years. Indeed Miles' spent much of his youth being ferried about in the families orange Bug and it was somewhat inevitable that this would lead to him owning and subsequently modifying a whole string of Volkswagens. Everything in fact from a Baja Bug to a custom Split Screen Van. His most recent project is somewhat unusual however as it features a 383 cubic inch Chevy small block! The story goes that somewhere along the way Miles became interested in serious Drag Racing and more particularly Funny Cars realising that the air-cooled Flat 4 could only be taken so far and he wanted to go that little bit further. As such Miles decided to go down a route that included both of these interests.

Amazingly this project started out as the trusty old VW family hack that Miles had grown up with. Having decided that V8 power was the way he wanted to go he also realised that to carry this power properly some serious attention was going to have to be paid to the way the car was put together. The only solution was to build a full tube frame chassis, generally this kind of job is not the sort of thing many amateurs would choose to do themselves but Miles was determined and went ahead with the plan.

Two views give a clue to this cars awesome underpinnings

Possibly the name in chassis builds in the UK is Andy Robinson and his help and advice was enlisted from the outset providing Miles with a wealth of invaluable information on how this type of set up needed to be put together. All in all the build took around two and a half years and included some very complicated jobs. For example with the kind of speeds and acceleration the car would be capable of stability would be a big issue and the only solution was to lengthen the wheelbase of the Bug by 5 inches.

The problem here for Miles was that he likes the way a Bug looks and a change of proportions was going to make it very difficult to ensure that the overall look of the Bug was ´correct'. Often this type of modification ends up with the car looking badly out of shape and Miles was very concerned that this should not be the case with his car. A lot of work went into getting the flip front bonnet right as it was built and then rebuilt several times until the lines looked right and at a glance the car doesn't appear too different from standard. Whilst underneath the car is a very different beast the body work (apart from the flip front and pearl effect orange paint) is almost 100% all steel original Volkswagen. You'll have to look very closely at the pictures to pick out a couple of the other subtle modifications.

In terms of the mechanical specs on this car you could be here all day listing them but suffice it to say that everything on it is there to make the thing go, and that's exactly what it does. Though the car was built with street use in mind and has put on more than a few miles pottering about the London area it's capable of some pretty good times on the strip. A very relaxed pass running way off the cars potential saw Miles run a very easy 12 second standing quarter mile. Basically when you build a car like this you need to do a few ´shake down' passes to check everything is OK as failure to do this could result in a pretty hefty accident if any part were to fail during a full on run. Once the car is totally sorted some very quick times are expected.

Warming the tyres Santa Pod style

In the flesh this car looks amazing from every angle and you'd never believe that it was put together by someone that had no experience of building this type of machine. The fact that it was done by one guy in a cold lock-up is incredible and the result is testament to Miles' skill and patience as well as his eye for detail. A modified Bug may not be everyone's cup of tea and a V8 modified monster may be viewed by some as the ultimate in sacrilege but sometimes you have to forget that and look at something for what is. In this case it's one of the best custom Bugs I have ever seen and you can't help but appreciate it.

Since completing the car Miles has moved to California and has taken the Bug with him which sadly means we won't be seeing this car at Santa Pod again but I'm sure it's going to make an impression over there. Currently Miles plans to get a ´Yank' based Funny Car of some sort and race that as concessions made to driving the V8 Bug on the street mean that it's not fast enough for the professional Drags over there! Since moving he has also been taking advantage of the fact that good VWs are relatively easy to get hold of in the States for reasonable money. So far his collection includes a Split Screen Van and what he describes as ´The Reno Bug', a customised Cabrio with what can only be described as a very American look to it. I think it's safe to say VWs are very much in his blood. Whatever he does we wish him all the best.

The V8 lines up with other club cars at Big Bang last year