What are the new Beetle's capable of? I encountered one on Friday night. From 65 to 95 he stayed right with me, and I was in third gear.

The car obviously had some custom work done to it, it was lowered and I could hear a much louder exhaust.

I'm just curious what kind of performance these things are capable of. I know they do have there own race series.

Any info?

-- Tom

 

all I remember is a billboard that had a VW Beetle and next to it: 0-60? Yes.

Too funny.

Regarding the specs - from carpoint.msn.com's beetle page, it says the following:

1.8L 150 hp I4
1.9L 90 hp I4
2.0L 115 hp I4

Mods? I've seen several - but the car still just seems a bit big for my tastes.

There's also the Turbonium - can be found at http://www.turbonium.com - which its five valves per cylinder, 1.8ltr, turbocharged with 150horses/162lbs. of torque.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by NJTom2000:
[B]
I'm just curious what kind of performance these things are capable of.

 

The 1.8 turbo 150hp motor can be chipped to 200hp and 240 lb.ft. of torque very easily, which makes the fairly light little Beetle pretty quick! Boost is electronically controlled by the ECU, making HP very easy to attain.

 

I had a 2000 Jetta with the 1.8 Turbo engine (very briefly. got rid of it rather quickly. My friends told me I had a family car, threatened to buy me baby seat)
Chipped it, with a P-Flow and exhaust.
Honestly, it flew.
I was so surprised by how much the chip helped. Just with the chip, torque was at 238 and hp was up to 193.
Off the line, with good tires(traction became very difficult), the 1.8 Turbo can be a handful. I smoked a couple of Integra GSR's with great ease. Is it as fast as our S2K? Depends. You can take that little 1.8 a long way for a lot less than the S2K.
You want to smoke one without even trying, throw a couple of turns into it.
Handling is for shit on those cars.

 

And here I was thinking that VW Beetle performance was an oxymoron...

 

What you never heard of Herbie?

 

Remember, in 1948 a man named Ferdinand Porsche created the first Porsche from the basic "peoples' car" that he had designed originally at the behest of der Fuhrer.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jason Saini:
[B]The 1.8 turbo 150hp motor can be chipped to 200hp and 240 lb.ft. of torque very easily, which makes the fairly light little Beetle pretty quick!

 

Boost the power? Ok for straight ahead, but torque steer becomes a real bummer