Son of the Bug

THE CAR

Newest thing in outdoor knockabouts is an informal hybrid that has yet to gain a name. Stubby, raffish, minimal, it is obviously designed for sport!

Equipped with bloated rear tires, it rolls as easily over beaches as a dune buggy; wearing snow tires, it can roam freely on backwoods trails as a hunting vehicle. It is comfortable, fast as a rabbit and already immensely popular (one estimate places the number in use at 10,000). But where do they come from? Only when the car starts is its genealogy revealed: beneath the skin beats the shrill, short-stroke engine of the lowly Volkswagen.

Appropriately, the son of the bug is inexpensive to build. An old VW chassis, with its independently suspended four wheels and air-cooled rear engine, provides the basic foundation. The frame is first shortened by 14 1/2 inches--a process that moves the center of gravity back over the rear wheels, where traction is needed, and costs about $50 in a mechanic's shop. Then a lightweight molded fiber-glass body is bolted securely onto the chassis. Scores of small firms across the U.S. are now producing these bodies in a rich assortment of styles and colors and sell them for $500 or less. With a few further additions like a roll bar, the buggy is ready to go.

The only problem these days comes in finding an old VW. The price of scrapped beetles has risen from $100 last year to as much as $500 now--and in many places there are no salvageable wrecks left. Demand has reached well beyond junkyards and used-car lots. Volkswagen of America itself is weighing the pros and cons of manufacturing the short chassis. But many individuals, particularly in California, have discovered another source of supply. Instead of searching out and buying an old VW, they just steal one off the streets--with deplorable impunity. The angry owner of a missing blue beetle would never recognize his car as it whines by him on a beach--shorter, blunter and tangerine red.

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