Skip to main content

Motor Trend Takes a Dune Buggy to the Beach

Fred Williams is the Motor Trend Channel’s resident off-road expert and on his show he takes all manner of motorized machinery off the paved road. Naturally, he’s had more than a few VWs in his day, and on the latest episode of his show, Dirt Every Day, he takes an early ‘60s dune buggy to an Oregonian beach.

Anybody who’s owned, or worked on, or even been near a classic car will know the pain of an engine that just won’t run. Sadly, that’s most of what Williams faces on this episode, number 53.

The little 36hp flat four can do little but struggle when faced with batteries that don’t really work and a set of tires that would make Ferdinand Porsche roll his eyes in his grave. As a result, Williams and his co-host spend most of the episode push starting the dune buggy until they give up on the “starting” part of that equation.

Fortunately, dune buggies weigh little to nothing, so when the motor eventually fails completely, they just ride it like a Radio Flyer to the beach.

It may sound like a painful episode, but really it’s just showing a reality of old car ownership. Sometimes they’re terrible. A long life doesn’t suit every example of every car, but that kind of adds to their charm when they do work.

And don’t even try to tell me that you don’t want a dune buggy more at the end of this episode than you did at the beginning.

The post Motor Trend Takes a Dune Buggy to the Beach appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2a3uYFh
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Volkswagen’s Gone to California with Grand California Camper

Volkswagen is bringing the California XXL concept to production. It will debut at the Dusseldorf Caravan Salon as the Grand California. It’s set to be based on the medium wheelbase Crafter van. That’s the company’s full-size commercial van, larger than the T6 Transporter based California. The high roof means room for adults to stand up, though it won’t get the concept’s extended length. The Grand California offers a full wet bathroom. It’s not exactly spacious, though, measuring in at around 31.5 x 33-inches. A toilet, shower, and sink are all crammed into that space, but at least there are motion sensor lights to stop you from reaching for a switch. Standard, the Grand California it comes with berths for two adults. Space for two children is optional, but they’ll be stuck in a berth amove the driver’s area. The kitchen offers a sink, stove, and two fridges. The front seats swivel to add seating space when the RV is parked. It’s also got solar panels, an integrated satellite dish,...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...