Most of the people choose a pre-67 model to build the looker of their dreams. Same for Sascha who actually wanted a bug with small bumpers, right before he came across this '68 year model built in late 1967. The rustfree car was for sale at a VW dealership and within a moment the deal was struck. Due to the dull paint Sascha charged the Artek Paintshop with the respray in the original color "Lotusweiss". The rather used interior was replaced with TMI material and as if the sound of a flat 4 wouldn't be enough Sascha installed a decent stereo system. Talking of the flat 4, while being on the road to the Bug Show at Spa, Sascha overestimated the durability of the stock 1500 which resulted in a major engine breakdown. As a good friend of our engine builder Marcel there was no question to rebuild the stock powerplant. They decided to stick with the original 69mm stroke but started to build a whole new engine with a AS41 case. In combination with 92mm Mahle cylinders and pistons the type 1 has got a capacity of 1835ccm. The Engle W110 cam and a pair of ported and polished 040 heads with HD valve springs are a good choice for a reliable cruiser. The engine is fed by some Weber 40IDF carbs while Sascha decided to keep the stock exhaust. As Sascha has made his experiences with overheating an engine he bought an external "Unterflur" oil cooler from Cagero. A very nice item that fits like it was made by VW. Let's get to the most obvious modification on this clean car: its killer stance! While the traditionally oriented cal look crowd prefers to keep the rear end in stock height, Sascha wanted to lower his bug all around. In spite of that it had to have a certain nose-down stance, therefore the front-end needed to be literally "in the weeds". The frontbeam was lowered, narrowed and got a pair of dropped spindles from CB Performance. Now the bug had the desired look: clean and understated but with that certain difference that makes it stand out from the crowd. Congratulations to Sascha for this innovative ride - and we really hope to see more like this! Photo credits: Stefan Bau / VW SPEED