Here’s question of the Week: What’s The Most Interesting Beetle-Based Creation You’ve Ever Seen?—WINNER’S UPDATE
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.
This week, we asked: What’s the most interesting Beetle-based creation you’ve ever seen?
Questions like this tend to activate different regions of the BaT hive mind, and this week the V-Dub cadre showed up with a variety of nominations. In the end, the Brubaker Box was the most mentioned creation, earning a cumulative 47 thumbs-up as of this writing! BaT member @pelzo was the first to nominate it:
We’ll be the first to defend the merits of the minivan, but the mod-cool Brubaker Box needs no help from us. Back in 2025, we featured our first “Sports Van,” produced by Automecca following Brubaker’s financial fall, and its creator Curtis Brubaker is even on BaT!
Congratulations, pelzo! Be sure to check your email to claim the prize. Now let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread:
“Super Bugger Camper conversion was built by Super Campers. They took a standard Volkswagen Beetle, cut the body off right behind the windshield, and built a custom fiberglass and wood RV camper onto the original floorpan and chassis.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1968-volkswagen-beetle-super-bugger/
Makes you wonder if the designer was a genius, a madman, or a man who simply refused to buy a normal RV like everyone else. I want one too”
The Super Bugger was the brainchild of travel trailer whisperer Doug Allenthorpe, and we can only wonder what went on in his mind.
“1958 Ascort
https://www.everydaydriven.com/p/the-rare-ascort-tsv“
The Ascort TSV was an Australian-built, Beetle-based car made to compete with the likes of the Porsche 356 and the Karmann Ghia—the latter of which was also technically a Beetle-based creation.
“Brazil was ground zero for interesting cars built on the beetle chassis. The Puma GT was the archetype, and a fair few have passed though BaT.
“I’ll go outside the box somewhat and nominate Formula Vee builds in general. I first heard of it on BaT and the premise is great – affordable, accessible, real racing that started in the 1960s and hasn’t lost it’s allure which is really in the spirit of this week’s question.”
Formula Vee (dub) cars are mainly based around mid-1960s Volkswagen Beetle running gear, and the allure is still strong years later!
“The Wrought Iron Beetle – talk about air cooled!
It took me a week to weld up and install a double wrought iron stair railing on my front porch. This welder built an entire running driving Iron Beetle. So unique and eye catching that the Volkswagen factory commissioned him to build a few more. Twenty three of these see thru Bugs are out there creating looky lou car crashes where ever they go!
“Meyers Manx always my favorite and a coworker once owned a Laser 917, he even commuted to work on it!
He was out with back problems at a time and we joked it was from the driving position in his Kit Car! Haha
Well, the Laser 917 is bug-eyed, that’s for sure.
And we’ll wrap it up with a comment from none other than dedicated VW enthusiast @bugnbox:
I’ve made it a life quest to experience as many VW-based vehicles as possible, and it has been a whole dump truck load of fun. Brubaker Box, yup, Wrought Iron Beetle…I’ve had three of them, Brazilian, Mexican, Australian, Canadian, and Japanese spec cars as well. The front wheel drive Mexican Hormiga truck was pretty odd, the Aussie Country Buggy, also pretty durn cool, but I have to say that the absolute weirdest one of all that I have driven was a VW-powered Shark, where the driver sits within the mouth of the beast and steers the dragster length front wheels with toggle switches aiming at a fiberglass seal that is perched off the front.
Here is a link to the 2004 edition of the VW Freak Show, where the shark car is at the top of the page.
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations once again to our winner, pelzo. We’ll be back with a new question soon.
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
For nearly as long as the Bug has been around, its chassis has underpinned a host of vehicles that went to great lengths to deny their essential Beetle-ness, from concept cars to a broad spectrum of kit cars like the Meyers Manx. Its simplicity, dependability, and strength have made it the go-to foundation for a wide range of custom builds to this day. You’ve probably seen some wild creations like the Death Race 2000 Monster built on a Volkswagen Beetle pan, but that’s just one example.
Today, we’re asking you to dig deep inside your brain folds to recall the most compelling build you’ve witnessed:
What’s the most interesting Beetle-based creation you’ve ever seen?
Give us your answer in the comments, and leave a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
“How about the Brubaker Box? Yeah Dude.”
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pelzo commented on Question of the Week: What’s The Most Interesting Beetle-Based Creation You’ve Ever Seen?—WINNER’S UPDATE