German Look Beetle 1302

• Thursday, 31 January 2008
• Jon Gilbert
• 6 Comments

Gerd Weisers VW 1302 German Look Beetle

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Light on weight, high on horsepower, Gerd Weiser's 1302 punches above its powerband and shows why German Look is still the pinnacle of hot VW engineering

Street Fighter
Last month was our annual California Look Special, an issue packed with high-horsepower, nose-down, dragstrip refugees. As evidenced from where the featured cars came from, it's a look that has taken the world by storm, but why is it that this particular style of performance VW has become so universally popular? After all, there's another form of fast VW that has a similarly long history of development and its own equally ardent devotees, yet it rarely makes its presence felt outside of the country that spawned it. While California Look is now known all over the world, German Look has stayed pretty much contained within the borders of the country that gave it its eponymous title. In the past, reasons of cost were given for the look not spreading in the same way - expensive split rim wheels and snazzy four-pot brakes were considered beyond the budget of most. And it's true, big-capacity Type 4 motors are expensive to build, but have you priced up a potent Type 1 motor recently? Or taken note of what original magnesium wheels or even the once omnipresent Fuchs alloys are going for now? Suddenly, that set of Fikse or BBS splits don't seem so ridiculous. And then there are the base cars to start with. A decent Oval or early Sixties Beetle is now well above the price of a good 1302 or 1303 model - the favoured cars of the German Look aficionado - and the price of new old stock repair panels for the former have gone through the roof. In fact, for what you save on the initial car purchase, you could buy that set of trick German Look wheels and still be quids in.

Extreme close-up
Of German Look enthusiasts, one name that comes up time and time again is that of Gerd Weiser from Dusseldorf in Germany. Gerd has been a regular visitor to The VolksWorld Show for several years now and, aside from a recent flirtation with a topless Type 34 Razor Edge, has stuck firmly to his roots. We've featured a number of Gerd's cars over the years too, but it's probably fair to say, this is the most extreme example of his craft yet. Based on a Kasan Red '71 1302 Beetle, it perhaps doesn't look all that wild from the outside, save for those gold BBS splits, but, as with all good performance cars, it's what's underneath that really counts.

For the full story check out the March 2008 issue of VolksWorld magazine. On sale on 28th December and then available through back issues.

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VW Wallpaper
You can download a wallpaper of Gerd's 1302 Beetle for your computers desktop from our VW Wallpaper section.