Pro Street Karmann Cabriolet Beetle

Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Jon Gilbert
1 Comments

What's matt black on the outside, gloss black on the inside and hard as hell from all sides? Mick di Placido's Pro Street Karmann Cab, that's what

It's not that often you get two brothers who are into the same kind of modified cars, and it's even less common to get twins who are both heavily into one kind of thing. But for the di Placido twins from Belgium, it's performance VWs all the way. Not just any old VWs either, but bad to the bone, old school hot VWs, and they've been their passion for as long as the boys have been able to drive. If you're thinking that the di Placido name sounds familiar, it's because Fred was the owner of the hard-core Cal Look '63 sunroof that made the centrespread of our most recent California Look special. As you may recall, it said in that feature that the twins had their beloved '62 Cal Look Beetle stolen by some low-lifes in the late '90s. Well, as much of a blow as that was to them both, Mick picked himself up from that low point by building himself a Manx Buggy, with help from Fred of course, which sufficed for a while until the draw to own another Beetle proved just too strong. Having searched around for a Cabriolet in Belgium to build into a drag racer and not finding anything, Mick did the logical thing and started looking abroad. As anyone that has looked for VWs for sale around the world will no doubt have quickly found out, all the good ones seem to be on the far side of America. That's not entirely true, of course, but it does sometimes seem that way. So it came as no surprise to us to find that Mick had located this particular car out there in the Golden State, at the premises of VW drag race veteran Ron Lummus no less. A native of North Carolina, deep in the heart of NASCAR country, Lummus grew up with racing all around him but decided to head West and set up his Ron Lummus Racing chassis shop in Anaheim in California in 1988, going on to become one of the leading VW drag racers and chassis builders of the 1990s. Having achieved all he could in VW drag racing, Ron made a sideways shift in the early 2000s into the burgeoning front-wheel drive Sport Compact drag racing series, winning the first race he entered in 2004 and winning the Hot Rod class in both 2005 and 2006. But that's another story, the point is that he knows how to put a fast car together. So, when Mick saw an unfinished Cabriolet project advertised that Ron had been working on for a customer, he knew straight away the workmanship would be up to scratch.

For the full story check out the April 2008 issue of VolksWorld magazine. On sale on 21 March and then available through back issues.

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