Simple yet rugged, the air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle engine powered more than 21 million vehicles. Here’s an entertaining and informative look inside.
As you’ve probably noticed by now, here at Mac’s Motor City Garage we’re big fans of the Redline Rebuild series from Hagerty Insurance. For veterans and rookies alike to the engine-building process, these clever time-lapse videos are both entertaining and insightful. We’ve previously featured the Redline Rebuild videos on the Ford Flathead V8, the original Chrysler 331 CID V8, and a contemporary nitro-burning Top Fuel powerplant. Now we’re back with an equally informative look inside the venerable Volkswagen Beetle engine.
With more than 21 million units produced, the Volkswagen Type 1, better known as the Bug, must be the most popular of Ferdinand Porsche’s numerous automotive inventions. The engine is a marvel of simplicity and sophistication, with four opposed cylinders, air cooling, and a two-piece magnesium crankcase. And while the design evolved continually over its many years of production, it has always retained its essence, for example in the 1973 model shown here. If you’ve never seen an air-cooled Bug engine apart before, you’re in for a treat. Enjoy the video.
Been into several VW engines over the years. Didn’t have the luxury of an engine stand, usually just built them on the work bench. Noticed some little improvements on that one, power pulley, two barrel intake with the Holley-Weber two barrel , looked like a Bosch 009 distributor, too. Fun little engines to work on, I even re-ringed a couple in car on some Baja cut Bugs. Too bad the increasingly stringent emissions and safety regs killed them in the USA. I’d much rather have a new air cooled Beetle than any of the current offerings from VW.
When I worked at a big VW dealer in the ’70s, the mechanics all used the bottom half of a rollaround as their toolbox. They would drop the engine straight off the lift onto the toolbox to work on it. probably took five minutes.