Mixing it up.

If there is one observation that rings true for plasterer Paul Geary is that he most certainly likes to do things differently.

Paul has been into VW's for as long as I have and in that lengthy space of time he has built some crazy machinery.

One such machine that instantly springs to mind is his VW Caravelle, not content with the factory 2.1wbx engine, Paul broke out the "Hacksaw" ( yes thats how he got his moniker ) and shoehorned a 3.6l aircooled Porsche engine into the rear end of the unsuspecting wedge.

Now I can admit Iv'e had first hand experience of this bus, drifting roundabouts and flat out along Essex's private roads. The thing was an absolute riot, but as is the case with Pauls motoring madness, he got bored with that, sold it and found something else,

as you do.

That something else came in the form of a T3 double cab (Dokka). It was a builders truck. Being in the trade it was obvious it could have just been left as is and pressed

into service hauling plastering materials to site.

The only thing Paul really wanted this truck to haul was the mail, so out with the "Hacksaw" and away we go on another engine transplant.

This engine would be the tried and tested 3.6 Carrera unit, but that wasn't enough, so to give the old truck a bit more get up and go, he sprayed it. Yes, a full 75 shot of gas on top of the 247bhp the Stuttgart mill had from the factory.

The truck was an animal, the clutch was forever turning to toast but on occasions when it did want to play, it had enough holding power to allow the builders van to run 13.3 over the 1/4 mile at 103mph, not too shabby at all. At some point in this story, the Porsche honeymoon came to an end.

Paul sold the engine and the next time I saw him, he'd taken his engine swapping ethos to an entirely different planet. He had purchased an injected turbo waterboxer engine from Marco Mansi. Marco at the time had plenty of experience with wbx engines and his development mule beetle was deep into 10 second territory. Paul liked the idea, this was surely a home run?

Until he sold the van...

Now where do you go from there? Making buses go fast was his speciality, surely a normal everyday car wouldn't be enough of a challenge to even think about entertaining a "Hacksaw" special. He had a beetle kicking around, the turbo waterboxer was kept after he sold the doublecab, so what to do?

Build a street and strip weekend warrior with the WBX.

After the past decade the fruits of Paul's labour can be found residing in his current 1972 1302's Beetle and yet again, this project wasn't as simple as getting that good old faithful "Hacksaw" out. This time around it had to be done to the highest standard utilising all the skills that had been gleaned from previous builds.

The Engine had to be rebuilt, a rollcage was fabricated by Jason Phelps at FGR

( Shockwave Funny Car team ). The suspension features AVO coilovers, Porsche 944 rear arms and Porsche brakes all round, the restoration was tackled by Paul and the bright Orange paint was laid on by Elliot.

The engine itself features more than its share of aftermarket parts along with heavily modified original stock items.

Inside you will find a Knife edged and balanced wbx crank, low compression pistons, CB Performance i beam rods, standard heavily ported heads with 1.25 rockers, Engle tcs20 camshaft, type 1 lifter bore conversion, custom plenum chamber with Cosworth throttle body,

8 injector efi with a Wolf 3D engine management system, Holset HX 35 turbo with Turbo Smart wastegate and a charge cooler system.

The turbocharged beetle has come a long way since Paul started the project. The boost is currently set very low with no plans to rush into chasing the numbers. The main aim right now is reliability. A few passes at Santa Pod have bagged a brace of low 13 second passes with great mph showing the car should run easily into the 12's without having to touch the current low state of tune. Unfortunately clutch slip has become the achilles heel of the driveline (again) and as we speak a new setup is being worked on.

We will be following Paul's progress closely over the 2018 season and we look forward to those e.t's dipping ever lower.

Lets just hope the next time we hear from him he hasn't sold it and got the "Hacksaw" back out to play.