Project RSS-TDI

This project car began by accident. I recently came across this 2002 TDI New Beetle, which belonged to a friend's father-in-law, sitting at the local VW dealership with a broken automatic transmission. The previous owner decided it was best to cut his losses and sell the car rather than pay the $3500 needed for repairs. The car was listed on WetDub.com "for sale, as-is".

After evaluating the car I made an offer, which to my surprise the owner immediately accepted. I knew I could not build an "SSTDI" with an auto, and a search of our salvage database revealed a newly-wrecked manual-tranny TDI Jetta just 8 miles from Spraywerkz! After looking over the donor car and confirming that most all the parts needed for a tranny swap were intact, we decided to pull the trigger and buy the bug.

The car's aesthetic flaws were immediate: some dents and dings, the typical broken front valence, faded Cybergreen paint, and a well-used interior. Nothing too bad really... until we removed the front end cover. As you can see in the pics, the previous owner had hit a deer and "never got around to fixing the damage".

The car was shaved down to the bare essentials and in place of worn parts went Bilstein PSS9 suspension, poly bushings, sway bars, Unitronic tuning, .205 injectors, straight exhaust, SACHS clutch and more. I decided on Audi Nimbus Gray for the main color, with VW Alpine White as a secondary color to add contrast. A black leather interior was swapped in, and all flat black interior pieces were repaired and painted shiny black along with the door caps, 3-gauge pod, side mirrors, and front grille. Later, a custom beige/chrome Momo steering wheel was added for show days, and a black race wheel was adopted for daily and track use.

The wheel choice has been a tough one, and while the car was initally rolling on 19" ADR Spades, I found quickly that I-40 has a ferocious tendency to bend struts (two in less than 1000 miles)! The decision was made to downsize to a more Oklahoma-friendly tire sidewall for daily driving. Grant Visser was nice enough to cut me a deal on the Borbets in his shed, and after a couple days' worth of massaging they were painted to match the car and give a classic look. The car is also running s-pc 18x8 Sterns on special occasions.

After just 60 days the manual trans swap was finished, along with body work and paint. Within 90 days the car made it's first show appearance. One year later I have driven the car about 20k miles - she shows well and she's a consistent winner in SCCA Solo events.