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The Concept In those days I wasn't into taking pictures, so you will just have to use your imagination, much like I'm doing right now. The photo to the right was not my car, it's just a reasonable facsimile, something to get you in the zone!

It was 1986, I was working at a Volkswagen dealer in the lower mainland of BC. I came across a good deal on a 1973 Super Beetle. It just needed a bit of ignition tweaking to get it running well, so I drove it for a while until I got to thinking about my old Mazda rotary days. I got to thinking about what it would take to get one of them rotary engines into the back of my Beetle. A day with a tape measure confirmed it was possible.

A Super Beetle was chosen for several very important reasons. I choose a 1973 Super Beetle for the new style dash and curved windshield. Yes, a standard or custom Beetle would have been lighter, but I first wanted fully independent rear suspension, not a swing axle. Not only does the fully independent suspension handle better, it is a stronger transaxle design without the weakness of the swing axle pushing and pulling on the side cover. Second, a radiator sits better in the spare tire well than behind the axle beam of the standard Beetle. Also the dash of the standard Beetle is exposed to the trunk of which now air will be flowing through. The dash on a standard Beetle is drafty enough as it is! Also the fuel tank is still mounted in the trunk, ahead of the drafty dash in the standard Beetle, I never did like thinking about the gasoline intruding through the dash in a bad accident! The Super Beetle will also take the disk brakes of the Type-4 with a little work.

I have good connections with VW sources and Mazda sources, a friend who is a machinist, another who is an engineer. So armed with these resources I began. I found an RX4 that hadn't run in years for $200, towed it home, and tried to get the engine running. First off it was seized.  Out came the sparkplugs, about a 1/2 can of WD-40 down the carb, let it sit for a day, and tried to turn it over. No luck. OK, let's get a tow rope and drag it down the road in gear! After about 20 feet of rubber in 3rd gear it broke loose and spun over, spewing oil all over the engine compartment. A few trips back and forth and it would spin over with the starter. Now we are getting somewhere. I put the plugs back in and put a bit of gas down the carb and turned the key. It cranked and cranked but I couldn't quite spin it fast enough to fire. Back to the tow rope!

Well I got it going after about 1/2 a block. It smoked so bad I thought the fire department would show up! It took nearly 30 minutes before it would rev without blowing blue smoke. The next day I fired it up with the starter with no trouble, a bit of blue when it first started, but after that it was fine. At this point I was fairly sure the engine would be OK so out it came.

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