163. Eurokraft, Zornig, and Rabbit Parts (Matt, Jim, and Danielle)
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Car
Toyota Tundra
The Toyota Tundra is a big truck that can carry heavy loads and drive on rough roads. People like it because it's tough and can be used for work or fun.
Term
beater
A beater is a car that someone uses a lot, even if it's not in great shape. It's often older and has many miles on it.
Car
Volkswagen Touareg TDI
The Volkswagen Touareg TDI is a type of SUV that uses a diesel engine. Diesel engines can sometimes have problems in very cold weather, like the fuel turning into a gel, which makes it hard to start the car.
Car
Volkswagen Passat
The Volkswagen Passat is a car that is good for families and people who drive a lot. It has a lot of space inside and is comfortable to drive.
Term
TDI
TDI is a special kind of diesel engine from Volkswagen that helps the car use less fuel and go faster. It's known for being efficient.
Term
DPF
A DPF is a part of a diesel engine that helps clean the exhaust so that it doesn't pollute the air as much. If it has problems, the car can run poorly.
Term
DSG
DSG is a special kind of automatic transmission that shifts gears very quickly, making the car feel more responsive. It's like having the best of both worlds between automatic and manual driving.
Term
front-wheel drive
Front-wheel drive means that the front wheels of the car are the ones that get power from the engine. This helps the car handle better in bad weather, like rain or snow.
Term
safety check
A safety check is when a mechanic looks at your car to make sure it's safe to drive. They check important parts like brakes and lights to ensure everything is working well.
Term
state inspection
A state inspection is a required check to make sure your car is safe to drive and meets environmental rules. It looks at things like brakes and lights to ensure everything works properly.
Term
seat belts
Seat belts are straps in cars that keep you safe by holding you in your seat during an accident. They help prevent injuries by stopping you from being thrown around inside the car.
Brand
Kawasaki
Kawasaki is a company that makes motorcycles and other vehicles. They are famous for creating fast and powerful bikes.
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
The Volkswagen Jetta is a small car with four doors that is easy to drive and has a lot of space inside. It's popular because it's reliable and good for everyday use.
Term
engine swap
An engine swap means taking out the engine that came with a car and putting in a different one. People do this to make their cars faster or more reliable.
Part
ABA engine
The ABA engine is a type of engine made by Volkswagen that is known for being strong and reliable. It's often used by people who want to replace the engine in their cars.
Term
fuel injection
Fuel injection is a way to get fuel into the engine so it can run. It's usually better than older methods because it helps the engine work more efficiently.
Concept
welding
Welding is a way to put metal pieces together by melting them and then letting them cool to form a strong connection. It's often used in building and repairing things.
Part
Holly two barrel
A Holley two-barrel is a type of device that helps mix air and fuel for the engine. It has two openings to allow more air in, which can help the engine perform better.
Part
intake manifold
The intake manifold is a part of the engine that helps get air and fuel into the engine's cylinders. It's important for how well the engine runs.
Term
vacuum advance distributor
A vacuum advance distributor helps the engine's spark timing by using the vacuum created in the engine. This can make the engine run better and save fuel.
Term
OBD I
OBD I is an older system in cars that helps check how well the engine is working. It's not as detailed as the newer OBD II system.
Term
VR
VR is a type of engine made by Volkswagen that is known for being powerful and smooth. It's a special design that helps save space in the car.
Term
Mk2
Mk2 means the second version of a car model. It's used to show that this version is different from the first one, often with improvements.
Car
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle is a small, round car that many people recognize. It's famous for its unique look and has been around for a long time, making it a beloved classic.
Car
Volkswagen Golf GTI
The Volkswagen Golf GTI is a fun and sporty car that many people love. The Mark One is the first version of this car, known for being light and easy to drive.
Car
Toyota A90
The Toyota Supra is a fast sports car that many people love for its speed and style. It's popular among car fans because it can be modified to go even faster.
Car
Audi RS3
The Audi RS3 is a fast and powerful car that's part of the Audi A3 family. It's designed for performance and has a strong engine that makes it exciting to drive.
Car
Volkswagen Rabbit
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car that is easy to drive and has a lot of character. It's remembered fondly by many people for its fun design and good performance.
Car
Jaguar Mark I
The Jaguar Mark I is an old luxury car that looks really classy and was made a long time ago. It's special because it helped make Jaguar a famous car brand.
Car
Nissan R32
The Nissan Skyline is a sporty car that is known for being fast and powerful. It's popular among car fans because of its racing history and cool design.
Car
Volkswagen Golf
The Volkswagen Golf is a small car with a hatchback design, which means it has a rear door that opens upwards. It's popular because it's easy to drive and has a lot of space for passengers and cargo.
Car
Volkswagen Tiguan
The Volkswagen Tiguan is a medium-sized SUV that has plenty of room for people and their stuff. It's a good choice for families because it's comfortable and easy to drive.
Term
timing belt
The timing belt is a rubber belt in the engine that helps keep everything moving in sync. If it breaks, the engine can stop working properly, which can lead to serious damage.
Car
Volkswagen Scirocco
The Volkswagen Scirocco is a small, sporty car that was popular in the 1970s. The 1976 version is one of the early models, known for being fun to drive.
Concept
parts car
A parts car is a car that you buy mainly to take its parts and use them for another car. It's not usually meant to be driven as is.
Car
Dacia Duster
The Dacia Duster is a budget-friendly SUV that can handle rough roads and has plenty of space inside. It's a good option for people who want a tough car without spending too much.
Car
Honda Civic Type R
The Honda Civic Type R is a fast version of the regular Honda Civic. It's designed for performance and has a powerful engine that makes it fun to drive.
Car
BMW E30 M3
The BMW E30 M3 is a special version of the BMW 3 Series car that was made for racing. It is popular among car fans because of its great performance and unique look.
Car
BMW E30
The BMW 3 Series is a stylish car that feels fun to drive and has a lot of nice features inside. Many people like it because it combines luxury with a sporty feel.
Car
Mazda Miatas
The Mazda MX-5, or Miata, is a small, fun sports car that you can drive with the top down. It's loved by many because it's light and easy to handle, making it great for enjoying the road.
Car
Cadillac Ctsv
The Cadillac CTS-V is a fancy car that goes really fast and has a lot of luxury features. It's known for being powerful and stylish, making it a great choice for those who want a sporty ride.
Car
Volkswagen Eos
The Volkswagen Eos is a small car that can be driven with the top down, making it fun for sunny days. It's stylish and has a comfortable interior.
Car
Audi Tt
The Audi TT RS is a fast and stylish sports car that looks great and drives even better. It's known for being powerful and fun to drive.
Car
Acura CL
The Acura CL is a fancy two-door car that is comfortable and has nice features inside. It's a good choice for people who want a stylish car that feels luxurious.
LIVE
Yeah, everybody, what's up? Welcome to the people's car podcast. My name is, did I say
that weird podcast? Welcome to the people's car podcast. My name is Ryan Bealman and sitting
right next to me is Danny Mercado. What's up? And we are in the presence of a couple
more people. We are down where we at, Danny. We are in Flemington, New Jersey, which I
don't know if you want to say central Jersey, because it's North Jersey, South Jersey thing.
She is waiting for certain people. Pork roll, you know, there's Taylor Ham, but we'll leave
it at that. Pork roll. All right. So we have also with Danny, Matt Muracraft, Matt from
Muracraft and who else we got? Jim Berlu. Jim Berlu from Zorning Metalworks. Zorning
Metalworks. And Danny, I might as well say something. Go ahead. It's all right. Who we
got here? I am Danielle from Rabbit Parts. All right. So, um, yeah, Danny, we're down
in Jersey and sometimes you talk about this place like, like, you know, what's up, right?
Because your wife is from somewhat Southern Jersey. She was from Medford, New Jersey.
So that's definitely South Jersey. More so were at your shop. Upper South. Yeah. She
was born Mount Holly. So more South than like this would be. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah.
So what are we doing here? I mean, we, Matt just took me out for, I just make sure you
get a little bit closer on that. Mike, Matt just took me out for riding his Mark two.
And, uh, that was pretty fantastic. It's snow here. We got like probably eight inches still
on the ground everywhere. And we're talking South Jersey. Like it's not usually as bad
down here as it is up our way. But I mean, we're only like two hours South really for
where we're at. Um, we drove from the frozen tundra to come to like the frozen tundra.
Yeah. It's still cold here. Less players in tundra. It's awful. It is tonight back home.
Like I literally feel bad for leaving my family alone because it's going to be fucking
negative 25 degrees tonight. The wind chill is where up where we're at zero degrees like
the high gym. Can you move?
Celsius. This is zero degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah. Not Celsius. This is like really brutal.
Oh, it's, it's brutal. It's, it's so Matt, uh, anyone actually listen, but I get in the,
so that's my beater out there, the Honda. And, um, we've had that for a long time. It's
got almost 300,000 miles on it now.
Yeah. And sometimes I guess when it gets negative degrees, you might get some, uh,
moisturization buildup in your breaks. Dude, I went to literally stop at the end of my
driveway and it was like a fucking brick and it's just right through the drive, right
through into the road. And then it finally started working. I was like, Jesus Christ.
So I don't know if it's like glazed over. Yeah. I don't know what that was all about.
But it was like moisture in the booster. Yeah.
Exactly. Moisture in the booster, I think. And it was like breaking through some,
some little bits of ice. I don't know.
Cars do crazy things when it's cold.
I mean, it's fucking cold. My Toreg, uh, it's a TDI Toreg. It is, it was currently
gelled up and completely just frozen.
Is it? Well, it's been sitting for weeks and it's only been literally up our way.
It's only been like single digits for the last, like three weeks. Yeah.
So it only had like quarter of a tank. Oh, and so it's just sitting,
sitting there gelled up. I literally have to wait until spring and I get to put a
new battery in it again. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm not even trying to start it.
That's great. I've been running the Toreg because of how cold it's been.
Yeah. I've been taking it back and forth to work and stuff just because I don't
want it to freeze up because we had it happen once to us and it was like a
quarter tank of fuel on it. And I was like a mile from the gas station.
That's the first time that my, I've had it for like eight years now.
It's the first time I've ever gelled up. Yeah.
So I always make sure it's like at least a half a take or more.
Yeah, it is pretty good. I mean, yeah.
So maybe a little stabilizer and maybe letting it thaw when it gets into the 30s.
I haven't ran into that with my Passat yet. Yeah. Yeah.
You got, you just got a Passat. Yeah. I did a 14 TDI. Nice.
What, what's the deal with that? Where'd you acquire that?
From a buddy that's a dealer tech, he bought it from a customer that had a
DPF issues. Customer didn't want to spend any more money on it.
I bought it cheap and in hindsight, I should have spent some money and bought
a good one because what I'm into it for now, I could have bought a good one.
Geez. I feel like that happens so often. You know what I mean?
Usually I don't get burned.
Like I know what I'm looking at. Sure.
For once in a while, you get one that's just not a winner.
And this was a hundred percent not a winner. It's fantastic now.
But getting to that road was enough to make me want to off myself at points.
Is that an automatic? It is DSG.
Did they make B seven TDIs in manual? They did. Yeah. OK.
But only. Yeah. Yeah. So only front wheel drive, obviously.
Right. Yeah. The B sevens were fucking weird, man.
None of them came for most. Right.
Like even the even the GT, the GT was it?
Yeah. Front wheel drive, three wheel drive. Yeah.
They are like, I feel like those cars are like forgotten or slept on.
They're very nice driving cars. It drives nice. It cruises nice.
It's probably it probably puts me to sleep on the highway.
Almost you'd be a taller dude.
Like it's got ample amount of room inside.
You put like people in the back.
It's it's nice all the way back for me to fit and then still have room for people.
Yeah, it's a very very comfortable car. I like it a lot.
So is that stock still? Sorry.
Did you tune it? Yes, that's cool.
Oh, we can't say that because we're in New Jersey, but we're in our way.
We're in our way. It's fucking deleted.
Yeah, that's what you got.
You got to look to like our we don't even do emissions in our in our county.
There's no such thing.
Yeah, we don't have emissions.
There's a missing sticker.
The guy's like, it's just a visual inspection.
So if you visually see a cat.
Well, down here is if it passes the scan.
Oh, you're good.
OK, that's good.
As long as it holds in the windshield and you're still good.
You'd be writing this.
You could register a rear view mirror if it had a scan board on it and pass.
My last inspection we went to
I had my son in the car as a torac pull up to the bay.
He says, all right, let me check it out real quick.
Kicks literally kicks the tire.
That's your safety.
Yes, that was a safety check.
And he knows like I take care of cars and stuff.
So he's like, he's like, all right, there's like 15 minutes in out,
give him the money, put the cigar on and like an every one in the garage.
Well, you have your all private inspection out there, right?
Yes, right. State inspection. Yes.
We're all forgot about.
Yes, dude, it's free to inspect, but right.
They do the bare minimum now.
Like, OK, they spend more time
adjusting your seat than they do checking stuff. Right.
I remember years ago going in and we had a sixty seven
she fell five years old and we went to one of these
same inspection stations and like the guys are get out of the car, blah, blah.
And they like grow through the shop, like the building as fast as human
possible and slams on the brakes and see if the car stops.
Yeah, that was their break test.
It was like, what is happening right now?
I'm like a five year old kid like, what?
They just stole our car and I didn't realize there's an inspection.
Yeah, they had a thing that they would stop on.
And yeah, to test for break equalization between all four wheels.
Yeah, that's back when they were still testing cars with four wheeled drums.
Right. Exactly. That's what that was.
Right. He was at before seat belts.
Did you like get the back of the front seat or actually that was before seat belts?
He's never been the same.
We had a sixty two Chevy growing up that actually I was a little.
This is a Volkswagen podcast that had no seat belts in it.
So I remember driving on Route 23, going down through Jersey in the front seat.
I was probably like eight years old with no seat belts on.
It was cruising along. Yeah. Yeah.
So well, let's like go back a little ways because we had Matt on a number of times,
but they're all in like small increments.
And then Jim, we're going to get to you too.
And then we'll all kind of like talk about a bunch of random shit.
But did we talk when we were when we were back
way back when we were at what you call it?
No, roots. No.
When you sat down the first time. Oh, you might call a cult classic.
Yeah, we are a cult. Yeah, that's where we were. Yeah, it was a cult classic.
But, you know, you've been running like Eurocraft now for how many years?
Since 2013, right? Yeah.
13. OK. Yeah.
So what now, if I remember correctly,
and maybe you could just like jog our memory, like you you were in the bikes
back in the day and stuff, weren't you?
I was a Volkswagen's were always like the first job I ever had out of school
was at a mechanic shop.
Like and then the owner was in the Volkswagen's.
And that's what got me into it.
And then I had moved down further south Jersey, closer to the shore area.
Right. And I got a job at a motorcycle shop.
Gotcha. So yeah, I was a I worked on Suzuki.
It was Suzuki Yamaha Tech and I did wave runners and jet boats and all that stuff
for probably the better part of six years.
Probably one of my favorite jobs I ever had.
No shit. Yeah, it was a good time.
You got to go out and ride a ton of cool shit on somebody else's time.
Yep. Take boats.
Like, oh, I got to go water test this.
Yeah, you got to water test it. Go take it to dinner in Cape May.
You know, stuff like that. No shit. That's awesome.
So that job was really, really fucking cool.
But the cars were always a side gig.
And then I was I went and ran.
I ran him in Rome off for a while. OK.
I was a manager there and they had let me go.
The assistant, I could just picture Matt like with the Monroe shirt on.
And he's just like, I don't give a fuck.
I hate this job.
Pretty much how it went.
Something's changed.
The market manager didn't really like me.
So he basically found any way he could to get rid of me.
He thought I was too young to be running a store.
And I was in I was probably 28, 29 at the time.
So that that job, I got let go from that.
So I started doing more and more of this side work with the cars.
And then I got a job at a Kawasaki dealer. OK.
I was a service writer there for a while.
And then they laid me off and then went out of business shortly thereafter.
And I had so much side work at the time, I was like,
fuck it, we're going to try this full time.
Yes, that's what started that. Wow.
So when you started, was that was that just like kind of like in the driveway kind of thing?
Yeah, I was for a very long time.
I had only worked out of garages.
Like my first when it was when it became an LLC, it was out of my first garage.
It's actually where I was working when I met Jim was in Woodbine.
I did a ton of cars out of there.
I moved out of there in 2017.
And then we got our house and I worked out of that for three or four years.
Right. And I kept it real clean.
Like you didn't know I was working on anything unless it was in the garage.
Sure. That's tough, though.
That's tough because you never leave work.
Works right there. Works is there.
And that's kind of like part of the reason I never want to have a shop
at my house again, as far as like a business wise, because it's like
people don't respect your your boundaries.
That's showing up Sunday like, hey, man, I just want to drop my car off and talk to you.
100% like trying to eat breakfast.
I don't want to do that, man.
And then there was a neighbor in that town that decided it was time for me to move on
and called the township on me because I think it worked out that they wanted to sell their house.
And there was one car outside that looked a little
questionable.
It was it might have been a Jetta TDI that was hitting the side.
Yeah, used as a donor.
And they called the township on me and the township showed up
and happened to see inside the garage because the door was open that day.
And it was game over from there.
And then I got my first spot.
And then January of this year, I just moved into the spot I'm currently at.
Did you actually get like letters or something saying like, yo, you can't do this?
No, no, the no letters.
The inspector showed up the house.
He's like, no, no, I'm like, I'm telling you.
It was a she.
She's like, are you running a business out of here?
I'm like, no, these are my friends' cars.
She's like, you can work on friends' cars at friends' houses.
Like, I didn't know that was a rule, but that's what we're going with.
Sure. She's like, you can't do this anymore.
And then they would spot check to see if I was still doing it.
Wow, that's crazy.
Yeah.
So it was it was scary at the time, but it was the push I needed to go further with this.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Like it was it was one of those blessing in disguise type of things.
Yeah. So when you so way back, what was the first swap you ever did?
I mean, you're you're known for a ton of swaps that have made it when I like
quote unquote big time, right?
Like, you know, things that have been in PVW and things that cars have
no like people have known these cars for years.
And we could probably go through a big list of stuff that even I don't realize
like things that you've probably touched.
And I know a bunch of it, but where did that start?
Like the first swap I ever did was an ABA into a four to rabbit.
OK. A car I bought from a friend of mine.
He blew it up, put an ABA and it was a carb car originally.
And he didn't know how to do any of the fuel injection wiring or anything.
We knew how to weld. OK.
So he built an intake manifold for it and put like it had like a holly
two barrel from a bread truck and it had that.
And then he had adapted to hold the original vacuum
advanced distributor and all that stuff and it ran.
And then the way the intake was designed, I kind of had a slope in the front.
So all the fuel would pull. Oh, man.
And one time the fuel pulled and it lit and shattered the intake manifold.
So he was over at that point.
I had bought it off of him for nothing.
And I was like, I'm going to put fuel injection on this thing. Right.
So I went to the junkyard and I pulled everything off a jet at the time.
It was still when you could still get OBD one stuff in the junkyard.
Got all that, I think, at the time, it cost me like $80 for all of it.
Harness, intake manifold, everything.
And I got it all in and it was like we were the plan was to take it to H2O.
This is when H2O was this was in.
Oh, we. Yeah, OK.
So plan was to take it there and I couldn't get it to run.
I couldn't figure it out.
I was going through diagrams and I actually figured it out when I was at
H2O, pissed off, sitting around.
I missed one wire on the fuel pump relay to make it prime.
I came home, added the wire in the car fire.
No shit. Crazy. Yeah.
So then, like, once you started, I'm kind of just walking through the whole thing.
So you did that car.
Did somebody else then bring a car to you at some point and say, hey,
like, can you do something for me?
Or I had friends down there that like there were a lot of Honda guys
that I had spent a lot of time with down there.
And then he had like hung out with me and then they bought Volkswagen's.
Some of them had Volkswagen's prior and then bought Volkswagen's again.
So we did a couple like Mark two VR Jettas for friends and stuff like that.
And I don't know what the first real.
I guess the first real job that was like a money job was a Mark two VR Jetta
for somebody. OK.
And then it just kind of went from there.
It was like, I do. That was all I would do.
I do like the occasional swap. And yeah.
Now, were you like when we first started out, were you like basically
going to have war text being like, let me go through this list of like,
well, all the people have done kind of deal or just kind of do your now.
I kind of when it would come to that stuff,
it would just what I felt like doing what I like doing.
That's and that's kind of how it is still now.
Like yeah, with the one four car and all that.
Like nobody had touched that stuff when I did.
I bought that engine in 2018.
Yeah. And we're going to get we're definitely going to get that.
So back to when you said you met Jim, how did that happen?
So I was doing I think I was doing a Mark one
Cabriolet VR six.
OK, one of the first year wise kids like it had only had three mount kits.
Oh, no shit. Yeah.
Use two sides and a front mount.
So this is way, way back when you're wise and first come out with a kid.
Yeah. And it was a it was a weird situation
because I had sold my VR turbo set up out of my mark three to a kid
and he had sold his VR out of his mark two to this guy.
And then I paid me to swap it into his cabriolet, but I needed a shift box.
And I don't remember how I heard about him, but somebody was like,
he probably has one reach out to him and I reached out to him
and he had a beetle box in his shed that I bought off him.
And I was wondering how we met.
Yeah, I knew something to do with Volkswagen's friends ever since.
Do you realize we were like eight miles from each other?
Right. Right.
And he never met. Yeah.
And ever since then, it's just been building a bunch of dumb shit together.
So that brings me to Jim.
Jim, where did you like get into cars?
How did you get into cars?
Were you in the Volkswagen's right away?
Actually, I was in the hot rods early on.
Yes. The first car was a 64 Chevy too.
Nice. Right out of high school, I went into service.
First duty station was Germany.
A bunch of guys were based for going downtown to the bar district.
OK, we'll take my, you know, Mark one golf GTI.
Right. And I was in the backseat.
These guys were up front and his cars doing things that this car
should not be doing, and I had to have one.
I got I got awesome.
So that's where it started for me.
And what year was that?
It was an 81. OK.
But what year was that?
Oh, it was a 90, 1990. OK.
And you were basically primarily just like American stuff
until you got into that car. Yes. Yeah.
Yep. That changed everything from there on.
Shit, I was five.
And that's and that's the thing.
We hear that we've heard that story many times, like throughout the podcast,
where somebody or they're with their dad and they're into, you know,
muscle cars or whatever and American American muscle.
And then all of a sudden they get introduced to these goofy little cars
and they're just like, what? And it's like a mind bender.
You know what I mean? It was it was completely.
Yeah. So so then what you figured you had to have one?
I mean, where where did where did you go from there?
What was your first? I started looking. Yeah.
And of course, they're all over the place there in the 90s.
They were a dime a dozen.
So do you remember your first Volkswagen?
Yes. Actually, it's a funny story.
I've traded back then in the early 90s,
stereo equipment in Germany was like astronomically priced. OK.
Right. And you could get from the U.S.
Fairly inexpensive audio system or ice, as they call it, was really
in car entertainment. Yeah.
It was real popular over there.
I actually traded.
I had a system, a pioneer system, complete pioneer system in my
rabbit or golf at the time.
And I traded it for this really nice baby blue
GTI. OK. That's cool.
And I couldn't believe he he went for it.
You know, they got to add the car on my route to work every day.
He was driving by this car.
Right. And I was like, OK, that's where.
And this was in Germany in Germany.
That's pretty sick.
And he went to the source.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
He didn't like come around with this Westmoreland crap.
Yeah.
You're literally with the source over there.
Like this is like the best place to buy a car like that.
So they had a craft shop on base.
So you go to craft shop, you get a big ring of chits for any tools you need.
They had a paint booth, a hot water spray booth, you name it.
Tire changers, welders, lifts.
And it was all dirt, cheap like dollar an hour lift.
So that's crazy.
When you when you were over there, like so you started fucking around.
But like, did you kind of was there a quote unquote scene over there at the time?
Or was it just like everyone just kind of like, did you notice anything as far as
like, you know, a bunch of enthusiasts doing it together or not really?
There were shows, but there were few and far between.
But it seemed like every town you drove through,
some either had a little hopped up golf or a little hopped up Opel or something.
And the Opels are amazing, too, by the way.
Oh, yeah.
But Opel Cadet, you guys know, I think they're so fucking bad ass.
They are. I'd like to have one.
But yeah, these early forwards are really cool, 100 percent.
And they're very reminiscent of each other.
Yeah. Yeah.
But the first show I went to was the Hessin Motor Show.
Oh, yeah. OK.
And it was I still have pole or film.
They are not on your phone.
Yeah. But yeah, it's a good time.
A lot of members.
It's funny about the Incarno team, because you always had like that list
of everything you had done in your car.
And I was always one of those.
That was like in the old PBW.
It was like there was a race section.
And it's like now some people's stereo list was bigger than their engine.
Dude, you're right.
That's not even part of the thing of the build list anymore.
Like you look at a PBW for the last how many years.
And now it gets like an honorable mention under interior now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly.
Before like you had a billboard outside of the car telling you everything.
Yeah. A whole list of it.
Like you said, the mods for your stereo were like, oh, your mods you had done in the car.
So how long were you over in Germany?
Three, four years? Five years.
Oh, five years. OK.
And then you came back and you did you keep this up?
Oh, yeah, I came back.
In fact, I think a good portion of my goods that I shipped back were parts.
That's fantastic.
Was your family like, what are you doing?
What kind of we don't even know kind of cars these are.
You don't want those foreign things.
Two of my kids were actually born in Germany.
Oh, OK. That's cool. Nice.
So you start you start shipping this stuff back and then you had you couldn't
bring a car back with you, right?
Like it's not a European car.
I could have brought if I had taken a U.S.
car there and you could bring that back.
Yeah. Yeah.
Um, because you hear about stuff like maybe
many years even prior to that, it was like an easier thing to for for troops
to bring something back.
You could bring stuff back and you can have it for for a short period of time
and then but you have to send it back after.
I don't know. I'm not sure.
It's like a waste. Yeah.
Yeah, 100 percent.
And yeah, I mean, people can they can visit with cars nowadays.
Right. But you can only have it for like up to a year and then it has to go.
Right. Exactly.
Is it with cars?
That sounds like one of the TV shows, my strained obsession.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Well, you can quote, quote, visit the car, swap everything over to a car
you already have and then send it back with U.S. parts on it.
I tell you, good L.S. is you go around a U-Haul and you take the L.S.
You get a six later and you send it back with a four or eight.
Dude, I was just talking to my friend about that because he's got a 19 GMC.
You don't have to get off the topic here, but he's having these issues
that they're very common with the cams and the O.D.
Wip the cams out.
I'm like, dude, just get a U-Haul truck, man.
He said, what?
I was like, just pull them around a U-Haul truck, swap it in and have it go on.
Got to be careful.
There are a lot of them in the V sixes now.
I ran it all V sixes.
Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy.
Yeah. So still on Jim here.
So you came you came back home and then what like what cars were you looking into?
What car did you buy?
Yeah, one guy through and through.
Yeah. Gotcha.
So of course, I'm looking for a Mark one and not far from my mother's place,
which I moved into when I got home.
There's a little car lot at this little four door Jetta.
Yeah.
And snatched that up and all the parts I had in Germany promptly went on that.
Right. Right.
And it was back in the age of the, you know, 13s with low profile tires and slammed on the ground.
So I had offset the Mark James era.
Yeah. I had ATS classics off staggered.
Yeah. Sevens and eights and John.
Cool. It was on. Yeah.
And this is our mid 90s then.
This is like 90s, 95.
Was that the gold one?
No. Oh, this is this was black.
OK. So this is if you think about these parts of your bringing over,
like this wasn't a commonplace thing here then.
But you're like doing stuff that people probably weren't doing as as much as we are.
Obviously now or have been in the last, say, 25, 30 years.
But like it seemed like the trend of the small wheels moved here like a few years after,
you know, it was whatever is popular in Germany, it seemed to move here a few days later.
Yeah. Right. You know, I feel like that's still how it goes now with like,
yeah, like shave base.
You saw all that stuff over in Europe before it ever came 100 percent.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then the big wheels from over there, like the 17s and there's dudes with seven,
18s, 100 percent and threes.
Dude, you had like, you know, maybe oh, oh, oh, nine, 10, 12, 30, like those dudes
were running 17s on Mark ones and stuff.
And they also have the roads over there for two where they can get away with running a
185 35 as a daily tire. True.
Yeah. And they're going 12 miles and then they're in the next, you know,
three towns and then they come back, you know what I mean?
Like, well, there's also some of those dudes that will get in those cars,
like Jamie Thagen and all those guys and they'll drive across Europe.
The shows that's true setup on that car.
Like his, his G six, 16, about G 60 Jedi, he would drive that thing everywhere.
I would love to see them have 30 seconds in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Just go from my house to your house.
Yeah. E 50s broken half.
I know.
Fucking done.
You know, um, but yeah.
So, uh, so Jim, you're doing this in like the early 90s.
Do you have any friends that are doing Volkswagen stuff at that point?
Yeah. I had a friend, Justin Cummins.
Okay. He was, we went to school together, but we didn't really know each other in school.
Yeah.
And he saw my black Jetta.
Okay.
And that my wife was driving it at the time.
He turned around and chased her down.
And, uh, you know, then we hooked up after that.
And yeah, you know, Justin's still big into it too.
I work on all of that as cars now.
He's got it.
Justin's got a ridiculous.
Like an 800 ish horsepower.
Oh, wow.
An RS three and a few other things.
Is he still down by where you guys are?
I'm going to call his cars at my shop right now.
That's funny.
You know, it's funny about that.
Like we talk about this sometimes, but like somebody that's running a crazy
golf bar or an RS three, you know, they might have like seven, 800 horsepower,
but you don't even know that they might have been one of those dudes.
Like I almost figured that they don't know about any of that shit because it's like,
uh, they're just in like the newer shit.
You know what I mean?
Till you talk to him.
Well, he, he, he talked to him.
And he had a mark one 16 valve turbo back when I had a G 60 swap.
That's one too.
That actually Kyle W ended up with.
Oh, wow.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
No shit.
And I had a G 60 pickup.
Yep.
Back then too.
Yellow one.
A G 60 yellow.
Is that crazy?
Yeah, you guys are.
That's exactly what I'm saying.
Oh yeah.
Exactly.
You like the, you like the pickups?
Danny was talking about time travel on the way down here.
We don't want to get into those conversations.
Well, that's a good time on that car.
That's great.
No, that's, that's what my plan is for my pickup truck.
My yellow pickup is.
G 60.
Yeah.
With the Lysolm though.
Cause that was so fun.
It was so fun to drive that.
And I'm still gonna run the O2 on it.
I don't care what anyone says.
Um, I like the O2 with the diff.
Bring a shovel.
Shovel for what?
It's pretty different.
As long as you don't dump the clutch, you're fine.
No, my wife's two five with the O2 with the diff in it.
I ripped that thing everywhere.
Never had a problem.
It's fantastic.
I like how Jim's like G 60 in the truck.
Cool idea.
Noob.
But I just have it.
That's why it's.
Yeah.
No, dude.
Obviously.
No, I'm busting balls.
So obviously this is long before I've met Matt.
Sure.
Wirehead.
I'm color blind.
I'm not.
Yes.
This thing.
It's a film.
I mean, so.
It's like my part from the movie.
So I had a friend at a tech who was at a dealership.
And he's like, I think I can do that.
So, and you know.
Bernie.
No, it was actually Paul Italiano.
Oh, okay.
And he worked there at the time.
And he's like, I think I can do that.
He came over.
I think two days we had a wired up and running.
No shit.
I work on Paul's nephew's cars now.
That's crazy.
The world is so small.
But so how did you like, I mean, I know you from some of the cool shit that you make.
And I know you help Matt out with swaps and if he needs mounts and stuff done or whatever.
But like, where did you get into all that stuff?
I was always interested in metalwork.
My father was a pipe fitter welder union.
And I was always around it.
Yeah.
It was just a natural thing to go ahead and weld.
I want to learn welding first.
And obviously that's what I did.
It wasn't foreign to you though.
Right.
No, no, it wasn't foreign at all.
So yeah, it started with that.
Looking at these plasma cutters and I told my father, I was like, hey,
why don't we go have some plasma cutter?
Yeah.
So it was pretty steep learning curve.
I didn't, you know, I don't know that stuff very well.
Sure.
But now it's second nature.
I love it.
That's awesome.
That is cool.
What was the first car that you did any significant welding on?
Do you remember?
I was originally switching the rabbit pickup from the G60 to a 16 valve turbo.
And I had made a short runner intake manifold for.
Okay.
And that was probably 96 or 97.
That's crazy.
Using the factory cast bottom.
And this is the early stages of me trying to weld aluminum and not knowing.
I'm self taught.
So I didn't know how to be clean.
Right.
Trying to weld this dirty ass aluminum.
And the torch might have went across the shop once or twice.
But I've actually got it.
Yeah.
And it's so crazy.
I mean, like if you're doing that stuff, you know, and you were figuring out,
I mean, I saw the beginnings of the internet.
But like, fuck, when you're trying to figure that stuff out, like.
That's before the internet.
I mean, it's, it is.
And, you know, people don't really think about it anymore like that, you know.
Because it's such, it's just right there.
You can look up anything, see everything.
You see stuff that looks old to you.
And you can't imagine a place or a world without like not having it.
Well, it didn't exist.
It's a normal part of life now.
That was the beginning of a Jay Welty time.
Yeah.
Back in the late, late 90s, right before Vortex really took off.
Exactly.
Car Club America, Jay Welty.
Yeah.
There was a, those are the forums that you went to for any information that you were looking for.
Yep.
You pick up your $500 rabbit at the time and then you'd go and try to.
$500 rabbit.
They were the junk cars then.
You'd pick up rabbit up for $500 and you would.
I know.
I mean, we're literally in the point where like, if you find a semi-clean Mark I,
like you're not paying less than $6,500, you know what I mean?
If it runs and drives, it's a $6,000 car.
It's solid, yeah.
100%.
It's, it's fucking wild.
But that's what happens, right?
So we have a few, okay.
So let's go back to Matt for a minute because Matt and I just went for a ripper and is Mark II.
And that is a 1.4 turbocharged four-cylinder engine that comes out of like a 2016 Jetta basically.
16 to 18.
16 to 18 Jetta.
Which you had in your Jetta.
Yeah.
And I, and I love that in, in the fucking like Mark VI Jetta.
And it was just such a.
That's what turned me on to it was a Mark VI Jetta with one.
And I was like, this is a, this is a pretty cool little engine.
Right.
So Matt, you wanted to be per se like one of the first people.
Yeah, there's a guy in Canada that had done a couple.
He did a cabriolet and he did a rabbit truck.
Probably around the same time I had just started getting into it.
Like I had bought my 1.4 swap in 2018 and then stuff with the business and all that stuff.
You know, your own, your own stuff gets pushed to the side.
Sure.
So that was, that was where that started there.
But yeah, I was like, as far as the states go, I was probably the first with a correctly
running one in a car.
Yeah.
And then I did Tony Sal's truck this past year.
I wanted to be, I wanted to do a Mark I as well just to like get the intricacies worked out with that one.
Right.
Right.
So you, so when you did your Mark II, do you want to talk about any things that like,
that pissed you off or things that when you first started, you didn't think,
you know, problems you might have run into or blocks or anything.
Yeah.
And that's the one that I just took it right in.
Yeah, that was Japanese right hand drive.
There wasn't anything really weird, I want to say, or stuff that like,
I don't think we really ran anything we didn't expect.
No, not really.
Because he was there for all of it.
Like he made all the mounts because this isn't like doing an ABA where you can just throw on
Mark III mounts or Mark II mounts and bolted in the car.
Right.
You actually had to design a real mount or rear mount.
And there's a front mount you can use to and use a cross member,
but I didn't because at the time I didn't know what we were doing for a cooling system.
So my car is running the stock Mark VI radiators and fans in it.
So all ECU controlled fans, all that stuff.
We didn't know where this was going to go when we put it together.
And I wanted to, I wanted to utilize it and make it as much OEM as I could.
Like my car still has evaporative emissions stuff in it.
Yeah.
It's got a cat.
So it's very, it's very complete as far as one of those goes.
And obviously the more, more time we spent on them and figuring them out and all that stuff,
we figured out what you could get rid of.
Right.
And there's, there's correct ways to do it.
And then there's ways that are probably a little less corrected.
People say are correct.
Right.
Like they said, there's always more than one way to skin a cat.
Sure.
So the way we did it and the way it's designed with the software we have,
which is by a new coming up company called Retrotronic.
Retrotronic.
We're going to be doing all the tuning.
It's a couple guys that have been well in the community for quite a while,
but they're just sticking to swap software only.
So they're doing, they got, they have all the 3.6 VRs worked out now.
They got the one fours worked out.
Well, the first generation one fours getting ready to do second generation one fours.
Okay.
Dave from TDC is doing, doing a good bit with those.
So that'll be cool to see those out.
But the time we spent, like mine was like the pilot car for all that software testing.
Like I did that and then sent it to them.
I was like, here it runs, figure it out.
Right.
And it was, it was a good bit of trial and error to get it right.
And, but it's, it, it works very well, like for what it is and what we, what we utilized.
I feel like it's such a usable car.
I mean, we got in it and it has, like you said, it's a normal, a cat's muffler, right?
Like we're, we're getting in it.
And it sounds what you and I also talked about.
You were like, thank God, this didn't sound stupid.
Because it was, it was one of those things where you put something in.
Yeah.
Like a mark seven two layer turbo, they have those sounds and they, it's not a good sound.
Right.
I think for the most part, a lot of us would agree, maybe not like the mark seven people,
but like it's just, it's just, you know, it's just, but when you were pulling out of the garage,
I thought it sounded awesome.
And then when I got in the car, I couldn't believe how like tame it was inside and very
drivable.
Like, I mean, I could see coming down here and going right back home with a car like that.
Absolutely no problem.
Yeah.
I daily drove it for multiple weeks before it got shitty out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like my, my commute's pretty long.
So I would drive that.
I drove that for a solid two weeks and it was, I didn't mind it.
Like sometimes those cars get to the point that it's just like, this is like,
like I was saying when we were driving it, like, you know, when like my green car,
you know, there's an R 32 in the front of that and an R engine in the front of that.
Right.
It's heavy.
Right.
This car, you would never, like I told you, is three, three 60 fully dressed with an O2
A and a clutch on it.
Three 60, I thought it was two six.
That's the engine by alone.
Oh, gotcha.
Trans and clutch.
It's like three 61.
And you get up and move it on your, my eyes.
So I, yeah, like I have a, an engine I bought for us to do mock up stuff on and I go to storage
to pick it up and him and I were just like, well, we don't have a hoist here.
So we just picked it up.
You don't even understand for this or a hoist.
Out of the bed of my truck and put it in the trunk of his jet.
And he drove it home and took it out of his trunk by himself.
It's so ridiculous.
An engine, the whole engine.
Yeah.
With no turbo winning on it, they're like 220 pounds full aluminum block.
It weighs less now than it did with the three speed auto and the Digifon A valve that came out.
That's crazy.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
It really is.
And that's why what, what do you think when people, because this is like starting to get
out, right?
And people are talking about it and they know you have that car.
I saw for the first time in the truck that you were talking about at, at Becker's show.
And, you know, you're like, this is really starting to become like finally,
like a viable option, I think for some people, right?
So, man, it's just like it, you said it had like about what, 160 some horsepower or 200.
The car, it was dined with made 165, 231.
Yeah.
To the wheels.
Yep.
And when hubs, it was hub dyno.
Okay.
But still.
So when you were, when you took me back, I mean, third gear is like, it just fucking pulls.
And it feels good.
You don't have all the excess unsprung weight.
It's like, it's a light car with a light set up.
It's like, this is the best of both worlds.
Like it actually can handle decent.
Yeah.
Fault road.
And like the, the drive ability that he spent so much time on like the low speed drive ability,
the car drives stock.
Like you would, there's a lot of swaps.
Like the drive by wire stuff is kind of hard to tame sometimes.
Like you get like low speed juckiness.
Jitters and stuff.
Yeah.
It's like, it's all plays in the switches.
We'll say like brake switches, clutch switches, the throttle mapping stuff like that.
That all plays a part in how these things drive.
And when you start deleting stuff like that and using what it doesn't,
it isn't designed to do like, not the correct fuel pump or like I said,
deleting brake and clutch, which is stuff that people say is optional.
There's a reason that stuff's there.
There's a reason that ECU sees it.
The more stuff you can use from how the car was designed.
From the factory.
Right.
To make it as OEM as possible, we'll say the better it's going to run and drive.
Because we're not in 1990 anymore.
No, this is rudimentary fuel injection.
Exactly.
This isn't DigiFont where all the injectors are fired at the same time.
Like this is direct injection stuff.
Right.
And I mean, they came from that in 2016.
Like variable cam timing and control and variable intake manifolds and air and water.
And like the stuff that comes in the factory cars now,
if you would have saw that in 1990, you would have never thought it ever would have existed.
Yeah.
This is a base model engine.
Yeah.
Right.
There's a lot of technology that's going into these kind of cars just in the like, you know,
base Jetta and trying to put it into a car that it wasn't designed for.
Literally like a $13,000 car when it was like.
Yeah, the S's were 13.
Yeah.
Yeah.
100%.
And putting it into a car that it's not designed for.
It's like once you start, you start taking stuff out that it's the things it's supposed to be there.
I mean, that's the biggest issue with these kind of swaps because like now you're putting,
you're taking out stuff that the ECU and everything else thinks it's there.
And it's like, now you have drivability issues.
Like back in the day, rear O2 sensors were only there to basically say the cat was there.
Right.
They're not there.
And for that anymore, they do a lot more than just that.
And you start getting rid of that stuff.
You start messing with mapping and stuff that just, you build yourself,
you make yourself more work than you could have by just putting four more wires.
You know what I mean?
That's a great way to think about.
Moving forward with that kind of swap, the tunability issues, like not to build issues,
but tunability in general, like do you see like big turbo 1.4 stuff coming out in the future?
Yeah, that's, we had actually just started playing with an adapter to put a Mark 7 GTI IS-20 on these
things because the flange is different from the 1.4 turbo to the Mark 7.
So that's the next step.
I want to get this IS-20 on there.
That's the charge control as well.
Yes.
Yeah.
So it's like you can't just put like, right, exactly.
So you can't just go on and bolt on like turbo like you would be 20 years ago.
Yeah.
There's plenty of fueling there to support it.
I'm hoping if it'll make 300-wheel on a stock bottom end, I'll be more than happy with it.
300-wheel?
300-wheel.
Yeah.
I mean, if you look at, like that engine is more popular, not here.
Like we got it in two cars.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
They got them in Jedis, Golfs, Characos, everywhere at Tiguan, everywhere else on the
restaurant.
Oh, I didn't realize that.
Yeah.
So there's companies out there like RTMG and stuff that spend a lot of time into those
cars and doing turbo swaps and stuff.
And there's a lot of cars making really good power on stock engines.
Yeah.
So if it'll do, if it does 300 or damn close, I'll be, I'll be pumped.
I wonder if you're going to Mark 1 or Mark 2.
I wonder if you're going to ruin it.
That's kind of where I'm at as well.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Yeah, right.
There's only one way to find out.
Yeah.
And you could do it.
Ruin Volkswagen's.
Yeah.
It's like, you know.
Yeah, that's what we do.
We're good at it.
Yeah, we just, we just talked for half an hour about how amazing what he just, like,
they figured out.
What are you going to do?
Now I'm going to fuck it all up.
Oh, man.
It runs great.
Let's fix it.
So, so Jim's been helping you out with like, like fabricating some of these mounts and stuff.
Yeah, man.
If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have three quarters of these swaps done that I've done.
They mounts he's built.
The brackets he's made.
They're just the dumb shit.
I've been like, hey, man, let's make this stupid shit work.
And he's always like, OK, cool.
You know what's funny about stuff like that?
There's, there's so many instances where things don't come together or a name isn't
known or a car isn't built, like a serious car that a lot of people know about.
If it weren't for the friendships of a couple people.
100%.
Oh yeah, definitely.
And you guys have that, which is awesome.
Yes, sir.
So I always, I always think like that's kind of cool.
They're behind the scenes stuff where a lot of people don't know.
They might know a car for the last 20 years, but they don't know the story of that.
No, they don't know how it got there.
Yeah, what it is.
And they don't know the people that that built that have done so many other things together,
you know.
So Matt, tell them about the timing belt.
Interval one to one fours.
Oh, the timing belt interval in the one four is check it at 150,000 miles.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And then they finally switched it to replace it at 150,000 miles.
Oh, check it.
I was blown away.
I was blown away by that.
Yeah.
He said check it or some check guy.
My car, my car still has the timing belt in it from the junkyard.
That motor had like, I think it was like sub 60,000 miles when I got it.
Was it like a Kevlar belt or something?
Yeah, apparently it's like Kevlar reinforced.
Yeah, Jeff.
But the one that's in Tony's truck has 400,000 kilometers on it.
What's that?
250,000 miles.
Something like that probably, yeah.
Probably like 280,000, something like that.
And we put a belt on it, put a water pump on it.
It's still on the original turbo.
Did a carbon clean on it.
Crazy.
It runs as hard as my car with that many months.
Doesn't use any oil.
Look at, look at Mike's car.
Yeah, my buddy Mike has over 250,000 miles on it.
He literally goes and like checks the belt with his fingers a couple of times.
And he's like, this fucking, I'm just, I'm keep, I'm just going to keep running it.
It's 2016, right?
And just daily drives it.
Every day.
Does basic maintenance.
Doesn't do anything crazy.
He literally changes the oil.
That's it.
That's, I don't work on many of them.
Like I think I see two and we change oil and brakes.
So I didn't realize you were talking to me in the car when, when you said there was
like a gen one and a gen two.
I didn't realize that the next few years actually had.
So yeah, 16 to 18 is the one jam, which is the CZT.
There's also the, I think it's a CNLA code maybe.
I don't remember.
Okay.
And that might be a three liter diesel.
But that came, I actually thought it was when he said that that came in the hybrid
Jettis.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So that was, that was how we first got the one force.
I forgot about that.
That's like 2012, 13 is like that.
I mean, in reality, I think you can use those because I think Dave, Dave's test
stand motor, TDC is a, is a hybrid engine.
No shit.
He repinned it to, to just put a CZT harness on it and it runs.
Right.
So you could use it, but there's a lot of stuff.
It's the amount of stuff you'd have to change to make it work with a swap would,
you should just buy a CZT at that.
But yeah, then 19 to, I guess 22 right before they switched to the one five.
That's a, that's another generation.
There's two, there's two vins of that one engine codes of that one.
I don't remember what they are up hand.
And, and we're all in cahoots that the one five sucks.
The one five shit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, cause they haven't, they were like, this motor was so good.
They're like, we can't have this.
Yeah.
That's out of tune.
This is so good.
Let's fix it.
Kind of like the two fives, two fires.
Like, oh, this is great.
Let's get rid of it.
What, what do we, like, what do people, what should people be thinking as far as
transmissions go?
Anything for cylinder bell housing.
O2A, O2J, O2O, I mean, O2O, I think torque would kill an O2O fast.
Right.
You could use an O2M out of a, like a 20th or something like that.
Any of the four cylinder bell housing stuff bolts up.
Okay.
I'm going to put an O2S six speed from a 2019 in mind.
That's awesome.
So it's basically like, it's O2AJ architecture, but it's six speed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the 20th's were six speed.
Yeah, but they had the O2M that big ass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This looks like an O2A with the six speed.
Looks like a 12 valve VR six trans, but it's a six speed.
Right.
That's, yeah, that's crazy.
That's awesome.
What are you going to put a 1.4 in?
I've got a 76 Scirocco I picked up.
I'm putting one in.
Nice.
In fact, the mounts were made using that car for the Mark I anyway.
Downpipes made for it.
It's got, it's a 76.
It's from the Northeast.
So I have plenty of work ahead of me.
There's more metal in the engine bay than there is in the rest of the car.
Someone up, obviously, you know, back in the day,
putting sunroofs in them was the thing to do.
Dude.
So I was lucky enough to find a top clean top for it.
Oh, okay.
I got Billy and Chase hooked you up with that, right?
Billy took care of me on that for sure.
Yeah.
Why was that such a thing with the Scirocco specifically?
I don't know.
Like, is that?
Sports car man got to have a sunroof.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but you do see them quite often.
Uh-huh.
It's terrible.
It's wild.
It's almost not terrible.
Like it, it's annoying, but yeah, it does.
But what I'm saying is like, it's almost period correct.
Like you see it and you're like, yeah, well,
they just did this all the time for these fucking cars.
And I feel like I've seen quite a few more with sliding rags.
That, yeah.
Like I think Mark James has one with a sliding rag top.
No.
Yeah.
I don't think so.
Like he's got a green one.
Yeah, it's green, but he doesn't.
Oh, he doesn't have a sliding rag.
I know Tim passes.
Tim did, yeah.
And I know there's another one.
Yeah.
I thought it was Mark's car, but I guess I'm wrong.
I don't think so.
But uh, yeah, those two, right?
Like that was, that was the thing.
Which are cool.
I like the sliding rags.
I, yeah.
Sliding leak.
That's what it is.
But ironically, the Beatles didn't leak.
I don't know how they did that.
Carved the roof and then they tried to put them
on a flat roof and they all did.
It didn't work.
Exactly.
That's true.
You don't put on a wedge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so do you guys want to talk at all about any new things
that might be on the horizon?
She's saying no.
I'm trying to bring Daniel in on some of these conversations.
Do you want to talk about, how about the car that you guys got?
Oh, yeah.
The memory from Florida?
Yeah.
That was basically, she's had a lot of crap cars
and some rusty Mark threes.
Are you a Mark three gal?
I started in the Mark three world.
But I originally came in with, into the Volkswagen scene
was with my older brother being into air cooled.
And then he was always like daily driving a Mark one, Mark two.
And I always thought that those were much cooler
than air cooled stuff.
So I was like the younger generation of them.
And like when they were just starting to take off of,
and he did a lot of cool shit.
And he had a couple of businesses and stuff
through his years, but I started with my own car
being a Mark three.
And before I even own the car had wheels suspension
already set and go.
So the day I got the car was like, all right,
this is great.
A couple of weeks later, a neighbor backed into my Mark three.
And I was like, all right, time for a golf front end of my Jetta.
So like my brother was like, kind of aimed me like,
he was like read vortex just for some fun
to get some ideas of stuff.
And that's a great brother.
Yeah, it kind of took off from there.
But I've always wanted to get another Mark three.
But as we know, they're all rusted out.
So a hundred percent.
Not a hundred, but about 98 percent.
Almost a hundred, except for we have a jazz blue
that's about 98 percent.
We'll be thanks to Errol will have a maybe a fresher shell
for a fresher shell for that coming up here.
But that's not even supposed to be like a real project.
So right.
That's why I bought a whole nother shell.
Dude, Errol has been I've been following him
like with his yellow car.
And for some reason, like, I don't know.
It's not good for me.
Like, I'm like, I'm starting to look at fucking Mark threes.
Just like, you know, yeah, just I can use a VR Mark three,
fucking beat on one.
But like we said, so many of them are pieces of shit.
And it's like the whole like, I really want to go back
and relive like the late 90s, early 2000s.
Like Jim was saying, like small wheel.
Like, I know it's like not on my watch.
I know it's not a thing anymore.
But that's not a fan.
But I love them.
I just love that style.
I like that whole I think Mark threes just fit it.
Now, if we're going to build like a Mark one, like you can do
a Mark one, Mark two, you can put big wheels,
you can stay in style with it.
But I feel like the Mark threes, there's not enough of them
around to have like a new school style.
But you're nuts.
I'm going to have one of each of them.
So we're going to have one that's going to be big wheels.
We got the Alterman wheels, which I'm like my first
big girl wheel three piece.
So excited.
Let's talk about that car a little bit.
So that was I bought it from Clay Dean.
Clay had it down there for a couple of years.
He put it together.
And we had been going back and forth a little bit about it.
And I've been looking on the look for a clean Mark three
for her because she had bought a GTI and it was like,
had all the cool Euro parts.
And I reached up onto the skirt and I was like,
there's no car under this.
Right.
So that's a skirt that promptly went away.
Yeah.
And then I had started talking to Clay about it.
He had posted it for sale and I was like, yo, I'll take it.
And we went back and forth a bit and I sent him a deposit.
And then about three days later, he texts me and goes,
hey, man, so how upset would you be if I sent your deposit back?
And I was like, dude.
So he sent my deposit back with a little more because he felt bad.
So he's like, go out to dinner.
And that didn't make up for the mark three.
So a few months went by and he sends me another picture
like him driving the car.
And I'm like, oh, man, this doesn't make it any easier
to not want it.
He's like, well, he's like, I got a mini truck.
He needs some money.
He's like, I think I'm ready to let it go.
OK.
So I was like, all right, let's do this.
I was like, I'm going to go to bank now.
And why are you the money before you change your mind?
Right.
So that all went down.
And then we went through the whole logistics
of getting it up here.
He found a good transport to bring it up here.
It would like two days before Christmas, it showed up.
Meanwhile, I didn't know that there was no idea that he I was
at the end of the story was we gave his money back.
We I wasn't getting this car.
Oh, so you knew the first time.
I knew the first time I was going to be buying it.
And did you know that that car existed before?
I knew about the car.
And I had seen pictures of it from Helen, I guess it was.
Yeah.
He had it.
I think that's the only place he took it was Helen.
And maybe you're a tripper wants it.
And it's one of those like, oh, that's beautiful.
That's not something I would ever own.
So then when it came for sale, he was like, this is the one.
If you're going to own a Mark III, again, this is it.
OK.
So excitement.
I'm like, I'm not getting excited.
Got excited.
Then got heartbroken that it was out of my hands.
He wasn't selling it.
I was like, I don't get it.
I don't.
So yeah, it ended up being, it was
supposed to come down on a Saturday.
And the shipper goes, hey, man, I'm
going to be at your shop in like two hours.
Mind you, I'm up here.
So this is about an hour and a half ride from my shop.
And I'm like, you want to take a ride with me?
And I'm in between shops at the point.
Oh, shit.
So the car hadn't made it there yet.
I went and dropped her off at my old shop.
And then went to my new shop and met the guy.
And me and my buddy Anthony unloaded it
and put it in the back room and all that.
And then it was a Christmas surprise the day
after Christmas.
That's awesome.
Because it was like nothing in that new shop yet, really.
There's a few things.
It was empty, like some stuff from the old tenants.
But there's a 30 by 50 back storage garage there.
And there was nothing back there.
So it was just chilling back there.
Right.
I remember the picture of the car just
being in there with the cover on it.
Yeah, I think there was like that in a kitchen table
back there at the time.
So you came in and was it covered?
It was covered.
He on Christmas Day gave me the key.
I gave her a key.
And it was like a blank key.
And I was like, I don't know what this is.
I was like, well, what does this key do?
I was like, what are we doing with this key?
It doesn't even look like it.
I don't even think it was a Volkswagen key.
It was a Seat key.
It was like that.
I got it from Tony Sal and had it.
And he's like, here, I got a spare key.
That's cool.
But when we went there, I was expecting
like a project or a shell or something.
He was like, it's a car.
I got you.
And I was like, all right.
So we go there.
And just for that car to show up, I'm like,
this doesn't exist here.
This exists in Florida.
So it was pretty cool.
I was absolutely shocked.
It was pretty amazing.
The car's very good, very rust free.
And it's got some touch up stuff that I need to do paint wise.
Dave's going to take care of its law
in the next couple of months.
Got you.
And needed a bunch of mechanical stuff.
Like the heater core is bad, which
doesn't matter when you live in Florida.
Right.
Just a lot of maintenance.
The car's got like 223,000 on it.
But you'd never know.
There's not a speck of rust under this thing.
So it needs some cleanup and some change up and stuff
like that.
But it's a solid car.
It'll be around this year.
Mulberry.
No, memory.
Right, right, right.
And like, is that super rare?
96 only.
96 only.
OK.
Mark III nerdy shit.
Yeah.
Mark III had so many good colors.
They did.
They did.
I wish we had all those colors back for any of the cars
that we have now.
No.
You get silver, gray, black, white.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Occasionally you get a maroon.
So when you like, what's the plan with that car?
And I mean, I know you guys got the ultimate wheels, right?
So like, and when I saw them done, I was like, oh, shit.
Yeah, we got color matched AM301s for it.
I think that looks fantastic.
There's 17, 17.8 all the way around.
Jason did a killer job on them.
I said in the gas door he color matched the wheels to them.
It's there.
They're amazing.
I honestly, as I said, they're like my first big girl
three piece wheel.
I'm, I start again, I'm with like 15s.
I started with 13s.
I have like, you know, ATS cups, classics.
She had a couple of rabbits too.
You remember Asher's Balli green rabbit?
Rally green.
Not rally.
Bolly.
Lofton.
Lofton, you're right.
So that was hers.
That was my car for a long time.
We did a bunch of work on that.
I didn't realize that was yours.
Yeah, I ended up selling that to Asher because of like,
you know, like my, I have a kid.
I was like sending them to school.
I was like, hey, I need to make some life choices here.
Really sad that I let that go and didn't finish it.
Because I had one jet has now.
I know.
I had the suspension.
I know.
I trust you.
I know.
Yes.
I had all those things like.
It's in that void.
Yeah.
It's like the one that got away.
I really shouldn't have sold that.
You know, it's taking care of, but you're never going to own it.
And all the cars that got away go to jet.
He's always in the right place at the right time.
Always man.
That's crazy.
There was like a little piece of, um, on the back,
we fixed some rust.
My, my older brother had fixed the rust on the back.
So like the rear corner, lower corner,
was fixed and the, right before Escher bought it,
we, um, you know, had quick, quick paint to touch it up.
It was the wrong color.
It came in with rally instead of loft and green.
So like the corner was bad.
So I don't even know.
I hoping that he's fixed it at this point.
I'm sure he has.
But I, um, but I remember like Escher was just,
I'm like, he needs to fix the paint.
Like I could just get new paint form.
I didn't have a chance to fix that.
But we had put all new like brake lines and everything in it.
And really it was ready to go.
I could have just driven it at that point.
And I am sad.
I had the suspension.
I had the wheels.
It was ready.
It needed a fender because there's a little rust there.
But yeah, the plan with the memory is just like right now
it's going to stay two liter.
Yeah.
I mean, you know me, it's not going to stay two liter.
I love the two liter,
but I think I'm being outvoted on this one.
Yeah, I have a 20 valve VR five swap sitting there
that I think is going to go in it.
Okay.
I bought from Chris Corwin when he was,
when he was closing up core works.
I got a deal on that.
Gotcha.
Jack, Jack Dean brought it down for me.
Is that a high mileage, mileage engine?
It's a little higher mileage.
I'm going to go through it all and make sure it's good.
I had Connor bring me over a full gasket kit one year.
Okay.
Yep.
I remember that.
Yep.
Yep.
So, yeah, that's the plan for water bridging.
Some air ride, you know, stuff.
Oh yeah.
You need, you need it.
Like with those wheels and shit like that's the package.
It's just going to look really tight.
What's the interior on that?
It's got, it's got party seats.
Okay.
But he had, Riccardo is redone with party centers.
Gotcha.
So that's what's in it.
Yeah.
So pretty standard stuff there.
Nice.
Good.
So do we...
Jazz blue.
Oh, so yeah.
And you guys...
So we've got a deal on a jazz blue.
Again, it's a piece of shit.
It really is.
There's nothing...
So people probably remember it from, from Vortex days.
It was Paul Harley's car.
He had a ton of, a ton of Vortex names.
Gnarly T-Rex, Kroskies Road, Louis Rekhantz.
He also had the flat red.
Probably people probably remember the flat red.
Oh, I definitely remember that car.
Yeah.
I had that car as well.
I bought from him.
He caught a man.
Didn't you have that like in the back of a truck or something?
I caught it up in pieces and scrapped it.
Yeah.
Dude, that car was one of those cars.
For me, like it was just a, it was like a neck breaker.
It was like, it's just, it was different.
Flat red.
Flat red.
Gloss, black.
Yep.
Porsche seven slots.
And it just looks so fucking good.
Yeah.
He had caught a manhole cover in, in a Berlin, a town by us.
And it caught the subframe and pushed the subframe back in it.
And blew the bags and all that stuff.
And he had parked it for a while.
And we were talking a time.
I mean, it was around the time Harry Rose Koop was coming together.
That was one of the first cars I ever had a part in that ended up in BBW.
But he was like, I think I'm ready to sell it.
And I bought it off him.
And I went to go.
I was like, all right, cool.
I'll get it.
And I'll take it.
And I was my buddy Joe Valenti, the body shop.
He was working at the head of frame machine.
I was like, can I bring this up there?
You guys pull it.
He's like, yeah.
And they get it up on the machine.
He's like, buddy, this thing's so crusty.
We can't even put the legs on it to pull it.
Oh, man.
So I brought it back to the house and just fired a new subframe in it.
And the car actually drove really good.
Really?
The only way to tell was the passenger side wheel was pushed back in the wheel
with like three quarters of an inch.
That was the only tell that it was screwed up.
Right.
And I drove it like that for a while.
And I was going to sell it.
I tried selling it.
Nobody wanted to buy it.
And then somebody was finally going to buy it.
And I was driving it.
And it started doing weird because it was a 95.
OK.
So it's open E1.
It started doing weird 95 GTI electrical shit.
OK.
And that is what brought the Sawzall on.
So it got parted out.
Sawzall surgeon.
That's right.
It got parted out.
The engine ended up in Audi Mike's white coupe.
OK.
Yeah.
The Euro bumpers and stuff are on Tony Sal's wife's Rachel's
Ginster, which was actually my brother's car at one point.
OK.
So yeah, it did a lot of good.
Fixed a lot of cars.
Yeah.
But yeah, that was the end for that car.
But then Paul, it ended up with that jazz.
Yeah.
So he drove that for a while.
That ended up with the same gloss black seven slots on.
And he parked that around for a few years.
Had a respray on it.
Right.
And then he sold it to another buddy of ours, Mark.
And Mark drove it for a little while.
And then it ate the water pump or something.
And Mark parked it.
Got you.
And I had just reconnected with Mark probably a year or so ago.
And he goes, you know, anybody wants a jazz blue?
I'm like, do I?
Take me.
Say less.
What do you want?
What do you want for?
He's like, I don't know.
Come look at it.
So I went and look at it.
And it was it.
It's sad.
Yeah.
And I mean, I was like, all right.
So I was like, what do you want for?
He's like, I want $3,500.
I was like, cool, man.
That's for somebody else.
See you later.
And he got back in my truck.
And I went up to him.
I was like, I will give you.
I think I offered him $1,200 for this car.
And he's like, I can't do 12.
I was like, well, when you can do 12,
you know what my number is.
So I left and he taxed me up the road.
And he goes, you do 15.
And I didn't answer him.
And then about a week later, he goes, listen, something
came up.
I need the money.
And I won't tell you what I paid for it,
but it was less than my initial offer.
So we went and picked it up.
I towed it back to the shop.
And I cut the cert belt off it, put a fuel pump in it,
and drove it off my trailer.
And it's like a pretty strong engine, isn't it?
It's a very fresh 12 valve.
It's got Shrik 268s in it.
Oh, nice.
The chains are fresh.
So it's a very good running engine.
No brakes.
No, I found out.
I did a pretty lengthy burnout in it
and figured out it didn't have any brakes.
I had one working real wheel.
So that was almost the beginning and the end of that car.
In the same stint.
This is to the 360.
But it's very, very, very rusty.
It's like, of course, behind the pinch well.
Like if you just look at the side of it, it looks fine.
But behind the pinch well, there's nothing.
So you're ready to take Aero's car and just swap all the shit
over?
Yeah, Aero's car is substantially better than that one.
It's got some crunch.
The pinch welds are a little bent and stuff.
But overall, it's pretty straight.
But compared to the car I have, it's brand new.
Yeah, right.
So and the intention is not for this to be anything really
special.
I want to, again, I want to do like an old school.
Her first Volkswagen was supposed to be a jazz blue.
And she went and looked at it and figured out it was a flood
car.
Found out it was a flood car because it had a different radio.
Mind you, this was in like 99.
Yeah, it was in 99.
So the car was two years old at that point.
And they were like, whatever.
So I didn't get that one.
It was always the one that got the one again that got away.
I couldn't never got it.
So I really want to just do the build
that I had originally thought of years ago to do.
Do some texture.
She's going to be able to do it in a sense.
Yeah.
I mean, they came from the factory at Ross anyway.
I can't let it go all the way to 1990 style.
But it's going to end up, it'll get a respray.
I just want to be able to drive it to like, you know,
whatever, to go drive it around.
And it's not the memory because I'm already
afraid to drive it because I'm afraid it's going to be.
She's afraid she's going to hurt it.
I'm afraid it's going to hurt it.
So if I want to go to the store or something,
I want to be able to have something to whip around in.
So it's just going to be something fun that's to drive.
The two-liter memory, afraid to hurt that one.
But we're going to whip around in this fall valve.
There's a red fox walking back there.
Do you see it?
Oh, yeah, see the fox.
That's a pretty big fox.
We do have a lot of deer.
Be careful, Daniel.
No, I know.
I must try them.
We're good.
Yeah, I think this should be fine.
Your slairs are not here.
Neither slayer is here.
So yeah, so you guys, are you a jazz blue person?
No, I know there's a jazz blue curse.
I know that there has been years ago,
every jazz blue had hit the deer.
Speaking of deer, my friend Rich Uncommon on Vortex,
he used to, Rich Hefner, we used to call him the deer slayer
actually back in the day.
His jazz blue, I think that every panel on that car
was like a deer had rolled down from the front
around each side of it.
So I mean, I know it showed up at a couple of water
fests with band-aids and floaties on them.
I don't even know how it was still around.
Marker that says deer, and a little arrow.
That was always the GTI.
I feel like a lot of people, when they thought about GTI VR6,
that was the color you thought about, was a jazz blue.
My buddy Anthony is like, I want a jazz blue.
And I told him I bought that replacement shell.
And he's like, oh, that means the other one's for sale?
And I'm like, no, that's going to be the parts car.
You don't want that one.
You don't want it.
I was trying to, for as cheap as he had bought it for,
again, I was just going to make something
that was a fun drive around.
Now this is getting a little bit more serious.
Well, the car we bought has been sitting since 2014.
So it needs all the rubber replaced, like hoses,
brakes, all that stuff.
So this will give us a car to make into a really good driver.
I'm going to spray it, obviously,
because Errol took some of the body parts.
The body parts I have, we know, aren't going to match.
So it's not going to be a showstopper paint job,
but it'll be a solid driver paint job.
And just the fresh and clean up the 12-valve,
put that back in, cleaned up interior, coils, wheels,
just the standard stuff.
So she can just have something that's,
she's not scared to drive in here.
What do you want, wheel-wise?
Wheel-wise, I want to go small, but I know that that's not
Do you have a specific wheel in mind?
We can compromise on a 16.
OK, we're going to go with 16s.
So I am not a BBS fan.
OK, so 16-inch RS is a bit.
So I know that that's a.
I have a set.
Anything that's flat-faced is OK.
Any flat-faced, I love.
She's a very turbo-wheel-person.
Got ya.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Nothing exciting.
Yeah, no, like you said, a runner.
You want to get out there.
You want to drive.
It's just like your Mark II, Matt.
There's no concrete plans for the car,
but there's like a loose, a loose.
I really would just like to get the memory out.
And, and, you know, take it out to some shows.
I want to be able to drive it and, you know,
just have a good time with it,
whether or not we pull the engine this year or next year.
It won't be out this year.
It'll be out as a two-liter this year.
OK, got ya.
The only way I'd.
The only way I'd stay two-liters
if I ended up with that, that per-charger kit.
Tony, Tony, Tony, yeah.
Oh, yeah, that'd be awesome.
We could get if we get a little more real
on the price, Tony, if you're listening.
I'd be interested for a while.
I guess, yeah, I'll give it a good home.
I swear.
Someone was talking about ProCharger kit for Mark III,
or, you know, SuperCharger kit.
I wish you had one for an APS.
I know it was the one for sale and, like,
it's just been hanging out there for the right buyer.
I mean, you're not going to find another one.
No.
Yeah, that was a CFI kit.
Yeah.
There was, what, three of those?
Yeah.
Because I think they came out with a kit
and because that's got a ProCharger.
Vortec was supposed to come out with a kit at the same time.
I think CFI beat him too and Vortec never came out
because they watched the CFI kits bomb.
Right.
So it's a really cool.
I mean, I'm not expecting it to make huge power,
but just I can dig a slightly nostalgic engine.
Oh, absolutely.
Especially how it moves to a new speed kit.
I mean, you're not going to see me putting
CIS engines back in anything, but I can do a cool part it up
two liter.
Yeah.
Do you want to talk any about that little score
that you had on Marketplace recently?
Or is it just a story?
Maybe a little contention.
You motherfucker!
Good, right?
You tell the story.
No, I don't feel.
You tell the story.
It's in your garage, buddy.
Wasn't looking for it.
Come across it just probably just like you did.
A Kame kit that, you know, it's brand new in the box.
Basically just didn't have the box.
Yeah.
Good price.
It was a great price.
It was a great price.
Talked to my wife.
I'm like, this would look really good on my rabbit.
Yeah.
She goes, we'll get it.
So gave the guy a deposit.
And I think the next day you sent me a message.
Yeah.
A messenger saying I like to sleep on it.
So what happened was I basically I said, let me get back
to you tomorrow.
I I'm I'm definitely interested.
I don't know why I said that.
I just did.
I didn't think it was going to be boom gone.
And it's the kit that you never see for a long time.
I can't find a picture online of it.
Jim, no shit.
I've been fucking looking all over since because when that
popped up, you know, you started thinking of like just how
good it will look on your car.
You started thinking of like other things you could do your
car to like, you know, match it on that kit and everything
else.
I was so excited.
I get up there.
I literally came in from my garage.
I think I was like, I think I cut some kindling wood for the
fire was really cold because it's been like zero fucking
degrees out.
So I I pick up my phone to say, you know what, dude?
I want it, right?
And he and it it's one of those things where it was the
notification popped up sold and I go, nah, I can't be sold.
So I messaged him and I said, dude, is this actually sold?
And he's like, yeah, he's like, you were you were just too late.
And he said, he goes, do you know Jim Burl who I was like,
so I texted him like, dude, are you really taking this?
Do you really want this?
I was still in disbelief and yeah, yeah.
So no, it was just one of those things.
Hey, it is what it is.
But that that that is a cool kit for sure.
You have a mark one right now that you guys did you guys work
on it and it was like an ALH in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And you've had for a while.
Yeah, I've had it for a while.
It's been a slow project.
But yeah, it's coming to fruition now.
Yeah.
Thanks to Matt and his shop getting wired cruise control AC.
Yeah, I gotta have everything.
Driving these things like old guys now.
No, it is really nice when you come from a long time of building
stuff more for looks.
We talked about this when we were driving to like, it looks really cool.
But man, sometimes they really drive like shit.
Yeah.
And then you get in one like you were saying that you you put together
to drive it and it's like you fall in love with the cars all over again.
Yeah.
And when you find yourself actually driving, I was talking to Errol about this
yesterday, I think.
And he's like, dude, I think I'm done with just stupid, stanced out,
like just dumb shit.
And because he's driving his mark three around.
And it's got like a chunky T three, seven set up.
That's a really cool looking car.
Last to drive.
Absolutely.
He said he's he's driving it.
And it's one of those things where like now you want to go downstairs
and take that mark two out of percent.
We'll hop in it and go drive it wherever, whenever for an hour.
And it's it's comfortable.
It's not loud inside.
It cruises on the highway.
Amazing.
Like modern engines, like I understand they're kind of ugly.
Yeah.
But if you want to drive your shit, do it.
That is the beef that I have with obviously the the one four.
One four is ugly.
I'm not going to lie.
It's stupid looking.
It is.
The plastic intake manifold looks like shit.
It does.
Like all the the spark plug wiring, all that stuff is kind of mad.
Yeah.
But it's just, I mean, it's it's all those engines.
Like you can think like it kind of started in mark four era, like one
eighties, one eighties are kind of fucking ugly.
Yeah, they are.
But you put a bunch of plastic engine covers on them and they look OK.
Yeah, VR is like 24 valve VR's.
It's like, oh, man, let me hide all this shit.
Yeah.
Just clip the engine cover.
Yeah.
Like that's where that all started.
And I understand it's more function over form type of thing.
Sure.
It happened that way.
But yeah, modern engines are fucking ugly.
Yeah, they are.
But you know, it's like which bean are you putting in the the weighted thing here?
So it's like, yeah, I I don't know.
It's I'm kind of sold on the fact that at least if it's not, if it's not your
show car or whatever, it's it's a car where, hey, can you find a clean shell
somewhere? Can you find a clean car?
Stick a one for and that.
And, you know, it really makes me think about about the mark two.
That's partly why I know to make.
You don't think I fucking know you're like he's coming around the corner here.
He goes, so you still got that mark, too?
And I was like, yeah, what are you thinking of doing with that?
I'm like, well, now I'm thinking of a couple different things.
Funny you asked me to see that.
But that car is one of those one of those like old lady cars.
She didn't really know she had that car is really freaking cool.
No.
But what I'm saying is like, it almost does match up with that idea because
you can go down a couple of different ways of that car.
You can do like a supercharged 12 valve that that would be sick.
But then you need to paint it.
Right. And you know what I'm saying?
You could rock it the way it is and just literally drive the thing
because it still is really, really good look the way it is.
Absolutely. Or you can do something like that
and then literally drive across a fucking country if you want it.
And that's what's appealing about these things.
That's what I wanted to do with this one.
Like I plan on if I can get some things worked out,
I'm going to drive that car to hell in this year.
I would love to see you down there just driving it down.
That's that's so cool.
But you guys, the the mark three, like when you bring that out,
what's the what's the first?
Do you have an idea?
I'm waiting for Dave to finish some stuff up now.
And then it's going to him.
And then it's back to me for the mechanical stuff.
Like I need some break stuff going through.
And the suspension needs to be sorted out.
But that's that's the last of the big stuff on it.
I went through.
We refoned the whole heater box and all that because the heater core is bad.
So I got a new heater core, I got a new evaporator, all that stuff.
So all that will work.
Went through the interior, cleaned up all the stereo wiring,
fixed a bunch of stuff that was all the broken plastic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All the mark three stuff that was doing mark three stuff.
Right, right.
So it'll be out probably.
I think like cold classic time.
OK, you have it out.
And and Jim, with your with your rabbit or like when you guys are done
with that, like is the plan to paint that car or are you keeping it?
Yeah, I'm going to paint it, but it's not going to be this over the top.
Yeah, because it looks like you guys are talking about much like you guys are
talking about, I want to drive it. Yeah.
You know, I mean, that's that's the intention is to drive it.
Yeah. But my wife also has a project.
Oh, OK. When we got together, yeah, he was driving a duster.
The six front wheel drive duster.
Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that.
And Mopar ears pop up.
So we we probably got her into a 94 GLX.
Nice. Oh, cool.
She learned how to drive a stick on that.
Yeah. And promptly beat the living hell out of that.
OK. And it took everything she threw at it.
Yeah. She's karate shifting this thing.
You know, all about Mark Threes, man.
Yeah. So.
But anyway, it's in paint jail right now.
Oh, really? But soon enough,
maybe probably not this year, probably the following year to be out.
What what color was it originally?
What is it? It's a red.
But it's flash red. It's flash red.
Are you doing red again?
Or do you know? OK, I didn't know
if you want to talk about it or not.
So OK. Yeah.
So we're just keeping it naturally aspirated.
Three six. Oh, we're going.
Keeping AC, hopefully keeping cruise control.
He's looking at that for a confirmation.
That's a real big ideas, buddy.
Yeah, I'm not one to AC is a flex.
AC is a flex for me.
Cruise control to personally, it's a personal thing.
I don't give a shit.
I don't use it in my normal cars.
I just drive the car.
It's just never how I drove.
I like about the cruise control with the swaps is sometimes
these pedals get in a little wonky spot.
OK. You know what I mean?
Like Mark, four pedals and Mark threes and twos.
Sometimes if they're not mounted 100 percent.
Oh, I got what you're saying.
You get like ankle fatigue, like an hour in the driving.
Gotcha. And my car is running as a right hand drive.
And it's got a right hand drive, Mark, seven GTI hang pedal in it.
And it's not in a bad position, but you can probably get two hours
in it before you really start feeling it.
Yeah, I'm going to drive it all the way to hell and it's got to have crews.
Gotcha, sounds.
Yeah, so I kind of have it worked out.
I just have to buy the stuff and put some things together
and it should be good from there. Gotcha.
Well, that should be fun. Yeah.
Yeah, it'll be a good time.
It's like the bay is really nice.
Bay is already done. OK.
It's not it's not complete shaved, but it looks really good.
And it was Mark three. It was rusty.
Yeah, it was 94.
So early car. Yeah.
And this is to the idea of a three six.
Was it always a three six in your mind?
Or did this just like pop up recently?
It's going to be a turbo 12 valve. Yes.
Because you had bought like that clutch master's twin.
Yes. Yeah.
Trying to build race cars for your wife on the street.
She said she wanted to go fast. So yeah.
So we're going to do it when this you know,
sound like the Salvation Army man.
Listen, she was what's the 12 valve make?
One sixty one seventy two one seventy two.
So she's going to go from one seventy two at almost three hundred.
Three hundred wheels.
She has no idea how fast it's going to be.
That's going to be nice.
And I think it's going to be very drivable, too, though.
Hundred percent, you know.
Yeah, that tune.
That's another retrochronic tune that's super dialed.
That's not that swap that came out of that dude's carado.
That was just for sale.
Well, I bought this car.
Robbie's car. Yeah. No, I wired Robbie's car.
OK. Yeah, I knew you touched that one, too.
No, I had bought a I bought a Passat three six from Tito.
Both the audits man earlier. Yes.
And I was going to use it for something
and I don't remember why I sold it.
But Jim ended up buying it off of me.
And that's because he talked me off the cliff of the 12 valve turbo.
So you're really going to put that dinosaur back in there.
It's funny, man.
You've dealt with like a lot of this stuff and some people.
I mean, the 12 valves, the sounds, the nostalgia of the 12 valve.
It's so. But and then you have like a different way of looking at things, too.
You know, yeah, I don't hate on the 12 valve.
No, I understand. Yeah.
It's just it's funny to break people's balls. Sure.
Yeah, 12 valves.
Like that thing sucks.
That's weird, Matt.
That's weird.
They're just coming from chain noise.
Yeah.
I never knew of you to be like that.
The thing for me was like I said it before,
like when I first did the one for swap, it's.
We don't evolve with these cars if we keep just doing the same things over.
Yeah. You know, I mean, the swaps never get any better.
The cars don't get any different.
It's like, oh, cool.
Look, another mark three with a 12 valve shaped bay.
Right. Like I understand the new stuff doesn't look good.
And like we were just talking about that, but it's it's different.
It's cool. It works.
And it's a step forward in like look at Honda stuff.
Like, dudes, what a case series come out in like, oh, three.
Yeah.
These are putting them in EG's and oh, four.
Right. You're right.
Right. 2026.
And now there's fucking people finally on the boat for the one for it.
Like the motor came out.
When did the first hybrid come out?
2013, 12. Yeah.
And then it was a standalone in 2016.
So 10 years it took us to get that thing working correctly.
That's an interesting way to look at that.
Yeah. I'm just going to put an ABA in it.
Right. Like I get it.
It's not it's it's.
Fuck ABAs.
No, don't fuck ABAs.
They're they're fantastic.
I've never well, they are very, they're very good for what they are.
I've just never wanted to swap one into anything because it's like,
it's like, I'm going from a slow motor to a slow motor.
No, I don't want to do that.
But I've lost my train of thought.
Sorry.
No, you say we're moving forward and, you know,
you're talking about the Honda's guys and then what we're doing.
Oh, yeah.
Taking 10 years to have that motor swap
actually be able to go into vehicles, as opposed to what you said.
Like those those swaps for hunters going in right year after a year
after that motor was new dudes were swapping them.
Yeah. It's like the Pacific Type R's came out.
The newest one with the turbo motor.
Yeah. As soon as somebody crashed one of those, it was in something else.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
Like and it takes us like years.
I don't know what the what that.
See, I kind of see it a little bit different because like when you go back
to say just that same time frame 2000, 2001, the 180 came out.
But people started fucking with the 180 Frank had a 180
in his rabbit. Yeah.
Super fast. Yeah.
That was like a 30,000 mile engine.
Right. And but it was just a year or two later where like you did start
seeing that being used as an application.
But it was like that was the only engine people did.
Right. You didn't see people doing like 24 valve swaps took so long
to become viable and use.
And it was literally it took as much work to do one of those.
It probably took less work to do one of those and it didn't want to take.
Right.
And I mean, I'm probably a little jaded by at all
because I've done so much and do so much of it and like I I can look at it
and know it fits together without having to do a bunch of internet research on it.
But I look at that stuff and I'm like, this is so easy.
Like I've done 12 to 24 valve swaps in a day.
Yeah. Like on mark threes. Yeah.
So it's and I I'm but that's that's what I did.
You're right. Right.
But it's done in many of them.
The first one you do and you're like this shit is it's like just
replacing the engine with a little wiring.
And that's kind of what got me in a whole wiring thing.
It was like, there was nobody really doing it when I started doing the harness stuff.
Like when I started doing it, I was like, I primarily did ABAs and 12 valves
because that's what everybody was doing at the time when I got into it.
And that's and then we found the internet and I started doing like
Bastos's car was the first R 32 I did.
And I did that in 20.
20, 14, so 12 years ago for that one.
But it had been done before that.
But what are your thoughts about non Volkswagen engines and Volkswagen cars?
I mean, I have a Honda K 20 sitting in storage.
That was the original plan for my Montana with the 3.2 in it was to take that out
and do a K series in it.
And then I looked into they have an adapter plate to put a DSG in the K
because I'm a huge, huge DSG fan.
But I don't know what I'm going to do with that car now.
The last the last idea that state is doing Mark 7 GTI drivetrain in it.
OK.
And my name dropped you for a non Volkswagen motor for Volkswagen.
I have not answered that the M yet.
I saw it the other day.
Fair enough. Yes.
Because I figured you would probably be a good candidate for that kind of swap.
I mean, I talked about it with him.
Yeah, we had talked about this a few times.
Do that swap.
What are your thoughts about Volkswagen engines in other cars?
Like, you know, VR sixes in fucking Hondas or back of Integers.
Yeah.
You know, or isn't there an S 10 with like a big turbo?
MMI concepts.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
It was MMI. I forgot about that.
Yeah, that truck's cool.
I think it. Yeah.
The VR thing like really seemed to carry far for like another thing, too.
It's like that motor's so old now and you see guys like the rear wheel drive
conversions are finally like kind of prevalent for them.
Like you see a bunch of like there's some drift cars with them.
Yeah. Like there's S 14s with a minute.
Right. Right. Like that.
I dig it. Yeah. Yeah.
Like when people put them in like B five S fours and shit.
I feel like you're VRed out.
I am. OK.
Like I'm a I'm a VR guy.
I've always been a guy, but I just got I got tired of it.
Like I did a lot of you just want to do some new and different.
Do you have any ambition to try to grab yourself a two five turbo?
Oh, a D.D.K.A. Yeah.
I don't know. Yeah.
Maybe if I mean, if I can get one for a real price and not these inflated internet prices,
I'm not having seven thousand dollars for one of these.
I thought you were going to say 15 K because I've seen crazy.
Oh, yeah.
I've seen you didn't get it here.
So it's like it sucks to get to figure out how to source one.
Yeah. I mean, you can buy it from HPA for three times the price they bought it for.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's it's wild.
But you like.
I don't even two five turbo.
Well, like, what would you put that in?
What would you want that to be?
I think it's good.
I'm not saying a two five V or six.
I'm saying like a five cylinder.
Um, I think it's good.
Mark two, Mark three motor.
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Those motors, I don't know.
Like they're cool.
I dig them.
They're still ugly motors, too.
Yeah, but I they and like there's they're really cool.
They make a lot of good power, but there's a lot of I think they carry
so much hype because they're so fucking cheap.
Like you go in the two five groups and these dudes are over there jerking off
about which engines have the forge fucking crank.
Right.
And they're they're talking about this stuff for cars that they either
don't have or never going to run.
But you're worried about like none of these dudes.
I don't think I'll ever make enough power to break a cast crank.
Right. But they're worried about a forge crank.
It's like that stuff.
It's just it's how the Internet goes.
People get one thing with the Internet.
So I got to have this.
I got to have this.
You don't even have the car.
Put it in.
Right.
Why are you chasing a forge crank?
Yeah, that's kind of coming back to the basics.
Any of these would make enough power to need a forge crank would be fucking
scared of the car.
Right.
If you look at like the ABA stuff with the you know, the early
opening one stuff compared to open two, that's another.
Yeah.
Right.
Jerking off of a forge cranks.
Right.
There's just a name of the episode.
They've evolved from the ABA stuff to the two five stuff.
You're just still jerking off.
New day ABA.
We're talking about the stuff for like dudes with street cars.
So you know what I mean?
Like racing situation and racing application.
Sure.
Yeah.
But you're taking it for ice cream, bro.
Yeah.
You have a you have a an ABA with a kinetic stage three kid on it and
you're worried about a forged or cast crank.
If the thing makes two hundred and fifty wheel, you'll be lucky.
Sure.
Your cast crank isn't even going to sweat.
This is the mat we all know.
And I'm sure there's there's plenty of other arguments to go against my
arguments and that's fine.
This is just my opinion on it all.
But yeah, people get so hung up on the small details.
And this is another reason why I think some cars never really come to fruition.
Well, you you you're a diesel guy too, though.
Right.
I would consider you a diesel guy.
Like you like diesels.
Yeah.
Like unofficially.
Yeah.
I've I've done probably as many like diesels to guy swaps, but I've done VR swaps.
Right.
Yeah.
A lot of ALA swaps and like I love diesels, man.
I just think they're neat.
I don't know the common real Cub van was super fucking short.
Yeah.
Something that hadn't been done at the time.
Yeah.
That was I don't think that'll ever be done again.
Yeah.
The guy that owns it now is probably the best guy to own it.
Yeah.
So I'm surprised not white yet.
Yeah, me too.
He said he was going to wrap it white.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
When I talked to him last night, that does actually make a lot of sense.
There was that.
I've done a bunch of BEW swaps and just I yeah, I like the diesel.
So I like the modern diesels.
I don't give a shit about a one six diesel.
Yeah.
Like any other stuff.
Oh, yeah.
No, I understand that.
Just use that as a doorstop or something.
Yeah, they're cool until they don't work anymore.
And then just swap it.
Yeah, you know, yeah.
Like one nine, like ALHs and rabbits and stuff are really fucking cool.
They just they just work.
Agreed.
Like it's like an ABA and a rabbit.
It just fucking works.
Yeah.
And it sounds so cool.
Yep.
Um, let's talk about some, let's talk about the future of anybody.
Um, if anyone has anything to bring up, you know, what do we, what are we doing?
Like what's, what's going on?
Are there any ideas floating around?
Are there any business ventures?
What do we got?
What do you got?
I'll just wait.
So Danielle and I are spending some time bringing rabbit parts back to life.
Okay.
Um, a lot of us know rabbit parts.
And I don't know, like in 2003 is when I started it.
So prevalent.
Yeah.
So it started back in the day.
Um, there has been some ups and downs with it, put more time into it and not, um, I
was actually just telling Danny, like, uh, what, one of the big things that I think
I'm going to keep going forward with is, um, bringing in some of the small people
that, um, vendors that are making one off things.
I'd like to be like, uh, um, I don't know a house for them, basically.
So we're going to start selling all of Jim's mounts and kits and stuff like that
on the website.
Okay.
So yeah, that's your home for Jim stuff.
I want to hear all this.
So Jim is making kits.
He's going to be putting together.
You guys will house that.
Yeah.
Ham and I have done a lot of stuff together.
Obviously.
Yes.
He's made a lot of stuff fit where it shouldn't.
And we've got a lot of mounts designed for that.
Sure.
Like, so there's Mark one, two, three, drive by wire, pedal brackets.
He makes all those.
Um, there's a Mark two, three, two, five swap kit.
It involves cutting your frame rail, but you get to retain stock axles,
stuff like that.
Um, one, four mounts, obviously for Mark one, two, and three.
We, he has all those.
Um, what else you got?
Uh, I think that's about it.
I'm going to have some other small things like the block off play for the one
four in accord to make air to air.
Um, I think that's how we first, the first thing you had me fabricate was you
like, make me a pedal adapter.
You handed me a pedal.
I gave you a pedal box and a pedal and said, make this work.
Yes.
Okay.
I was like, I was like the first dash and welding these things.
So I was getting under people's dashes and welding the brackets on the
pedal boxes.
I'm like, I'm going to prove it a word of the ground.
So he was the, he made, I think with the first bolt in solution for Mark four
pedals and two and three.
Um, he's working on a redesign one we were talking about now for Mark ones to
make a more stable and give you a little more room instead of a single bolt.
Cause there's a ton of flex in them.
You press on the gas pedal, a little pedal moves.
You watch the firewall move.
So yeah, Danielle's rabbit parts are going to be a home for to be able to get
all that stuff.
So there's a, there's a new website that'll be, that's in the works right now.
Um, it'll be more than just rabbit parts.
It won't be more than just mark one stuff.
We'll have a couple, go to a couple of the, um, mark two threes.
Maybe, um, I don't know about Mark fours.
We'll say, um, but, uh, the lost child mark for, yeah, it just doesn't know
where to go, but there's a, so there's some exciting stuff that we, uh, we were
able to get in some inventory.
Um, that'll be exciting for Mark one stuff.
Um, we are still digging through some of that.
So we don't have a lot of details on that, but it is something that will be
ton of, ton of maintenance parts, seals, bumper, like rubber bumpers, hood guide,
stuff like that.
Sure.
Yeah.
A lot of maintenance stuff that is necessary.
Um, um, yeah, think of whatever in piping and the stuff that you need when
you don't think you need it, right?
It's all that little stupid stuff that you look for when you're putting
something back there, like after paint, like, yes, like, um, the little rubber
tubes that go between your hats for running wiring and mark ones.
Like we have a thousand of those, like little rubber hood bumper guides that
go on the top of the fenders, probably have 5,000 of those.
Like there's just stuff literally that wasn't, that's not going to be available
from a lot of places, obviously with everyone cutting back on parts and
manufacturers, they're discontinuing all of the stuff that we want for any of
our mark ones, you know, they're just all, you know, there was a time when
Volkswagen was literally burning Mark one stuff.
Um, in there from the warehouses, they were just like, Oh, we're done with this.
We don't sell this anymore.
So it was like, you know, as soon as I back in the day when I saw that, I used
to work across from the, um, from the Volkswagen warehouse and, um, they used
to, they, one guy that worked there was like, Hey, we just burnt all of these
things, all old kits.
They just took them out of inventory and just destroyed it all.
They didn't realize this was like kind of when the time when, when like us as
enthusiasts were just really starting to get out and starting to have a lot of
shows and Volkswagen didn't see it.
Like they didn't see, I don't think they saw this coming.
Um, they really got rid of a lot of stuff.
So there's been a lot of stuff through the years that we've, um, had that I've
had made and, um, you know, the individual pieces.
Now a lot of people are like 3D printing what they need.
But, um, trying to make this as easy as possible.
And there's a lot of stuff that's going to now be in the inventory that sure you
could buy it from Europe or Germany, but by the time you get done with the
importing fees and the taxes and the tariffs, you're going to be spending $20
on a $2 piece.
I just bought a box from heritage and it was, I don't know, 16 by eight.
I think I paid $240 on customs in a,
dude, I know it's the same in a $380 order.
Yeah, crazy.
I know you really, really need the shit now.
Like if you need it, like, okay, I guess I'm going to fucking, you know,
swallow this.
I mean, sometimes you got it.
You got to buck up and just do it.
Yeah, but no, that's great that you guys have an option for some of this stuff
here.
And like you said, I mean, I guess you have to go through a lot of stuff to
kind of see a lot of stuff that goes around.
Right.
So a lot of individual pieces too, that are just some stuff that's coming up cool.
I know Matt's been putting up a few of the things on Instagram of that were, um,
yeah, I just put out that one, six turbo diesel head the other day for sale.
There's stuff like that.
I have a hair on hat.
I'm going to be posting.
Oh, really?
Oh, that's cool.
There's, um, we had a Shorako, um, uh, fenders and yeah, S one fenders and core
support early, early stuff, all OE stuff.
That was really nice.
They got, they got home to good people.
Yeah.
So, you know, I'm really just trying to find the right, the right people for the
right parts, so to speak, if I have no someone that's building something or is
looking for it, we can try to get it to the right place.
That's kind of why I picked up this inventory.
You know, it's kind of sitting in storage for a really long time and I wanted
to make sure that it got to the, to the right homes and gets used.
It's not doing us any good for people that are hoarding the stuff or holding
on to stuff that's not, you know, we're having a tough time finding.
You know, it's crazy.
Um, I was talking to Scott Norton, not too long ago, because he just got, uh, an
E 30 M three, right?
And he's talking about, you can go online.
You can buy all that stuff from BMW dude.
You can buy all that stuff from BMW.
You can have a, and I asked him, I said, what about like a 2002, right?
You can, and I'm not talking the year 2002, like a 76 2002, you can go on.
You're missing this little tiny part.
Here it comes straight from BMW.
All Japanese cars too.
Exactly.
And like, what the fuck was Volkswagen thinking?
It's like, they really did literally buy everything.
Just about everything new.
If you're putting your skyline back together, yes, it's wild.
Yeah.
I mean, you're going to pay for it, but at the same time, but the people that
want to do it, they're willing to, and they're like, they're at that point
where they want to, you know what I mean?
Like as long as it's available, you know, they're, they're at a certain age
where like they have the funds to do so.
You know what I'm saying?
So I wonder if Volkswagen realizes, realizes this or like even
all right, so when you had the fires in California and that one bus
caught fire on one side, and it was a crazy bus.
Yeah.
So like the blue one, the one bus was like mouth a little bit on one side,
but the other driver side was kind of okay.
Yeah.
And then Volkswagen saw that this happened and went to want taking this
and the guys working on it, you know, the parts weren't there.
Like did it light bulb click and Volkswagen say, Hey, there's a marker
for this because people want to rebuild these cars.
I don't think Volkswagen pays attention.
No, I don't think so.
I mean, it's, it, it, it's shitty as it is to say, like it really seems
like the writing's on the wall for that company in the States.
Yes.
Unfortunately, what do we got?
The, the buzz was a fucking flop.
That thing, that thing sucked.
It created literally no buzz.
No buzz.
Zero buzz.
No, it created all the buzz and then it came out.
It was, was buzz.
Yeah, it's a popcorn fart.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's exactly what it was.
But like they're an SUV company now.
Yes.
100%.
There's no, what do we not do?
We're not making the golf anymore.
The fucking water cooled car that put them on the map.
They're not making it anymore.
I know.
You can get GTIs.
You can't get golfs.
I know.
Yeah.
What do we got?
We got Teo's, Atlas's, Tiguan's, Jettus and GTIs and ours for how much longer?
I would assume it would like, they'd even cut out the GTI at some point or cut out
the R and just have, I would think they cut out the GTI, honestly, because they
have the R and then it's just like, if you want something, this is it.
It's automatic.
There's no manual anymore.
There's no nothing like that.
But do you guys think they even could like repop this shit if they wanted to?
I don't know.
Like, I don't know enough.
I would think some of it.
Do you?
A lot of the molds though, they, they kind of sold out a lot of the molds for a
lot of the old stuff.
Like for example, rabbit tail lights, rabbit tail lights, they are, um, they've
been discontinued for forever.
And then we used to get them in Mexico and literally the guys broke the mold.
So you'll see like there's a change where rabbit tail lights used to have
black lines through the, through the things.
They broke the mold and they can't put the black line back into, to separate all
of your different signals for the rear tail lights.
So you see the newer ones that don't have it.
Those are all the new pops from Mexico, but they're just, they just blew out these
molds.
I mean, we had this set that came in with the horde of parts.
It looked like somebody made these things out of fucking clay.
They were so bad.
I took them out of the box and threw them right in the dumpster.
Nobody gets these.
I don't even want to look at it.
It looked like, dude, Matt's dumpster is constantly full of dumpster diving.
I've seen so many videos of Matt fucking throwing shit out in the trash.
Yeah, there was a pretty, there was a pretty good video there for a while.
Oh yeah, we know, but uh, that's how me and Errol became friends.
But yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's crazy.
And then like, so I started, this company was started with just sheet metal.
I mean, it was really supposed to just be with helping out people that were
auto crossing and you need, you know, need a new fender.
You need this.
It was supposed to just be like cheap things for fixing these cars.
Um, and I kept my prices really, really low just so that it was like accessible
for someone who went out, you know, twice a month and kind of banged up their car.
Right.
Um, but even those molds, like the offenders just became like, just don't
fit quite right.
There's too many gaps.
The things that it really was just the molds just got overused and wore out.
Yeah.
They wore out.
They were misshaping all the pieces.
So, um, a lot of that stuff is kind of gone.
And now that we can, we have the technology and the, you know,
connections to be able to make a lot of these different pieces.
It just gets price prohibitive.
Like I can't sell, you know, a clip that's going to be a 35 cents to sell it,
but it's cost me $5,000 to make them.
Like there's not that many, there's not enough rabbits on the road to be
putting out the money for, I mean, we're stupidly doing it.
They're not on the road because that wasn't available to like almost, you know,
I'm saying, cause dude, there were a lot of fucking rabbits.
And when, when you talk like the Beatles, you know,
there were millions and millions of Beatles built and there, you can,
you can build that car from the ground up.
You could buy it new at this point.
You could buy exactly.
And even buses.
Yep.
The every panel, everything is available through somebody.
So yeah, maybe it'll come with time and that'll happen with rabbits.
I don't know.
Like rabbits don't, they all have that following.
I don't know if they have as big of a cult falling like,
no, they don't like buses.
No, they don't, no.
But yeah, because that was truly an iconic shift.
Sure.
And, you know, when that came out, that was also the time period of which it came
out and the hippie movement and all that stuff.
It was, it was just so, such a huge thing.
I mean, millions.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it was just fun because it was light and you could make it go quick for very
cheap and that's where the excitement came from.
It was a, was that you could make a fun, cheap car to just, it was, you know,
it is the people's car.
So to speak, you know, it was, it was for, yeah, it was, it was just fun.
Yeah.
Very little money to put into it.
So that's changed.
So when we talk about, you know, moving forward, is this something that people
should just kind of like, you guys are working on stuff.
Yeah.
And you got to think this is like her third job is doing that.
So it's, when she finds some time, stuff goes on the site and stuff gets
updated and stuff like that.
And I, I don't get into that end of it.
She doesn't want me in that end of it, which is fine.
So I mean, so a lot of the, a lot of the, the single parts will show up on
my Instagram for sale and stuff like that, but.
We'll have a bigger, we'll have a bigger presentation once the new website gets up.
And then we've got, as I said, we'll have a couple of separate sections on
there for some exciting stuff.
And we'll carry a couple of people's, um, we do forever panels that my brother
makes.
He started that with Miata's.
Um, and then because I was selling the, um, Volkswagen stuff, he makes them, you
know, specifically every time you want them for your, uh, Mark ones.
Yeah.
Um, we'll, so we'll keep going with, with that stuff and we'll try to find, you
know, just things that'll make it easier for us to keep restoring these cars.
Um, and try to collect as much so that we can get them out to the right people.
Um, so you should just keep an eye out.
We'll keep the site up and we'll.
Matt'll be selling some of the things that aren't necessarily Mark ones for me.
And yeah, some of the stuff that won't end up on the side, because it's just
like an individual piece and I'm not going to put up their quantity of one.
So yeah.
Well, that's, that's awesome.
I mean, I guess where, where should people look for that?
Um, right now you can go to rabbitparts.com.
Um, you can also check out, um, rabbit parts on Instagram, Eurocraft, um,
I think there's Eurocraft parts.
Yeah.
There's a Eurocraft parts page I put up.
I really haven't done much with it, but that's kind of more of a, like a used,
like I'm, I have a ton of stuff on my own, not including the stuff we just bought
that I was going to start going through and putting on that.
So I'm probably in the spring time when my storage garage is an iced shut.
Go get some of that out and start listing it.
And I don't have, um, thousands and thousands of parts in the way, in the
way, if anyone has a Chiraco that needs door panels, door skins, door skins.
I happen to have a few handfuls.
Well, maybe we'll get some calls after this.
Um, so yeah.
And what I did want to also hit up before we kind of, I don't know if you guys
want to talk about anything else, but before we start shutting down here, we're
already at an hour 42 and I can't hit two hours because it turns into two episodes.
Yeah.
I mean, we can fucking do a far too, but yeah, for sure.
We'll turn it to the course during our episode.
But, um, yeah, but Zorning metalwork.
So we're stirring football.
So it's, um, you make other parts too.
Like, or just cool stuff for like decor and everything.
We didn't talk about a lot of signs and stuff.
Again, just CNC machine.
You know, I can make a really cool sign.
Let me write.
And then I bought a stud welder, put studs on it.
So now you have layered signs.
Yeah.
A lot of the older guys will be able to make the correlation with him.
He was racecraft fabrication back in the day.
There we go.
He made short runners, fuel rails, turbo manifolds, all that stuff for 16 valves,
eight valves, all that stuff.
That was, that was his thing.
It was one of my main things.
I got burnt out on it, but yeah, yeah, but, uh, the signs.
Yeah, I could still do them for sure.
I'm going to answer the phone, but I'm going to make it a science thing.
It's actually very rewarding.
Yeah.
And I've done some commercial signs also that turned out really well.
Well, you're really good at it.
The signs are great.
Thank you.
The stuff that we see and you do.
I bought, yeah.
I bought some of my family.
And Eagle's piece from you?
Yeah.
I bought an Eagle's trophy.
Yeah.
A Super Bowl trophy.
So when I, when I finish our new studio down in my house, um, I do want you to do
like a people's car one.
And then, you know, we'll figure out, yeah, we'll figure out something about
maybe like a backlit thing.
So there are different layers and we've been talking about a bunch.
Yeah.
That stuff just looks so, so good.
But, uh, it looks sharp too.
Cause the symbol you had was really cool.
Yeah.
So, uh, if someone wants something, are you, are you the kind of like, do people
reach out and say, Hey, can you do this for me?
Or D?
Okay.
Sure.
You can do it.
I have an Instagram page just for Zornig Meadoworks.
Yep.
You reach out to me there.
What is, what is Zornig?
What is that?
Angry.
It actually means angry in German.
Does it?
Yeah.
No shit.
That was his vortex named Zornig VW.
I just never knew where that came from.
I never asked you.
And I was in the drag racing back then.
Right.
So Zornig is an angry Volkswagen.
That's awesome.
So it makes sense.
Yeah.
That's very cool.
Um, does anyone else have anything else?
We'll see the questions for the next episode.
Oh, we have questions.
Let's go on to them real quick.
Yes, we do.
That's what we got.
Thanks, Danny.
I forgot about that.
Dude, we might have like 40 questions.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
Well, maybe there was a part two for questions.
Honestly, I don't know.
Uh, let's see.
Yeah, we have a few.
All right.
Get some of them.
Um, let's see here.
Okay.
O.G. Mark one madness says, uh, what would your retirement
car be like a car that you just want to cruise around when old?
Matt already has his electric wheelchair because I'm not going
to be walking by then.
I have my old man car.
It's a 2014 Passat.
That's great.
What about you guys?
Oh man, I love RS six.
Oh yeah.
That's a good one.
Um, Danny, he's still trying to put a G 60 in a rabbit trot.
It needs place to put his wheelchair.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
Man, I don't know.
He also asks if you guys could eat one nationality of food.
What, for the rest of your life, which one would that be?
Mexican.
That dude, that's tough for the rest of your life.
Mexican.
I love Mexican, but like, could you eat that forever?
Could you imagine the shits for the rest of your life?
This isn't like food chocolate on the side of the street.
Those are the best kind.
It would have to be Mexican or Italian for me.
I would say Italian.
I mean, you can get so, so much.
I mean, I'm a huge chicken parm fan.
So right.
Americana for me.
Yeah, I do.
I love Americana too, but almost Italian is like because there is
such a vast, so many different things.
I don't know.
What about you?
Mediterranean.
Yeah.
I'm a big Mediterranean fan.
Yeah.
I love, I love it all.
Also, I'm going back to the old person's car.
Yeah.
Cadillac CTSV wagon.
Oh yeah.
You touched on that last time.
That's a good one.
What about you, Ryan?
That is good.
And with the new balances too, because I'll be old.
Yeah.
You get gifted.
And George, George's a new balance.
The exact tune in Carbrader's.
2019 L5B.
That's what I want.
You're stuck on that.
Denali.
Yeah, I'm going to get one.
Why a 19?
Because they, the 17s or 19s, they're the best looking one.
They still had the L5P and it's not a 10 speed that had all the problems.
It's still LMN after that, right?
It's still L5P.
Oh, it is L5P now?
It went back to it.
So no, 17 through 26 is still L5P.
Okay.
LML was right before.
I'm not up on my astusias.
So a 15 and six, 15 and 16 was LML.
Or even before that.
Um, I'm a six and a row guy.
Yeah, I know you are.
I would like that too.
I would like that too.
I agree with that.
Um, Daniel, what's your, what's your old person car?
She put the mic down.
She's done.
She's got to take a nap now.
She's stressed.
No, it's all over.
You can wipe the sweat off your brow.
Yeah, memory red.
No, you did good.
That was awesome.
OG Marco Manas also says, I did.
Come on.
I search slow down with the questions.
Oh, no, he says I did.
Okay.
Okay, we're good.
Um, Wolfsburg says, why is it so cold?
And why is it still cold?
Dude, Jamie would know he's in the coldest area.
There is fucking ridiculous.
Um, rough rabbit 78 says, hold on.
I have to hit more because there's too many.
Oh, do you think open air imports will make it easier now
to import, uh, hard to find tire sizes?
Probably not.
Probably not.
It's the rain and parts parts.
Yeah, it's not what it tires.
Now, yeah, because now they're going to offer parts open air.
Oh, are they parts?
Yeah, they start doing your reports.
Yeah.
So like probably like, I'm assuming they're going to do, um, container full.
So like, yeah, maybe it's ready to go.
You know, I mean, people just got to order it at that point, right?
Yeah.
And again, there's going to be that out of tariff shit and all that stuff.
Right.
Frosty beads says you guys going to be a bear season opener on April 26th in
Montgomery, New York.
I'd like to hit that up.
Me too.
I want to hit up anything.
I'm so sick and tired.
Dude, I am like Kevin fever.
Yeah, I'm in it.
That I almost want to sell the two last cars that I had.
I'm just like, I'm fucking over it.
Sounds the fuck and then when it gets warm, I'm like, fuck, and we got nothing
to drive home with Danielle and I were depressing hard the other week
and we're going to go to Euro tripper, but we waited too long and flights were.
I know, I know, but it is like that is a game changer.
You get down there.
Oh, yeah, I think, I think Paul, he put up a live today.
He said it was like 75 degrees.
I know it's like, yeah.
Once you get off the plane, the sun hits you.
It's like a, you're like a new person and you can smell like the greens and stuff.
You can smell the trees.
You know, it just smells like cold here.
It does.
It smells like a nasal infection.
It's just freezing in those.
Seriously, poor bastard.
Love it and Dubman says favorite new period, correct build, or does everyone
just want to do modern, reliable swaps?
Can I watch it because that's what this was all about?
Yeah, it's funny.
Um, favorite new period, correct build.
I don't even know what's out there right now.
What's happening?
That's new.
That's, I don't know if I go on Instagram enough anymore to name any.
Hmm.
I honestly can't think of one right now.
I'm stuck.
Can you, Danny?
I'm newer, pure, correct bill.
That's tough.
Um, you see, it's like, cause like you do see the
trend of a lot more stuff going back towards period, correct?
Like you were saying, like you want to do like a nineties thing and you do see a
lot of, uh, uh, but I mean, the parts, the prices for parts are through the roof
or anything, anything that's period, correct for mark ones, mark twos, mark
threes, even mark four stuff now, which yeah, before it wasn't too bad, but now
even that stuff is hard to find.
And like, even for me, for B five and a half, uh, parts to try to find like
Votex parts for like my car, I have a Votex front bumper.
Um, we got 10 minutes and like find side skirts or rear eight before wagon.
It's like, yeah, let's go fuck myself.
German bomber says stair climb Supro.
Where is that interview?
We talked about this years ago that like, we're going to try to find this
super guy and put him on the podcast interview.
I'm not, did the, just be like, what were you thinking?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I was showing off, man.
I ran out of talent.
What do you think?
That's exactly.
German bomber also says junk family or daily.
Here we go.
Uh, 18 Audi TT and EOS or a Porsche nine, four, four.
Can I junk them all?
Danny 18 Audi TT EOS or nine, four, four, nine, four, four.
Fuck.
Yeah, I'm talking to EOS.
Me too.
I don't want to have like rain inside the car, even when the tops up.
Yes.
Yeah.
Family would, well, family, I mean, there's nothing family.
Yeah.
There's, you're just crunching everybody into maybe, maybe if you
don't have any kids, I think I'm daily in the Audi.
I would daily the attitude because the old wheel drive.
Yeah.
That would make the most sense.
Nine for four, be your weekend car.
Um, it's a very poor lineup.
I think that was very promising poverty lineup.
Flat six turbo GT one says, I'm on, let me hit more.
This is annoying.
Um, you're each, okay.
You're each a, oh, this is fucking crazy.
You're each a product manager at Volkswagen for 2027.
What is each of your ideal product lineups?
Let's SUVs.
Yeah.
Toot or to door, to door manual.
Yes.
Something with a two door manual.
Five, five cylinder turbo to five, I think six turbo.
The problem with that stuff, like I understand, like in a perfect
world, all that would work.
I think that's what he's saying.
Like perfect world.
It's like, oh, no, I know no one's buying regulations and stuff.
Like I know all that stuff.
Like in my perfect world, bring in diesel's back, bring in TDI's back.
Absolutely.
100% move that is new to do the V8 Torregg TDI.
The V8 that they have over in, in Germany.
That's serious.
That thing's fucking awesome.
Yeah.
Like with an M rock, if they could somehow figure out how to bring
diesel back, I almost feel like it would, it would virtually save that company.
Dude, because they have it all over the world, except here.
And we're still doing diesel's every other manufacturer.
We are doing, we're doing three liter diesels and stuff.
It's like they stopped doing them.
So maybe there are Macs and everything, yeah, basically.
Humble CL or SLC says, what better sort, what, what's better?
Sourcing all the fun parts for a build or the actual build process itself?
I think, I mean, it's both.
I think it's just the hardest part of the process.
It is, but when you do like source something like, you know, maybe
an awesome fucking body kit and you get that.
It's just like, it's so awesome, you know.
Probably the build for me.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, Volkswagen years podcast, new podcast that's out there.
Yeah, man.
What non-U.S. market Vdub, uh, do you really want to get your hands on new or old?
Catty Vans.
They were cool.
Yeah.
Um, I think transporters.
I love transporter.
A TDI six speed transporter are amazing.
Uh, I like, um, like R 36.
Yes.
Yes.
Wagens or, um, the, um, the R 50 tour eggs.
Yeah.
Those were super fucking cool.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Those are like the white bodies and stuff.
Or no, they were, uh, they were V10 TDIs, but they were like R line.
Yeah, they were like breaks.
Yeah.
They were badass.
Um, something subtle.
Um, how's the bull bar process coming?
Right now it's not, there's nothing coming right now.
There's nothing happening.
It's so fucking cold.
There's nothing going on.
Yeah.
My car's buried under a foot and a half of snow.
Uh, Vdub man 91 says, hope you're both warm.
Um, paying Pennsylvania is, uh, we're off this winter.
You know, spring is coming soon.
Yes.
You're going to say something?
No, it's Neil.
Oh, um, enter site rabbit says, are you sick of the snow and cold weather yet?
Blah, blah, blah.
Yep.
We're sick and tired of this shit.
GLH Troy says, uh, what do you guys do when you lose the passion slash dry for a
project or car you own?
Knowing that, you know, if you do sell it, you will definitely regret it.
Ryan sells everything and has no, just fucking sell it.
Dude, just sell it.
I just sell it or part it out.
Like if it's a running driving car that I really like, I part it out because I
don't want to see anybody else driving the car I built.
Hey, there you go.
Yeah, that's the same thing.
Yeah, just sell that shit, dude.
And if you want something else, just build something new.
You'll, it'll be exciting.
Yeah.
I got to learn to like not have like, uh, attachments and stuff as much.
Kevin had a really nice Helios that I'm glad I didn't part out and sold it.
Yeah.
And it went to a good room.
There's that too.
Um, Kevin Brandon Jr. says, uh, what are your opinions on respraying a mark one,
a non OEM color?
If it's your car, you're built.
Absolutely.
Depends on the color.
It does.
There's some of those colors that just really don't lend to old cars.
You're, you're a hundred percent right.
It's like painting and painting a mark one or mark two, like mark seven,
cornflower, like I can't, I agree.
It does not work at all.
It looks like shit.
It does.
It does, but it makes it somehow cheaper.
But if it's your, yeah, I mean, if it's your car, paint it whatever fucking
color you want, but I don't think there's a lot of colors that just don't lend to
the body lines of, don't paint it for somebody else, paint it for you.
That's, that's very true.
But I do think like they, ironically, like the grayscale does really work well.
It does.
I'm like, on, you know, mark ones and stuff.
Um, yeah, we have too many questions and we do have to wrap up.
I'm just going to ask like two more and then we'll hit more later on.
Um, let's see.
Uh, Mark two, Jetta Koop says 16s or 17s on a mark two.
16s or 17s all day on a mark.
We go round table, 16s or 17s, 16s, 16s, 17s.
15s.
She's like 14s.
Yeah, I'd say 16s.
I mean, if you really want to drive the car, 16s, if you're kind of doing
something more flashy, a 17 for sure, all my stuff has had 17s.
We're keeping the stock 15s on her GLX.
Nice.
With, with chunky tires.
Yeah.
All right, guys, I think we got to end this one.
Um, thank you guys.
Uh, we appreciate it.
Let's just do a round table real quick.
What should people be looking for if they need to contact you guys?
Uh, you can check us out, uh, rabbitparts.com, uh, Eurocraft, um,
Instagram and Eurocraft parts, Instagram and Zornig metalworks on Instagram.
Nice.
Guys, I appreciate this.
Uh, it was fun.
Um, I'm glad we came down here in negative 15 degree weather and we have to go
two hours north to go back home.
I really enjoyed all that, but, uh, no, this was a good time and we will
catch you next time.
Right.
Peace.
About this episode
Ryan and Danny are joined by guests Matt from Eurocraft, Jim from Zorning Metalworks, and Danielle from Rabbit Parts for a lively discussion in Flemington, New Jersey. They share stories about winter driving challenges, including frozen vehicles and brake issues, while reminiscing about past inspection experiences. The conversation also delves into Matt's journey from working in motorcycle shops to starting his own automotive business, highlighting the ups and downs of running a shop from home. The camaraderie and shared experiences create an engaging atmosphere for listeners.
ABA engine
beater
DPF
DSG
engine swap
front wheel drive
fuel injection
Holly two barrel
intake manifold
Kawasaki
Acura CL
Audi RS 3
Audi TT RS
BMW 3 Series
BMW M3
Cadillac CTS-V
Dacia Duster
Honda Civic
Jaguar Mark I
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Nissan Skyline
Toyota Supra
Toyota Tundra
Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Eos
Volkswagen Golf
Volkswagen Jetta
Volkswagen Passat
Volkswagen Rabbit
Volkswagen Scirocco
Volkswagen Tiguan
Volkswagen Touareg
Original notes
We had the chance to sit down with Matt, Danielle, and Jim to talk cars, swaps, business, parts and more...Check it!
The People's Car
Ryan Beilman
0:00
118:46