COOL WITHOUT TRYING – Custom VW Utility

If you were at the recent Hot Rod & Street Machine Spectacular you may have seen this wildly modified VW utility on my photography stand.

I was fortunate enough to be given the keys to the ride from the dudes at Ktec Autohaus, the WA-based Porsche Specialists, and I have been cruising around for the last few weeks in it.

Driving the car, well, that it’s an experience to say the least. Ducking down to see out of the windshield; reaching out the windows for the external handles to open the doors, the smell of raw fuel, the bumps and scrapes, the random noises, the lack of speedo and a whole heap of other random crap have made the car so much fun to drive!

Call me crazy, but the issues seemed to add to the appeal of the matte black machine. It is an old car and drives horribly, but it’s so different to my average Falcon road car, that I was practically busting to get behind the wheel. The unique and raw feel of the car is why I wanted to keep driving it and why it is was so pleasurable for me. I don’t like normal or basic stuff, that just isn’t me.

People look at it and stare. They cant’t quite figure it out. I had one guy come up at the servo, as I was filling the jerry can fuel tank and say “I don’t know much about cars mate but I know what cool is, and this is it.” It is that sort of appeal that you want in your car. Both young and old were perplexed by it. Driving down the freeway, people were watching the front guards and nose bounce and looked almost shocked that the car was on the road.

Even my niece Willow thinks the car is super-cool and I trust her opinion on all things, she has good taste, especially in pizza – she is against pineapple full-stop. When I quizzed her a bit more about the car, she remarked about the rough paint scheme and the angled wheels and why they were pretty neat. Even though it was an ‘old banger’ she still liked it and wished it was mine to keep.

My nephew Braxton; a genuine rev head, lost his mind when he saw the car parked up on the side of the road when I got him from school the other week. We had to go for a drive of course and he loved the loud exhaust note. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to call the car a VW or a rat rod. He ended up telling me it was both as he downed his chocolate milkshake at the traffic lights on the way home.