Hope for a Karmann Ghia?

When I think of underrated cars, in addition to my beloved early Volvos, the Karmann Ghia comes to mind. Surely the stock performance is a yawner, but the lines, presented well are argueably gorgeous. By the early 70s they had front discs and independent suspension. With a low CG, methinks that they're a motor swap and some suspension tweaking away from being a legitimate retro-performance car. I'm not speaking of the crass drop-a-v8-in-it approach, but more along the lines of a normally aspirated Subaru or rotary. Comparable weight, with 150 HP or so. Combine that with robust sway bars, a suspension rebuild, good shocks and wider rubber (esp at the rears) and voila!

My friend the internet says that this has been done before, but I've never seen such in person, and the VW crowd seems a subspecies apart from the vintage community.

Any thoughts?

I've wondered about this as well---except I've got the hots for TIIIs. There's plenty of hop-up parts.

Although I've seen plenty of pictures of them racing back in the day, there sure isn't a lot of them running in modern vintage racing. Too low brow?

The convertibles are highly valued. There is not much about them here but they are a respected member of the community. Ron

A reliable TIII making 165 HP (What a stock Subbie 2.5 makes) would be pretty pricey, but I do like the idea of sticking with period pieces for sure.

Too low brow? Like that's a bad thing?

They raced those? Didn't know that, but I would guess you could buy something more suitable to race in Germany for similar money back then. At least in Germany, these were pretty expensive cars.

One of these with an N/A 13B would be cool, but I'd be concerned about fitting a radiator without ruining the lines.

Of course the other alternative would be to at least double the value of the car by sticking an appropriate 356 engine and box in there. Probably would want to grab the brakes of that 356, too.

A Subie swap would seem the best bang-for-the-buck/"Grassroots" approach.

Ideally, though, I'd want an AC Porsche flat-6 back there.

It would seem to me(not really overwhelmed by the design) that time and money would be better spent on improving an already good(proformance/handling) car to make it even better.

Leo

Well my comment about Lowbrow wasn't entirely in jest. I find a PV544 or Ghia more interesting for the same reason that I built a Lotus 7 repica rather than a Cobra.

I think they're definately under rated. Potentially every bit as good a performing car as a Porsche 356 or 912 with a few tweeks, even if they'll never have the same collector value.

Seen at the Duryea Hillclimb a few years ago (below).

I like the original Type 14 classic style. There is also a newer, Type 34 KG, but they look too futzy to me.

The Type 34 is also much rarer and much harder to get parts for.

20 years ago a nicely put together K-G used to bracket race in SC with a highly tweaked Corvair turbo engine.... sounded pretty awesome, too!

But you can get so much cheap hp these days with a VW engine I think I'd go that route... get something punched out to 2L+... something like the guys are running in all those Beck Spyder cars...

Many years ago, we had a local guy with a 911 swap in his. It was a very nice and very quick car. They really are a great looking car with nice proportions, especially with the original bumper config and not the later battering rams.

I'd take one!

Boy this one is purdy (on the outside anyway). As a kid I never had any use for vdubs - thought of them as a coarse hippie car. Now I'm kinda smitten (esp w Ghias). This one is a ways from my house. I wonder what sort of HP this setup would likely make?

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cto/2612882781.html

Aaaargh, the car's near Lake Tahoe, that's too close for comfort.

I'd guesstimate about 80bhp on that engine, but I might be way off.