At $7,500, Would You Let Your Freak Flag Fly With This Custom 2003 VW Beetle Three-Wheeler?
The most amazing thing about today’s Nice Price or No Dice custom VW trike is the seller’s claim of having put 10K on it in its present, Frankensteinian state. Let’s see if this very personal automotive statement can still find broad appeal at its current price.
“Fluctuat nec mergitur” is the Latin-language motto of Paris, France, long appearing on the city’s coat of arms. Loosely translated, it means to be tossed about by waves but ultimately not sunk. In boxing parlance, it’s akin to being “down but not out.”
In looking at the images in the ad for last Friday’s 2014 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO GSR, we could imagine it having a similar apothegm as it was kind of beat up, but seemingly still raring for action. Unfortunately, that spunky can-do appearance seemingly didn’t equate to the car’s $23,900 asking price. Not even a new clutch and a clean title could sway the majority of you in its favor, sending the EVO down in an 83 percent No Dice loss.
Ok, let’s start out today with a fair warning. The 2003 Volkswagen Beetle trike you see before you may make you call into question your eyesight and perhaps even the sanity of the world in which we live. Yep, it’s just that far out there. Now that we’ve made the lawyers happy, let’s dig into this demented piece of auto(motive)-erotica.
The vehicle apparently started out life as a 2003 Volkswagen New Beetle with a 90 horsepower TDI engine and a five-speed stick. What happened after that inauspicious beginning is, of course, anybody’s guess. I’m guessing it involved something along the lines of getting totaled after an accident at some point in its career, and then reconstituted into its present form. The result has been the creation of what you see standing before you, a mad mash-up of disparate makes and marques, all thrown together to create what the seller says is “our own version of the Sling Shot.”
Now, the Polaris Slingshot is a real vehicle made by a real company. Even with those bona fides, the Slingshot remains pretty crazy. This homage takes that crazy and turns it up to eleven and then flips that eleven on its side so it becomes an equals sign. Do you know what it equals? Yep, crazy.
Let’s take a look at the car from nose to skeletal tail and see what all we can identify. The nose is not Beetle but Ford’s Aston Martin-aping Fusion and if that’s not crazy enough it’s only half-painted and is a full clamshell. That makes it look like it’s eager to swallow street waifs whole. Underneath that is the Volkswagen’s unit-body frame and the Beetle’s front bumper surrounding the 1.9 liter TDI. The stock intercooler placement in front of the right-side wheel arch looks especially precarious in this instance.
Behind that is the Beetle cabin but that has been accentuated by cut-down windowless doors and a T-Top roof off of a Z31 300ZX. A high-mounted brake-and-bed light from a pickup truck has been craftily molded into the roof behind that. The back end is totally tubular and offers the mount for the swing-arm-suspended single rear wheel. Unlike the Polaris trike, this custom-built is FWD so that the rear wheel’s only purpose is to keep the back end of the car from sparking up the pavement.
Is that enough crazy for you? I hope not because I’ve saved the worst, er… best for last. Tesla has gotten a lot of press lately for replacing the steering wheel on the Model S Plaid with the hated yoke, but the yoke’s on Elon since this Beetle uses bones for its wheel and shifter. I don’t recognize where they all come from but I’m equally impressed and reviled nonetheless. The rest of the interior seems fairly staid in comparison to those horror movie prop controls.
According to the ad, the car’s lack of complete weather protection makes it a three-season car. Of course, that’s only as long as one of those seasons isn’t “monsoon.” The car has 238,800 miles on the odo. Of those, it has seemingly done 10K in its present, Island of Dr. Moreau state. In public!
Naturally, the title is rebuilt as who would do this to a car with a clean title? The ad says that it has passed the South Carolina DOT inspection which doesn’t really bode well for driving safely in South Carolina. All kidding and waves of terror aside, owing to its three wheels, this VW could probably now be classified as a motorcycle and hence not have to meet such stringent safety requirements as a four-wheel car.
What might nightmare fuel such as this cost the brave individual who would consider its purchase? The ad says $7,500 is the going rate for a custom Beetle TDI Trike with a steering wheel made from ham hocks, but as we all know, the seller doesn’t get the final say, we do.
What do you think about this, um, interesting vehicle and that $7,500 price? Does that seem like a deal to get crazy? Or, would you have a bone to pick with the seller for asking so much?
You decide!
Columbia, South Carolina, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Who is the Leader for the hookup!
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