Hi!

Larry Bud wrote:
> wrote:
> > Thats a riot. A Jet-powered VW - BUG.

It's not a Bug, it's a New Beetle. Which is a positive
piece of information to all the Bug lovers out there.

> > http://www.jumpingpixels.com/vw.html
>
> Look for Ron soon in the next Darwin Award list.

Besides, some of the story (as found in a link from jumpingpixels
to http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg.../30/JETCAR.TMP)
reads decidedly bull****-ish:

| In 2000, Patrick bought a new VW bug. He had visited various
| car dealers with a full-sized cardboard mock-up of the jet engine,
| opening and closing the rear doors of car after car (lots of
| station wagons and hatchbacks) to see which one would accommodate
| the jet engine best. The VW won.

Yeah, right. The New Beetle, well-known for its tiny boot,
wins over "lots of station wagons and hatchbacks". Sure.

Heck, even a Golf would have won over the Beetle. Now look
inside a Passat wagon. No need for the contraption to stick
out like a ..., well, some things are better left unsaid.
But that would've killed the "JET-POWERED VW-BUG" headline,
wouldn't it? Sheesh. I always knew the New Beetle to be a
car for poseurs, but to be proven *this* right ...

| Asked if he was afraid of hurting himself or others with his
| jet car, Patrick said, "No. Since the age of 18, I've been doing
| engine testing and working with combustion devices. I've done it
| for years and years and I've never hurt myself or anyone else.

Crossing the road on a red light must be safe, I've done it
yesterday and nothing happened.

| He thinks that when it hits 160 mph -- he hasn't seen that ...
| yet -- the car will start lifting off the ground,

Why should it? Certainly the German tuning crowd has already
built a 160 mph Beetle or two. VR6 turbo or whatever. All
the VW Golf A4 tuning parts will also fit the Beetle, and
the fastest Golf A4 -- the R32 -- will do 150+ mph in stock
configuration already.

R32 brakes on this jet-powered Beetle, BTW, would have been a
way to show at least a trace of the "experience, judgment and
maturity" this guy claims to use. It also should have been
possible to finance that conversion, since it would only have
meant a tiny fraction of the alleged $250k price tag.

| but "the fun is not necessarily how fast you want to go.
| The fun is the sound of the thing.

Get a stereo.

Yours,
Erik.
--
"yip yip yip yip yap yap yip *BANG* --- NO TERRIER"
-- Hanno Foest in d.a.s.r.