Volkswagen Beetle VW Beetle. Around 2000, worldwide Vee racing had re-established itself as a 1,200/1,300 cc beginner class with wingless cars and VW engines outputting about , but incorporating more modern chassis and tyres. Volkswagen Beetle-style bodies are fitted to space frame racing chassis, and are used in the Uniroyal Fun Cup, which includes the longest continuous motor-race in the world, the 25 Hours of Spa. It is an affordable entry-level series that gentleman drivers race. Especially the Austrian sole distributor Porsche Salzburg (now Porsche Austria) seriously entered the Volkswagen in local and European contests in the 1960s and early 1970s. Starting
Volkswagen Beetle British patent 'Improvements related to road vehicles', granted GB570814, July 24, 1945, describing a 2-door, rear-engined car, identical in arrangement and look to VW 'Kafer'. It has also been pointed out that the VW Beetle bears a striking resemblance to John Tjaarda's 1933 design for a streamlined, rear-engined car, that he created working for Briggs Manufacturing Company. At Briggs, a Detroit-based manufacturer of automobile bodies for Ford Motor Company, Chrysler Corporation and other U.S. and European automobile manufacturers, Tjaarda was developing a radical car for Ford to use as a new Lincoln. Ford displayed the show car at the 1933-34