On my way to work today, a green beetle pulls up to the left of me at a stop light. The light turns green and this guy is on it, and I could have swore I heard a turbo spool up, so I step on it, and I didn't pass the guy until second gear, by the time I hit 50 MPH I was 3-4 car lengths ahead of him. I shut it down and he speeds by me. The next light I'm looking at the back of his Bug, and I DON'T SEE A TURBO S EMBLEM. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought all Turbo Bug's have the Turbo S emblem on the back? Please tell me it was a turbo. His Bug didn't have any visible mods on it.

 

Maybe he removed the badging to make it more of a "sleeper".

 

I thought about that too, but I thought all Turbo S's had a wing on the back of them? Blah, I don't know why I'm so worried. It was just unexpected.

 

Dont sweat it you kicked his a$$. It had to be a turbo. The ones I see around here say turbo in small letters in the center on the back. And have a small spoiler on it, no big deal.

 

yeah some of the turbos for some reason dont' come with that retractable spoiler. maybe it's an option. i know a person with a yellow one with no turbo emblem in the back and no spoiler but under the hood, its a turbo.
-Dave

 

you better hope it was a turbo...cause the NA ones are dawgs. The exhaust barks

 

Are you saying a Turbo Beetle could take a Z? Thats so F*king sad if true..

 

any way be it bad launch or not where you have 4-5lengths by 50mph would be a substantial *** whooping, what are you worried about? even if it was not turbo, it got its *** kicked.

you obviously didnt launch cause you didnt start out ahead, so that hurt you too.

 

The turbo beetles don't all have badges or spoilers on the back trunk. My mom has a turbo and it has no badging and no "grocery-cart-handle" spoiler. The one way I have found that you can tell from the outside is if you look at the rear window on the N/A ones you will see the window come all the way to the top of the hatch, but on the turbos you will see a small 2-3" strip above the window that is a pop-out spoiler that comes out at about 60mph. You can also hold a button under the dash to make it pop out manually, but unless you stay above 60mph it will go back in. I think the pop-out spoiler is always black, but since my mom's bug is black I'm not sure. Chipped they might be quick, but they cannot touch us even with it. Just hope you don't run into one that was modded by HPA Motorsports with their twin-turbo 490hp bugs.

http://www.hpamotorsports.com/beetle.htm

 

490hp 0-60 3.9 sec ....... holy crap!!!!

 

my guess is that you didn't get on the z as hard as you think you did. if i were in that situation it would have been unexpected (that a beetle was trying to race) and since i would easily expect to kill a beetle, i i probably wouldn't accelerate fully at first. you probably didn't floor it until much later than you think. just a guess.

 

the turbo s is the same 1.8 liter turbo in the audi a4's, jetta, and golf. it's a nice engine, but not in the ballpark of the z. he's at 180hp @ 3000 lbs (16.7 lb/hp) and you're at 287 @ 3217 (11.2), and has no torque before the turbo kicks in.

 

Thanks everryone, it had to be a turbo, and he got on it for a full second or two before I did, so....I feel a little better.

 

The turbo S is the six speed, "high performance", version of the New Beetle. I believe the standard 1.8T are 5 speeds and not badged as a Turbo S.

 

With about $5k in mods the 1.8t is capable of turning 290hp and 296lb/ft of torque pretty easily on pump gas. (320 on race fuel) It is a pretty capable little motor really. I wouldn't feel too bad about your encounter being closer than you thought it would be.

 

the 1.8T are turbo and don't say turbo in the back, as opposed to the Turbo S models that have the TURBO emblem in the middle of the trunk, or whatever you want to call that space...

The 1.8T VW can be made to be very quick. My friend bought a GTI Anniversary Edition, the Rabbit one, which is basically the 1.8T GTI with suspension mods and 6th gear, etc. Anyway, he got a bigger turbo, intake, i don't know what else, but he hasn't spent much money on it, and he's pushing around 235hp/270lb to the wheels, i want to race him to see if it would be a good race, considering i'm pushing around the same HP to the wheels (stock) but he has more torque than me and probably weighs a little less as well.