Dung Beetle (AZN)
If you watch Street Outlaws, you’ll recall that AZN showed up one evening with a running VW Bug, but it looked completely different than it does now. He purchased the 1966 streetcar for five grand and proceeded to transform it into a sleeper. While the Dung Beetle is made to look like a crappy broken-down Bug, underneath the Hollywood facade are sound mechanicals. The mild street roll cage was fabricated by Ron Lummus and installed by Rancho Performance, the front suspension was upgraded with adjusters, and CB Performance drop spindles, and the rear suspension utilizes Geers Engineering spring plate retainers and Jamar disc brakes. It even appears the engine and trans were raised in the car to lower the stance and provide improved handling. They also equipped the sedan with Sway-A-Way 30mm torsion bars, Erco axles and a set of QA1 double adjustable shocks front and rear.
Even though the show’s racing happens in a controlled setting, on closed roads with permits and law enforcement supervision, driver safety is the utmost concern. For this, AZN is strapped into a The Joie of Seating racecar seat with a Jaz 4-point harness and he wears a Simpson helmet. The car is also equipped with a Jaz fuel cell in place of the stock VW gas tank, and an XS Power dry cell battery is secured in a mount that’s welded to the roll bar and center tunnel.
At the heart of this street sleeper is a turbocharged and fuel-injected 2332cc engine that was built by VW drag racer Shawn Geers of Geers Engineering. The engine is mated to a pro-built gearbox supplied by Rancho Performance Transaxles. You can see a detailed list of the components used to build the engine and trans in the spec sheet we’ve provided with this story. Because the theme of Street Outlaws is based on tweaking and improving the performance of the cars between shows and races, AZN continues to make slight changes over time. The Haltech ECU was originally programmed when the engine was tuned on the dyno at Redline Performance in Anaheim. It has since been taken to Brad Golden’s RIP Tuning shop in Oklahoma and tuned for VP C16 race fuel (117 octane) and a Nitrous Express water/methanol injection system. We’re told the motor produces about 415 horsepower at 7,000 RPM.
While not a lot of people will go through the trouble and expense to build a VW Bug like this and then paint it with house paint from Home Depot, we think AZN and his crew did a great job carrying out the Dung Beetle theme. He asked us to pass along a note of thanks to Mickey Thompson Tires, CB Performance, Energy Suspension, Heat-shield Products, Turbonetics, SCAT Performance and ESAB welders for their support. It’s really cool to see a VW Bug hold a starring role on a reality television series, especially when the owner tapped into the knowledge of well-known VW industry leaders for their help putting the car together. AZN and his crew of 405 street thugs are definitely having a good time running their cars and doing their thing which, when you really think about it, is what VW enthusiasts have been doing for more than 50 years.
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