Twisted Unveils Baja Bug VW Beetle Restomod

Back in the late 1960s, cool surfing types in southern California realised that the VW Beetle could be quickly and easily turned into a handy little off-roader, good for everything from buzzing down to the beach to tackling long-distance desert races like the Baja 1000. The ‘Baja Bug’ had arrived.

North Yorkshire is thousands of miles from ’60s SoCal – geographically, culturally, and in terms of its weather – but it does have some lovely beaches and a big surf culture. It’s also home to Twisted Automotive, a company that’s been long been modifying old Land Rover Defenders and, more recently, Suzuki Jimnys.

It makes perfect sense, then, that its latest project, the TBug, sees it take on the Baja Bug concept with some modern componentry and a dash of lovely attention to detail.

The TBug begins as a donor air-cooled Beetle, with cars built from the 1960s through to the 1980s eligible for conversion. Twisted’s special projects division then strips it back to its bare shell, sealing and strengthening the chassis.

On goes some long-travel suspension, chunky BFGoodrich off-road tyres, and uprated brakes. The flat-four engine, meanwhile, is fettled to deliver essentially double the power output of the original. That said, with an old Beetle as a starting point, that still means under 80bhp, something Twisted is absolutely fine with – it’s keen to point out the TBug is very much not about big performance figures.

It’s all topped off with a classic Baja Bug look – flared arches, a cutoff rear bumper with a big exhaust snaking out of it, and a stubby face with two big headlights set into it, although these are modern LED units run off an up-to-date electrical system.

The interior, meanwhile, is hand-finished and can be trimmed in pretty much any colour and material you like. The exterior colour is equally personalisable, as is standard practice with restomod builds like this.

Twisted founder Charles Fawcett said: "My sister Helen had these incredible Baja Bug posters on her bedroom wall when we were kids. There was something about those modified Beetles – rebellious, capable, and unashamedly fun – that captured my imagination."

It’s rather different fare from what we’re used to from Twisted, then, but it looks like it’s been crafted with just as much care as the brand’s Defenders and Jimnys. It hasn’t said how many it plans to make, or how much they start at – we’d imagine the answers are ‘it depends how many people want one,’ and ‘quite a lot’. Whatever the answers, it should look as at home in Scarborough as in Santa Cruz. Even if one of them is quite a lot rainier than the other.