@Straightspeedphoto : VW Beetle Mach 1

From Classic Motorsports magazine

The plan was as ambitious as it was brilliant. Starting in 1954, Belgian Volkswagen importer D’Ieteren had been assembling Beetles in Brussels to escape hefty import fees.

Ten years on, in 1964, D’Ieteren was anxiously looking to attract younger buyers to the Volkswagen family. Racing served as an effective way to grab the youth’s attention, but in Wolfsburg there was still a “no motorsports” policy in place.

Then a Scandinavian VW importer, Scania Vabis, entered the 1964 Marathon de la Route with a very much non-sanctioned Beetle 1200 tuned with an Oettinger performance kit. The modified Beetle turned in a more-than-honorable result in the 3750-mile, nonstop road rally from Spa (Belgium) to Sofia (Bulgaria) and back.

Of the 98 starters that year, just 21 managed to return to Spa. One of them was that Beetle, placing ninth overall.

Sensing possibilities for a sporty Beetle in the showroom, D’Ieteren seized the opportunity and decided to launch a Beetle Mach 1 later in 1964. A cheap offering it was not, costing close to $3000 more than a regular version. However, buyers did get a lot more Beetle in return.

Just like that rally car, the Mach 1 looked to Oettinger and its Okrasa performance kit to extract more horses from its air-cooled engine.

The Okrasa kit was already a bit of a legend in Germany thanks to its dashboard plaque: “Please be careful, you are driving a high-performance Okrasa version.”

The Okrasa treatment raised horsepower from about 34 to something close to 50. Performance figures jumped accordingly: Where a normal Beetle 1200 would take half a minute to reach 60 mph, the Mach 1 Beetle needed just 16 seconds. And because the top speed increased to 152 kph (95 mph), a new speedometer was needed, with the replacement going all the way to 160 kph (100 mph).

For the Mach 1, extra upgrades were made in Brussels as well. The clutch was replaced by the heavier one from the Volkswagen Type 1 van.

The Belgians also fitted an adjustable BRS suspension that not only lowered the Mach 1, but also allowed for a bit more camber at the rear.

The wider wheels were the same ones found on a Porsche 356B, as D’Ieteren produced that model for a short period–1961-’62–in Brussels as well. They were fitted with Goodyear Grand Prix radials.