In a couple hours I need to wake up and get my ass, along with all the parts connected to it, to the airport. David and I are off on a trip to do business things, like shaking hands and looking meaningfully at stock ticker tape and pacing around hotel rooms with rolled-up sleeves, neckties loosened with just the right amount of entropy, and smoking cigarettes while shoving lots of manilla folders around on desks. Maybe I’ll sip some bourbon and look meaningfully out a window. You know, business.
But before that can happen, a Cold Start must be written; this is the way of things. Luckily, that’s happening as we speak, and the sooner it’s done, the sooner I can get a little sleep. So, with that in mind, I’m going to once again sink into the warm and welcoming custard of vintage Volkswagen aftermarket crap!
This time I’m especially excited, because while I’ve written about these before, this is by far the best photograph of these that I’ve ever seen. And by “these” I mean a particular trio of VW Beetle fiberglass replacement hoods. I happened to encounter this picture (possibly from 1957 or so) of them on The Samba:
First, wow. And second, damn, look at that. I don’t think I can actually say any of these aftermarket hoods look…good, but they do sure look striking. I don’t think I’ve ever seen these in actual, “official” photographs, on bright, clean, shiny cars, where the paint on the hood matches the rest of the car.
Back in the day, when I would actually still see daily-driven Beetles with these kinds of replacement hoods on the road, the hood was usually gray primer, waiting to be painted to match the rest of the car, since these were often bought to fix accident damage a bit cheaper than getting a new, VW-official steel hood.
I’m not entirely sure I agree with that tagline, about the “futuristic” styling keeping the Beetle years ahead; those hoods are still bolted to a body designed in 1938, after all.
The fiberglass hoods offered significantly more luggage space in the nose, as well as, um, distinctive looks.
Going from left to right, we have the daring La Plaza look, which has a sort of paired grille look in the front, and pretty flowing lines above. Then, there’s El Toro, and like the animal that shares its name with this hood, has a pair of large flared nostrils. Well, in this case, faux nostrils, as they’re more dents than holes. This one I think offers the most expanded luggage space, as it seems to be tallest and has a bit of a forward rake.
And finally, we have Monza, which is the most faux-grille-focused of the three, with a sort of tapered, Alfa Romeo-like grille, with vertical slats. This one seems to offer the least amount of expanded cargo room, but also maybe changes the Beetle’s visage the most?
I’ve seen other ads for these very hoods before, like the one above, which, helpfully, assigns artist names to two of these three hoods: Adam Citron penned the La Plaza hood, and El Toro is the work of the engagingly-named Manfred Hegemann, who may have been a graduate of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design.
The only image of the Monza hood here is in profile, which doesn’t tell us much, but does note the “light handed Italian manner.”
The copy in this ad is pretty bold, throwing some shade on Volkswagen when they say these hoods
“Better handling of all models in cross winds disproves factory claim of perfect streamlining of original body,”
… which is a pretty catty sort of statement to make. Also, I don’t believe it for a second. I also have no idea how they came up with that 80% number for how many collisions they can help fix.
Plenty of other companies made aftermarket fiberglass hoods, like the ones in the upper right of this JC Whitney catalog, but those were copies of other cars’ hoods and grilles, like Rolls-Royces and Fords. The La Plaza, El Toro, and Monza were at least (mostly) original designs.
There are still companies making non-factory-style fiberglass replacement hoods for Beetles, but I’m not sure I’ve seen any that have the unhinged charm of these triumvirate. I wonder how many of these things were sold? I may never know, but it’s a good enough thought to leave on so I can get some sleep. I have a plane to catch!
