Neuspeed's Original Thunder bunny

[Rennwagen1]

Does anyone know where i could get a reprint of an article about the original thunder bunny that Aaron Neumann built in 1981? it was in the march 1982 issue of road and track magazine. I know that much. I have tried road and track on line, but it does me no good, they only go back to 93. If anyone has and leads, it would be greatly appreciated. I am just looking for this cause I would like to read the article, and see what he did to the rabbit to make VW finally send the GTI to the states in '83. I will do some more poking around and see if I come up with anything. Later

[kompressorgolf]

cant help you but now im interested,

[Rennwagen1]

I did actually read it once before, it was framed on the wall at New Dimensions in Santa Clara, CA, but I was only a MK3 owner at that point in time, so not really interested. I would like to see what mods they had done with the car.......

edit: I found some info, but not the whole article.....a one off Oettinger 16V head on a rabbit in 1981? sounds pretty forward thinking for back in the day, I would say....

The German mentality of driving is polar opposite to what most Americans are used to. This point was even more pronounced in the 1970s and early 1980s when speed limits on many German roads were nonexistent. As it was legal to drive like a bat out of hell, most people took full advantage of the situation. Seeing drivers were pushing cars to their limits, German vehicle manufacturers began building cars that could withstand the rigors of extended high speeds and quick corners. One such manufacturer that answered the public’s cry for high-performance street rockets was Volkswagen. Soon enough, the first generation Scirocco and Rabbit were born, and not long after, tuners began squeezing more and more performance from the tiny eight-valve engines.

Convinced German engineering was superior to that of Japanese, Bill Neumann, who up until the early ’80s had been making his living tuning Detroit muscle, made a voyage to Germany that would change his life. With the fuel crisis in full swing, Bill Neumann was looking for a platform that could withstand engine and chassis tuning while maintaining fuel efficiency, and with the introduction of VW’s water-cooled powerplants, Neumann had found his engine: VW’s water-cooled 1.8L eight-valve. With little hesitation, Bill boarded a plane in 1980 and headed to Germany to see what he could find.

Bill Neumann was not, however, a novice when it came to automotive tuning. For years, Bill and his two sons, Aaron and Gary, had been tuning American V-8s in a small shop in Burbank, California. With their performance company, Automotive Performance Systems, the Neumanns had been successfully building, rebuilding, boring, polishing, and blueprinting engines with parts carried in their performance catalogue. The Neumann shop was so well-known that people would come from as far as San Francisco and Las Vegas just to have the Neumanns tune their cars. But, with the fuel crisis looming, the Neumanns could see the future of the automotive world was not in front engine, rear-drive, big displacement gas-guzzlers.

While in Germany, Bill Neumann met up with a man called Oettinger, whom he had heard of years before. Oettinger, whose name is still a respected commodity within the VW tuning industry, had designed a 16-valve head for the eight-valve VW engines, enabling the under-powered engine to produce higher levels of fuel-efficient power. Bill Neumann shipped an Oettinger 16-valve head back to his shop in California, and upon return purchased a 1.8L 1981 Rabbit to attach the head to. Before exchanging the Oettinger head for the OE head, the Neumanns decided to rework the engine using similar techniques from their muscle car days.

After boring and stroking the engine from 1715cc to 1972cc and adding various other Oettinger parts such as Mahle 10.2:1 forged pistons, wrist pins, rings, and tuned intake and exhaust manifolds, the engine and its parts were balanced, blueprinted, polished, shot-peened and reassembled. After all the work, the stout little 2.0L was putting out 175 hp and nearly 137 lb-ft.

Performance numbers for the Rabbit were equally impressive, racing to 60 in 7.3 seconds and finishing the quarter-mile in 15.73 seconds at over 87 mph. Motor Trend and Road and Track magazines tested the car in 1982, and both were massively impressed. Motor Trend quickly dubbed the car the Thunder Bunny, while Road and Track noted that up until then, only the Ferrari 512 Boxer, Lamborghini Countach, and the Renault R5 Turbo had posted better numbers.

Part of the Thunder Bunny’s success was the fact that the Neumanns used companies like MOMO, BBS, Bilstein, Kamei, and VDO when building the car—quality companies that are still thriving today. Along with the creation of the Thunder Bunny came the creation of Neuspeed, a company comprised of Bill, Aaron, and Gary Neumann, which carried tuning parts specifically for VWs. Although the cost of parts alone ran nearly $3,000 higher than the price of the vehicle itself, the success of the Rabbit launched the Neumanns, and Neuspeed, deep into the world of Volkswagen tuning.

From there, the Neumanns created products for VWs branded with the Neuspeed name. Before long, Neuspeed became synonymous with VW tuning, and for good reason. No matter what was needed, from rear tie-bars to short shifters, intakes to exhausts, Neuspeed quickly became the one-stop shop for VW tuning. As emissions testing became more stringent, Neuspeed noticed a decline in the sales of performance products that didn’t meet the government’s strict requirements. As such, Neuspeed decided that the bulk of its products sold should be approved for use in all 50 states. As soon as emissions certifications came in, Neuspeed’s product sales picked back up.

I would still like to find theh original article, but that at least had some useful infomation in it.......put a 16V in it!

[PoorHouse]

I've got the VW & Porsche with that article in it.

I've got a pretty complete set from about '80 on.

No guaranty's when I'll have time to dig them out.....

I can bring it to a spring GTG.

[ValveFloat]

a one off Oettinger 16V head on a rabbit in 1981? sounds pretty forward thinking for back in the day, I would say...

I think a book I have has a picture of that head.

[Rennwagen1]

Yeah, 'ol Aaron neumann was slapping valvers in Rabbits before most of the folks around here were born.......I would love to see an original of that article, also. If you can find it, I would love to read it!

[PoorHouse]

Let me know if you head this way.

[Rennwagen1]

I am at the lake almost every weekend during the summer, but I may be up there sooner!