UroTuning Parking Lot - Jacob's Bagged K04 Beetle!

It's been a minute since we did a feature on one of our in-house cars, and what better way to kick it back off than with a VW Beetle! If you follow us on any sort of social media, chances are you've seen a super clean monochrome beetle laying frame at some point. This car belongs to our very own Warehouse manager Jacob, and is the perfect example of a fun "stancey" daily driver. Originally from Dallas, Jacob now resides here in Tampa, FL " I will say that Tampa has no shortage of modified cars, one of my favorite things about living here is how often you see something interesting on the road."

Having started out with a TDI Jetta Sportwagen, Jacob is no stranger to the Euro scene - but when the #TDIgate emissions scandal surfaced, he jumped at the chance to switch things up. Aiming for something a bit smaller, thoughts of a GTI floated around, but Jacob ended up going with something he hadn't seen modified quite as much... a 2013 VW Beetle.

In a day and age where bolt on flares and Pandem wide body is the craze, Jacob's bug takes things in a different direction. Jacob's key inspirations for his ride draw from subtle yet impactful designs, as well as subtle nods to sci-fi themes. Building off of the "less is more" mentality, Jacob's Beetle features a monochrome gunmetal color scheme with some busy Revolve wheels that create a nice contrast with the clean curved lines of the Beetle's profile.

Making your car look great with wheels and air suspension is all well and good, but Jake wanted to add a bit of performance as well, after all - what's a cool looking car without a little extra power for when you need it? For that bit of extra power, this Beetle relies on an HPA Motorsport K04 Turbo Upgrade kit, among a few other goodies that we'll cover later on.

With the new HPA Motorsport K04 installed, Jacob also picked up a CTS 3" catted downpipe for some more power and a beefier sound, as well as an Integrated Engineering Intake kit for some nice intake noise. All of these bolt ons were then maximized by tuning the car with Unitronic Stage 2+ ECU and DSG tune. With all of these upgrades installed, this beetle doesn't just look great, it makes for a quick little daily driver!

According to Jacob, this build process has been for the most part very smooth, with the main challenges simply being time, money, and attention span - anyone who has worked on their own car knows these issues are always prevalent in the hobby.

If money were no object Jacob says he would drive either a Porsche Panamera, or for something a bit more fun maybe a Datsun 240z or an old school ratted-out truck. Future plans for the beetle are totally open, with nothing too drastic on the immediate horizon:

"I’ll just be happy if it’s still getting me to work and back reliably haha. Don’t really have an over-all game plan for it. Definitely wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to do some interesting bodywork to it though... Huge thank you to my friend Ryan for not only helping me wrench on the car but also because he pushes me to not sit idle for too long on anything. Big thanks to Revolve Wheels, HPA Turbo, and Unitronic for the assists as well."

To anyone looking for a word or two of advice when it comes to automotive modification Jacob says "Have fun with it, use it as a tool to learn new things and meet new people."