I grew up in Southern California. I remember a VW called the "Inch Pincher" that ran in the 12's and was very streetable. A company called EMPI made a lot of really great stuff for those little 4 cylinder bugs. I bought a '69 from Economotors in Riverside and put a lot of EMPI stuff on the car - power pulley, racing distributer, dual port heads, twin Webers and an extractor exhaust. I could pull the front wheels of the ground hitting second gear! It was a lot of fun...