This is 1:4 scale kit of one of the most mass-produced, and most timeless engines ever designed – the air-cooled VW Beetle flat-four. These kits go together simply with no gluing or painting needed, and they make great display models once they’re done.
The kit has a transparent case and an internal electric motor which allows all the internal components, like the pistons, pushrods, rockers, valves, connecting rods, and crankshaft to move just as they do in the real engine – it even has a sound module to play authentic Beetle engine sounds.
This is 1:4 scale kit of one of the most mass-produced, and most timeless engines ever designed – the air-cooled VW Beetle flat-four. These kits together simply with no gluing or painting needed, and they make great display models once they’re done.
History Speedrun: The VW Flat-Four Engine
Volkswagen’s air-cooled flat-four engine began forming as a concept in the mid-1930s, when Ferdinand Porsche’s design office was working to develop a compact, horizontally opposed engine for the KdF-Wagen project.
The brief for this engine’s design was simple – create a tough, low-cost powerplant that could run in extreme climates with minimal maintenance. Air cooling, a lightweight crankcase, and a flat layout kept weight down and removed the need for a radiator – this was useful in an era when cooling systems were an even more common failure point than they are today.
The earliest production units had a displacement of 985cc and delivered 23 bhp. By 1945, postwar Wolfsburg resumed production with a 1.0 liter version, which soon grew to 1.1 liters, then 1.2 liters by the mid-1950s.
Over the following decades, the Type 1 engine family expanded to 1.3, 1.5, and 1.6 liters, with power outputs climbing into the mid-40-bhp range for the final carbureted models.
Approximately 21.5 million Beetles were produced globally between 1938 and 2003, and nearly all of them used some form of this flat-four. Variants of the same engine powered Type 2 Transporters, Type 3s, industrial engines, and later formed the basis for countless aftermarket and kit-car applications – some were even modified for use in light aircraft and boats.
Once assembled, these engines make fantastic display pieces, and the transparent engine casing allows observers to see all the movement inside.
The engine’s exceedingly simple pushrod design, air-cooling, flat-layout, split crankcase, and gear-driven camshaft would come to define one of the longest-running automotive engines ever built.
Remarkably, variations of the engine remain in production today with aftermarket companies – displacements can climb to over 2.3 liters and power output can exceed 200 bhp on some highly-tuned examples.
The 1:4 Scale VW Beetle Flat-Four Engine Kit By Franzis
The kit you see here consists of over 200 individual pieces and they all either click together, or go together with screws – there is now glueing or painting required.
All of the major parts of the VW Beetle flat-four engine are included, and they all move just as they do in the real engine – the pistons go up and down with their connecting rods turning the crankshaft. The cam turns and moves the pushrods up and down, which in turn actuate the rocker arms and valves.
The kit has a transparent case and an electric motor, with all the internal components like the pistons, pushrods, rockers, valves, connecting rods, and crankshaft turning in time just as they do in the real engine.
The model has a small electric motor which is battery operated, and this allows the engine to turn over and it operates the LEDs in each cylinder which shows when the spark plug fires. Once assembled, these engines make fantastic display pieces, and the transparent engine casing allows observers to see all the movement inside.
The kit is now being offered for sale on the official Franzis Amazon store here, and each one comes with a collector’s manual with detailed history of the beetle along with step by step instructions and photographs.
Images courtesy of Franzis
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
