Article by Rick Jensen. Video by Rockstarenergy.com via Youtube
Recently, Jalopnik, an obscure automotive site that believes in shooting brakes but not copy editors, posited that there is no such thing as a "chick car.” Now, this kind of PC lovefest is expected of a big-city media site run by shadowy Jezebel writers. However, this NYC-centric viewpoint falls flat in our world.
The way I figure it, if a girl’s default Hummer comment is in regard to how small the owner’s junk is, then why can’t a guy innocently feminize the vehicles that so badly deserve it? Vehicles like, oh I dunno… VW Beetles, for instance? They smile, they’re round, they have a hamster where the engine should be and they come with a flower vase. Total chick car, right? High five, brah!
So there I was, resting my stereotypical case, when goddamn Tanner Foust, strapped into this wicked Global Rallycross VW Beetle, did a bunch of burnouts for Rockstar’s cameras, and ruined everything. Way to blur the lines, Foust.
Because, as it turns out, this GRC Beetle is seriously badass. It makes 540 horses from a 1.6-liter inline 4-cylinder. It blasts from 0 to 60 in under 2 seconds. And its flower vase has been replaced with the red-eyed, swinging skull from Bob Falfa’s ’55 Chevy.
Interestingly enough, not everything in the above paragraph is true. Also interesting? There’s not a single overall shot of the Beetle in Rockstar’s entire 1:17 video clip. There’s cherry red exhaust manifolds, dirt-chucking launches, neck-snapping shifts and lots of burnouts and tire tracks. Just no front three-quarter angles. Hmmm, it’s as if Rockstar, which caters to an overwhelmingly male audience, avoided the Beetle’s pillowy curves like the plague…
And in doing so, they left our timeless question unanswered: Can a hopped-up chick car also be a badass bro brawler? Well, the GRC Beetle will hit the course as soon as September 19 at the Red Bull GRC event in L.A. So if you see the entire vehicle, let us know where it stands on the chick car scale.
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