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Matt Prior

Autocar UK

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June 11, 2025

Have you seen the Twisted TBug?

Matt Prior

Twisted, the friendly, Yorkshire-based modifier of classic Land Rover Defenders (and now owner of a marine division as well), has started offering a Volkswagen Beetle Baja Bug restomod too. (If it starts doing Hillman Imps, our respective garages will look even more alike.)

Unsurprisingly, the TBug looks somewhat nicer than my Baja Bug, because Twisted are people who are used to doing things properly. The interior looks trimmed beautifully, the stance is just so (I'm tempted to have a word with the front end of mine and a grinder) and there's a reinforced chassis, a new engine, new electrics and LED lights that don't look daft.

The power output has been about doubled over the original, but it's still making less than 80bhp, so it isn't a fast car - but that doesn't matter a bit.

“What makes the TBug special is that it makes you smile every time you slide behind the wheel,” says Twisted founder Charles Fawcett. “In a world of increasingly serious and complex vehicles, there's something wonderfully refreshing about that.” As they might have said in the 1970s, I can dig that.

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