Flashback: Kosto

Hitlerin Kosto (~Hitler's Revenge) is old nickname for Beetle in Finland. When our garage chief Kotten and his friend Tom started drag racing with Tom's old Beetle in late 70's they named their racer with the old nickname. Later when they got more famous they modified the name into more politically correct format by dropping the chancellor's name..



Scanning of 1979 Pori drag race in V8 Magazine. Shows how Kosto is been towed with Tom's daily driver. Kosto was very popular from day one and the guys had bit of a mad scientist approach with racing. At one point Kosto even had a Type II reduction gears to get more suitable gearing (at the time VW parts weren't generally as available they're now) and their first start probably still is the wheel hop record in Finland.



Feature article about Kosto in 1980 V8 Magazine. Season when Tom & Kotten won the Finnish chapionship in Street Altered class (forerunner of Pro Stock in Nordics). At the time Kosto had 1835 engine with 10:1 compression, Scat 326 degree cam, VW heads with 40/35.5 valves and 48 IDAs. Fastest ET with that setup was 13.76.



Scanning from 1981 issue of V8 Magazine, only season Kosto had paintjob other than matt/army green. Reason for the nice blue paintjob was that in 1981 Kosto was sponsored by V8 Magazine. It looked like Kosto felt uncomfortable in nice paint since the season wasn't as succesful as the previous had been. Car was also heavily modified for 1981 season, most notable change is chopping job and Centerline wheels.

In late 80's Kosto was getting bit outdated and Kotten bought a VW powered dragster and put Kosto in storage. Fastest ET for Kosto was 11.683@180km/h in Competition class with 2332cc engine.