The Six Offender: Mikey Brown’s Groovy 1956 VW Bug Altered

By Brian Wagner July 08, 2019


Indiana native Mikey Brown did what every gearhead has dreamed of: he took a sketch he made and turned it into a real racecar. Brown’s idea just happened to be something a bit different: a VW bug that would be based around a H.A.M.B. style dragster chassis. What came to life is a 1956 VW bug known as the Six Offender, and it’s a cool home-built nostalgia machine.

Just over a year ago, Brown was sitting at home and began to sketch out a creation he had in his mind. The Six Offender jumped from that piece of paper and turned into a running car that’s powered by a 292 cubic-inch GMC inline six-cylinder engine with a Sissell’s cylinder head. Behind the six-banger is a Powerglide transmission and Ford 9-inch rearend that was created by his friend, Ryan Walker. Topping off the oval window bug is a sick metal-flake paint job from Patrick Hampton and gold leaf lettering from Dave North that just screams old-school cool.

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Not wasting any time after the car was done, Brown took it to Byron Dragway to participate in the Second Annual Uncle Sam’s Pie Eating Contest event. This race is for nostalgia-style cars of different varieties and has an interesting format. Keeping up with the traditional races of the time, there is no prep put down on the track, racers can’t do any burnouts, and they have to use old-school, first-generation pie crust slicks. Brown was able to roll his VW off the trailer with no testing and slice his way through the field to win the event by running 12.60s all day. The VW should be considerably faster when Brown turns the wick up at future events.

Check out this cool footage that highlights the Six Offender’s first trip to the track.