Josh Reynolds

Make / Model / Year:
Jack the Giant Slayer is a 1956 Volkswagen Beetle, which we first bought to take part in the 2017 Mille Miglia, where he earned his name by helping us climb over 200 places during the event.

Jack is an ‘oval’ model, named after the shape of the rear window, and was originally created for the Swedish market.

Engine, Wheels, Paint Colour:
The engine is a period-correct Okrasa Twin-Port, which was fitted before entering into the 2017 Mille Miglia. It runs like an absolute dream, and served us really well during the event and on every trip since.

I’ve driven Jack to shows and events around the UK, and in Europe, and have never had a problem with it – other than pushing the engine too hard on the hottest day of the year!

Jack’s on a set of early wide five (5×205) standard wheels, with the hub caps removed to help keep the Porsche 356 drum brakes cool.

Although Jack was originally painted in Polar Silver when it was first created, at some point he was repainted in green, but the exact shade seems to change pretty dramatically depending on the light.
We’re not 100% sure if he was repainted in an original VW paint colour, but it’s pretty close to Reed Green.

Any other cool accessories:
A lot of the Beetle is stock, as everything needed to be period-correct for us to enter the Mille Miglia, but Jack does have some really cool vintage accessories. There’s a set of original Robri gravel guards on the front wings, and a set of Just Kampers LED rear light upgrades, which make it far more visible when I’m driving in the dark.

There’s also a pair of LED upgrades on the flashing semaphores that pop out when I indicate, which are also from Just Kampers. The semaphores always seem to surprise and delight people if I’m driving around town!

As well as all the engine upgrades and accessories, there’s an Engine Fire Fighter fitted to the deck lid, which is an automatic fire suppression system for some extra piece of mind. It’s a flexible tube filled with an inert gas, set to rupture if it senses that the temperature in the engine bay gets too high, and then douses the fire in a gas which knocks all the air away from the fire to starve it of oxygen and extinguish it. It’s never been set off, luckily, but it’s good to know it’s there and won’t make a mess if it does go off!

The original stickers we got given when we passed through scrutineering for the Mille Miglia are still on the doors and bonnet, although we did remove a few of the smaller ones from the windows, as they can be hard enough to see through without a sticker filling them up.
We did have a Brantz rally timer fitted to the dash board, which I used when I was navigating us around the Mille Miglia, but we swapped it out for a regular dash a while ago – but left the cables in place in case we ever fancy doing another rally!

How long have I owned it, and how did I get it?
We’ve had Jack since about 2016, as we bought it at a Just Kampers Open Day in the hopes of getting it entered into the Mille Miglia. The Oval was pretty original when we bought it at the Open Day, and we’ve kept it ‘stock with a twist’ since then.  

I’ve been interested in VWs basically since birth, as I grew up in the VW community and we always had classic Volkswagens when I was growing up.

You might have noticed that I’ve got the same last name as Mark, who the managing director of Just Kampers Insurance!

Mark is my dad, and I joined the Just Kampers and Just Kampers Insurance teams a while ago, after working my way through various different marketing and events roles. An opening came up at Just Kampers and it felt like a great way to join a team I already knew, talking about something I was already interested in.

Other than navigating the insane 1,000+ mile Mille Miglia rally which took us from Brescia to Rome and back over a weekend, I’ve driven Jack all over the UK to different shows and events, as well as over to Belgium for European Bug-In where the Oval was on display with the EMPI stand.

At the moment my only other Volkswagen is a pretty boring VW Up that I use for my commute, but I’d love to get myself a Type 3 Fastback one day – I grew up with a Type 3 and I think they’re a really cool, useful car for a small family!