About John Walklett Transmissions
My background is in engineering. I started my career with an engineering apprenticeship at Michelin Tyres, where I continued working until 2002.
My interest in Volkswagens began in 1987, when I was 17 and looking for my first car. A friend took me to the very first Bug Jam at Santa Pod, and that started an interest in air-cooled VWs that’s stayed with me ever since.
Between 1989 and 2000, I restored around ten cars, including Beetles, Karmann Ghias and Porsche 912s. Most were full nut-and-bolt restorations, and I spent quite a few years showing the finished cars, picking up the occasional trophy along the way.
In 2002, I decided to start drag racing my fast-road Beetle and rebuilt my first VW gearbox. At the time, I had moved on from Michelin and was working in warehouse automation, but it wasn’t long before friends started asking me to look at their gearboxes — initially repairs and modifications, and then increasingly complete rebuilds.
From hobby to business
Through drag racing, I became fairly well known within the VW community, and the gearbox work grew largely through word of mouth and recommendations.
Over the next few years, it became clear that there was a gap in the VW gearbox market that needed filling. What had started as something I did for myself and friends steadily grew until I reached the point where I couldn’t continue doing both a full-time job and the gearbox work.
In 2016, I made the decision to concentrate on gearbox rebuilding full-time, initially working from a small workshop. The business continued to grow, and in 2019 I moved into a larger workshop, giving me more room for specialist equipment and an ever-growing stock of gearboxes and parts.
VW & Porsche
The VW and Porsche scenes have always overlapped, with plenty of people owning and working on both. As the business grew, Porsche gearboxes naturally began coming through the door as well, and they have since become an important part of the work I do.
Today I rebuild everything from standard classic VW and Porsche gearboxes to modified road, performance and competition transmissions. I particularly enjoy the more unusual or difficult jobs, especially where parts are hard to find or a gearbox needs a solution that isn’t available off the shelf.
Although the business has grown considerably since those first gearboxes for friends, the way I work hasn’t really changed — each gearbox is still rebuilt by me in my own workshop, with the same attention to detail whether it’s a standard rebuild or something completely bespoke.