Indholdsfortegnelse for May_2016 i VolksWorld

Service kits From: www.justkampers.com  Price: Varies Look after your VW and it should provide years of stalwart service. That means regular servicing. Fortunately parts are plentiful and relatively cheap too, even if you have an older/ rarer model to take care of, like one with a 30hp engine. Fortunately Just Kampers has everything you need, like the rocker cover gaskets for 25-30hp engines at £2.95 each, and oil strainer gasket kits for £3.50 a pop. At this price, you’ve got no excuse to neglect your VW’s engine Beetle wash bag From: www.themonsterfactory.com  Price: £20 Camper shaped washbags have been available for a while, but now you can carry your all your gear to the campsite shower block in an orange Beetle shaped bag. Inside, you’ll find…

Melanie Cooke, 1970 1500 Beetle In the past, Melanie Cooke used to own an orange Beetle, her favourite colour, so as a milestone birthday was rapidly approaching, she decided the time was ripe to acquire another Beetle, painted orange of course! Unbeknown to her, her husband, Martin, had already secretly purchased just such a thing, and had squirreled it away in the garage without her seeing it. “We had actually looked at the car together previously, but decided not to buy as it required too much work,” recalls Melanie. “I later found out my husband collected the car after work one evening and brought it back home on a trailer. He presented me with the car on Christmas day, all tied up with a red bow.” The Beetle did indeed…

“Colin’s a talented little blighter, so he made his own” To give some background to this story, 11 years ago, Slough native, Colin Dunne, and his wife, Karen, followed his Irish father back to the then booming Irish economy, leaving brother, Sean, to keep an eye on Slough. Speaking of Sean, it is he that fuelled Colin’s fascination with VWs that has brought him from the start of the UK VW scene in the mid-’80s, through a hiatus while children Conor (13) and Jessica (10) took priority, right up to this Fastback today. “My brother’s first Bug was a 1970 1300,” recalls Colin. “The type you dream of now – no rust and a superb runner, until he stacked it, which resulted in a glass fibre flip front being installed.…

“It may be a bit Resto Cal, but there is also a lot of Edelbrock-taste in this Beetle” If your family name is Edelbrock, you just have to have petrol running through your veins. And this is certainly the case with young Dennis Edelbrock, whose father used to drag race American cars. “He took me to the garage and to the races when I was little, so I basically grew up with cars, tools and oil.” So it was no wonder really that our man wanted to have an American car when he approached driving age. But dad said no! “He told me it would be way too expensive to get the car I wanted and that I should buy a Beetle instead. They are easy to maintain, parts are…

The Air-cooled Winterfest, formerly known as Kever Winter Festijn (Beetle Winter Festival) is a relief for a lot of Dutch and Belgian airheads. Every year, early in January, this event gives them their fix of VW madness to help them through the long, cold winter. As such, it’s the ideal place to meet up again with friends, and perhaps find that elusive part for your winter project. The Winterfest is held at a perfect location, namely Autotron in Rosmalen, a town in the centre of The Netherlands. As an automobile / automobilia museum, amongst other things, it makes the perfect place for displaying cars. Besides wandering around the club displays, searching for parts at the trade stands, and discussing with your friends the small things you might have done different…

OWNER INFO NAME: James Peene JOB: Editor CAR: ’60 Beetle WORK THIS MONTH: Crank open my wallet and start buying lots of parts for the mechanical refresh and stance rectification I know it will be sacrilegious to some, but the modification work on my semaphore Bug has begun. I can hear the stock Nazis already, bemoaning the fact that I’m taking an ex-museum piece with a fully documented 64,000 kilometres on the clock, and messing with it, but you know what? They should have bought it before I did, and it’s not like it wasn’t for sale for very long either. Truth be told, my latest purchase is exactly the sort of car I’ve always wanted. A one owner(-ish), original car that hasn’t been butchered, bodged or messed around with.…

“Which came first, the Canterbury Pitt or the Devon?” In their heyday, throughout the 1960s, Canterbury Pitt Volkswagen Camper conversions were among the most popular on the UK market. But the company only existed for a little over a decade and the death of its founder, Peter Pitt, resulted in the end of the firm named after him. However, that’s not before he helped change the British law, which dictated all Volkswagen Type 2s be classed as commercial vehicles, whether they had windows, soft furnishings and curtains or not. It was in late 1955 that camping enthusiast Peter decided to kit out his Type 2 Kombi as a Camper, which he then used to tour around Europe with his family. Figuring he was onto quite a good thing, he decided…

“It takes both types to keep things on an even keel” I was going to write my column this month about the demise of the Series Land Rover, the parallels between them and the VWs we are all familiar with, and how not even the Queen, or a Royal Appointment, can halt the rising tide of emissions-based malarkey that is threatening to put an end to everything we all love about motoring. But our nonsensical deadlines mean I’m sitting here writing for the May issue in the middle of February, so the Land Rover story will be yesterday’s news by the time you read this. So instead I shall revert to plan b, to a subject that has been on my mind for a while now, but seems particularly pertinent…

Sexist beast? Jim Cripps, Rayleigh, Essex Hiya VolksWorld, I thought the letter from Graham Tench last month was a bit harsh. There is no doubt the paper quality has declined. In fact, I find the centrefold sheet often tends to pull out of the staples. I always read the editorial and cannot recall any overtly sexist Comments. As for moronic, well, that is a subjective opinion. I think James tries to speak from the heart (but he should have finished the Penny Pincher!). As for content, well, that is a major challenge (a magazine every four weeks?!) and I feel you do well given half the potential copy has to go to the Camper&Bus mag simultaneously. Cheers, Hi Jim, thanks for the support. Paper quality is beyond our control, but…

“It remains in concours condition almost 25 years after he restored it” John Figg, 1959 Karmann Ghia Convertible John’s Lowlight Karmann Ghia convertible is a fantastic example of the breed, which was featured a good many years ago in VolksWorld, but it’s testament to his incredible cherished ownership, care and maintenance programme, that it remains in concours condition almost 25 years after John restored it. The car was sold originally by West View Motors of Waco, Texas to a W K Trammel. Some 10 years later, it had clocked up 83,000 miles and was then put in a barn. 16 years later, it was purchased by J Walker of Dallas, Texas, who repainted it red and used it up until 1989, by which time it was starting to show its…

“All thoughts of an Oval drifted away on the breeze” At 45, with a history in VWs that goes back as far as a picture of a Wizard Roadster and the series of build-up articles on Colin Burnham’s old Cal Looker in Street Machine magazine in 1985, two years before the first Bug Jam and the emergence of VolksWorld, Jason Swan is a man who has seen all the UK VW scene has to offer. “I was just blown away when I saw that Wizard, I had to have one,” he recalls. “But I ended up buying a ’67 Beetle, lowering it with a Select-A-Drop – which was deadly, but did the job – putting a set of 8-spokes on it and painting it red. Instant Cal Looker, right?” That…

With over 100 trade stands expected, situated inside and out, The VolksWorld Show is the biggest and best place to buy parts for your Volkswagen. We’re sure you will find what you are looking for, and with hundreds of show-only deals, it’s an opportunity too good to be missed Surrey Hall A H Schofield Burt’s Bus Emporium CamperVanTastic Carole Nash Cohesion Clothing Cool Flo Vintage Custom & Commercial Danbury Motorcaravans Dub Dub and Away Hot Rod Tiki JGE / Java Just Kampers Kingfisher Kustoms Lime Bug M6 Footwear Madmatz Meguiar’s Midland Wheels Newton Commercial NLA VW Parts Noise Killer Norton Insurance Panasonic Pucca Screens Rugs for Bugs Sky Tag Space Roofs (O’Connors Roofs) Stateside Tuning The VW Engine Company Titan Beds Type 3 Detectives VanWorx Vintage Speed Vintage VW Tours…

Let’s start with an admission. My passion for air-cooled VWs only started when I was about 20 years old, and that was 30 years ago. Therefore, I can only imagine what it must be like to have been involved with air-cooled VWs since birth. In fact, I can’t say I can think of more than two or three people I know who have. One of these lifers is a lady by the name of Chloe ‘CoCo’ Adams from Weymouth in Dorset. In December 1984 she arrived into our world and her destiny was pretty much sealed as she was born into a die-hard VW family. Her parents, Martin and Blanche Adams, were (and still are) very active and well-known VW owners. They owned a Split Screen Bus at the time,…

“Everyone told me to get an auto electrician out to fix it…” OWNER INFO NAME: Steve Gosling CARS: ’61 ragtop, ’67 Ghia, ’70 Bay WORK THIS MONTH: Get to bottom of the charging issue; fit new track rods and mess about with ride height settings Time to spend on the ragtop has been in short supply since The VolksWorld Show last year. Selling our flat, buying a house, getting married, going on honeymoon etc. all meant I had bigger fish than VWs to fry in my ‘spare’ time. Especially as I didn’t see my now wife between Christmas and The VolksWorld Show as I basically lived in the garage. In other words, I’d used up any accrued brownie points during that period and needed to be a good boy, at…

Ireland’s largest gathering of air-cooled only VWs takes place in Loughmore, County Tipperary on April 23 2016. The last gathering attracted some 132 air-cooled VW owners, and whilst that number may not sound big to us Limeys, believe us when we say that on a small and quite dispersed island, that’s a huge number of thunderous oil drippers. The trophies are always a hoot, too. Last year’s Best in Show award was made by Paul Twibill and featured a miniature Type 1 beam, mounted on a powdercoated hubcap that Prosign very kindly pinstriped. Peter Ferguson won the WayneMac Choice Award for furthest travelled VW and it was well deserved as he drove almost five hours each way, but his words said it all; “I loved every minute behind the wheel…

The annual VW Harvest Show is held in Austin, Texas each October. This weekend-long event usually falls in between the weekend of the Austin City Limits Music Festival and the Formula 1 at Circuit of the Americas. Last year’s VW Harvest marked its fifth year, and it was the best one yet. The weekend started off with Saturday’s VW Cruise through the Texas Hill Country and ended at Austin’s famous Top Notch Hamburgers. Over 90 VWs packed into Top Notch’s car park for great food, fun, and vintage drive-in nostalgia. The Top Notch VW award that evening went to David Ho and his Type 34 Razor Edge. Sunday’s weather was perfect and drew over 300 Volkswagens to Southwest Williamson County Regional Park for the car show and swapmeet. Fun times…

On the green mile Lajos Magyari, Hungary Hello VolksWorld, we exchanged emails when I was buying the January 2014 issue cover car. I promised I would come back to you to complete the story, and here it is. In short, I learnt about ‘Green mile’ from your online purchase issue (I currently live in Hungary). I had been looking for an original Oval for 15 years so, needless to say, I was thrilled by Jon’s find in Sweden, and could ‘smell’ the patina of that car through the photos. A few months later, I spotted his online ad, but didn’t have much hope that it was still on the market, as already a few weeks had passed since the ad was placed, but fired an email over to him anyway.…

“I wanted this car to look like it was pressed by the VW factory if they set out to build a sports car in 1957” We’ve said it enough times over the years that it doesn’t bear repeating again here, other than to say the German Folks VW Klub (GFK) have set a style and a precedent that many across the globe seek to emulate. It’s fair to say it’s become more focussed over the years, to a point where there’s now a pretty set formula for Klub cars. The odd wild card engine crops up from time to time, even the odd wild card colour, but what you don’t see in GFK line ups is radical customs. Until now… We last met up – figuratively speaking – with Carlos…

Stay in bed for a couple more hours or get up, brave the cold and the rain and drive to a big metal shed in Staffordshire? Hmmm, what’s a man to do? It was a no brainer really. Dub Freeze always kicks off the VW show season and so is the perfect opportunity for most of us to dig our cars out of hibernation and meet up with all the like-minded cohorts we last saw before Christmas. That’s how it’s always been for me, anyway. It’s always a good idea to arrive early if you’re hoping to find a specific part at this swapmeet and, having done precisely that, I found an impressively large queue waiting for the doors to open. Seeing that as a good thing, I took the…