Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2017 i VolksWorld

“The highlight for me, apart from the cars of course, was meeting you, the readers” Bristling with anticipation, the drive from Brittany to Calais in my nearly classic A6 took no time at all. With the tunnel negotiated, after a short blast along the M20 / M25 I soon picked up the signs for Sandown Park. Having left home at 5.30am I was pretty famished so decided to make a quick pit stop at Sainsbury’s on the outskirts of Esher. After all those Breton crêpes, egg and chips has never tasted so good. As I made my way out of the store, grabbing some teabags and a couple of jars of Marmite on the way, I spotted a strangely familiar face. Sporting oversized sunglasses, a mop of straggly red hair…

If you’ve ever carried out restoration work yourself you’ll know first hand just how much skill and effort it takes to get a decent finish, let alone one that comes anywhere near show car standard. Which makes the quality of the show cars on display at Sandown even more awe-inspiring. A team of expert judges, managed this year by our very own Ivan McCutcheon, pore over the cars for most of the weekend noting every detail. Needless to say, because all the cars are fabulous, it’s not easy picking an outright winner. However, the vehicle that garnered the highest number of total points – thus being awarded Best of Show – was Lloyd Jackson’s 1950 Split Window Beetle. Believe it or not, this car started out as a total basket…

“It was designed and built to be driven. It would be more damaging to let it sit unused” “it was in a sort of boiler room so was always kept warm and dry” Volkswagens have a reputation for being extremely usable classics, but even so there can’t be many 1950’s Beetles that, in 2017, are still parked in the street and driven seven days a week, all year round. “It’s Anita’s car, she’s the one who drives it every day,” explains Anita’s partner, Lee Callaghan. “We were living in Singapore and planning to return to London when we spotted this 1959 1200 Deluxe on eBay in the UK. The seller was a chap named Neil Parry-Thompson and he had owned the car for less than a year, having found…

“he was a tad concerned about its condition, given that it was seized solid and looked to have a water mark all the way around the engine block” Stunning. If you were lucky enough to get a glimpse of Lloyd Jackson’s 1950 Beetle on the turntable at Sandown in March, that’s likely to have been your reaction. The last time we caught up with Lloyd at Deluxe Metalworks he was frantically doing the last bits of paintwork, getting it ready to bolt everything back on. Of course, a crucial part of this was rebuilding the original, matching number 25hp engine, which Lloyd describes as being “the heart of our restoration.” Hence why, this issue, we’re covering what was done in a little more detail. When Lloyd originally bought the…

JOB INFO TOOLS NEEDED Trolley jack and axle stands; angle grinder; brake pipe spanner; breaker bar; grease gun; hammer; mig welder; spanners / sockets; 10mm allen key; steel wire brush; steel toe-capped boots! MATERIALS USED Cable ties; degreaser; multi-purpose grease; penetrating fluid; paper towels / cloths; rust preventative paint; thread lock TIME TAKEN 8 hours COST DIY £300 The front axle on all except 1302 / 1303 Beetles consists of two sets of transverse leaf springs contained within separate tubes that twist in a torsion bar motion to control the up and down movement of the upper and lower trailing arms, and subsequently the stub axles and the front wheels that attach to them. Over time, the exterior casing of the beam axle can become corroded, even though the inside…

May Vanwest Date:5-7 May 2017 Location:Brean Sands, Somerset Contact: www.vanwest.net Bulli-Days Date:5-7 May 2017 Location:Vöhl-Herzhausen,Germany Contact: www.bulli-days.de Meeting VW Date:5-7 May 2017 Location:Saint-Maur, France Contact: facebook.com/Lescopainsdelacox Earlybay Campout Date:5-7 May 2017 Location:Banbury Contact: www.earlybay.com Bug Run Picnic Date:6 May 2017 Location:Gårdet, Stockholm, Denmark Contact: www.bugrun.com VW-Audi Treffen Date:13-14 May 2017 Location:Tuggen,Switzerland Contact: www. vw-audi-treffen-hochybrig.ch Döbelner Bushaltestelle Date:25-28 May 2017 Location:Döbeln, Germany Contact: www.kaeferbande-doebeln.com Maggiopeople Date:26-28 May 2017 Location:Tornaco,Italy Contact: www.maggiolino.it VolksRiders Camp Meet Date:26-28 May 2017 Location:Madrid, Spain Contact:facebook/volksridersMadrid June Bullitreffen am Murnersee Date:2-5 June 2017 Location:Murnersee, Germany Contact: http://vw-bustreffen-murnersee. npage.de VW Expo Date:4 June 2017 Location:Stonor Park, Oxfordshire Contact: www.abvwc.com Bug Run Date:9-11 June 2017 Location:Mantorp Park Raceway, Mjölby, Sweden Contact: www.bugrun.com Bristol Volksfest Date:9-11 June 2017 Location:Birches Farm, Bristol BS41 9AG Contact: www.bristolvolksfest.co.uk Hurst Dubfest Date:9-11 June 2017…

“By far the classiest were the quite exquisitely decorated porcelain items made by Rosenthal” It is, without doubt, one of the accessories most associated with the original Beetle. And, interestingly enough, its new incarnation in 1997. What am I talking about? Why, the bud vase, that favourite way of bringing flower power to the dashboards of Beetles for many decades. But although these little pots of floral joy have become particularly identified with Volkswagens, they’ve actually been around for much longer than the Type 1. And were rather more a necessity than a decoration in their early days. This is the brief history of how vases, vehicles and (especially) Volkswagens became unlikely bed fellows. Odour eaters Back in the early days of motoring, cars and the streets they drove along…

“perfect paint wasn’t top of his list of priorities” The car you see here was produced during the early days of Volkswagen after British military control of the Wolfsburg plant was passed back to Germany, under the direction of Heinz Nordhoff. From the start, Nordhoff saw no value in Volkswagen having any involvement in motorsport, decreeing “no official sporting activities” would be taken part in by the company. His focus was on creating export markets, which sealed the future of the company. Looking back, Nordhoff was probably correct not to invest any resources in competition activities as owners enthusiastically did it themselves, at no cost to Volkswagen! As early as 1950 VWs were being entered as ‘privateers’ into motorsport events such as the Internationale Österreichische Alpenfahrt (Austrian Alpine Rally). The…

One of the great appeals of drag racing as a motorsport is that it hasn’t moved too far from its roots. In the UK at least, the majority of racers are still regular guys, not afraid to experiment with new ideas in an effort to wring more speed and horsepower out of often unusual bits of machinery. Shaun Hyde and his father, Mark, may have only been actively involved in quarter-mile racing a few years, but fit that profile to a tee 26-year old Shaun is the first to admit he’s not a massive fan of air-cooled VWs, so we asked him how he came to build such a radical Volkswagen. “I’ve always been into drag racing and hot rod stuff since my dad took me along to watch the…

“I looked after it like a baby…” Toyota often claims the world record for production of a single model with its Corolla. However, most people know that the classic (air-cooled) Beetle is the real record holder, thanks to remaining basically the same design, while being slowly developed with often minor annual changes and improvements. When Safer Motoring magazine launched in 1961, the Beetle had already witnessed changes to the rear window, from Split through Oval to Rectangular. Then, in 1966 VW finally came up with another long awaited change: 12-volt electrics. We shouted about it in the September 1966 issue, but wait – if you read on, you would have found that this applied only to the Type 3 and commercial vehicles. The Beetle would have to wait a little…

The Gilder Group, one of the first VW/VAG dealership in the UK, acquired the small collection of air-cooled cars for promotional purposes and used to rotate them between its 19 showrooms. The idea was to drum up a bit of interest, reinforce the brand so to speak, and in marketing terms generate extra footfall. When JCT600 bought the Gilder Group’s VAG dealerships the collection was transferred to the private ownership of the Gilder Group’s chairman, who subsequently decided to put them up for auction at H&H Classic’s Duxford sale on 29 March 2017. First to enter the ring was a gleaming 1978 Last Edition Beetle. According to the metal plaque on the dash, it’s number 65 of the 300 made. It’s covered just 26,000 miles from new but it’s been…

“I realised that if you want to take the kids away, you need a Camper” “Al worked on putting the Bus back together every night, a bit at a time” “The head unit is from a sauna because, as we all know, safaris leak” Who needs enemies when you’re friends with VW people, right? It’s one of those quirks of fate, but the people you meet invariably end up influencing you / inflicting their way of life on you, and so it was when Al Wyatt chummed up with long-term VW fans and serial builders, Toby and his brother Simon Hall. Hall is a name that should be familiar to VolksWorldreaders, as Toby built, amongst many other weird and wonderful creations, the full-sized Radio Flyer we featured way…

“for one day of the year the entire town is closed off to everything but air-cooled VWs and Porsches” “the sight of so many VWs in one space just boggles the mind” We can’t get across just how fantastic The Freddy Files are. It’s one of those shows that once you’ve been, you simply never want to miss. It’s the brainchild of Fredrick Peeters, who owns a parfumerie in the town of Ninove, Belgium. We don’t know how he’s wangled it, or who he’s got dirt on at his local council, but for one day of the year the entire town is closed off to everything but air-cooled VWs and Porsches. Can you imagine any local authority in merry old England shutting off a town for a…

Cool squared Kid Dean’s chopped Squareback has undergone a sympathetic restoration by owner James Russell, so we dropped by to see what all the fuss was about Cutting the mustard This left field 55 build is brimmed full of naughty but nice DIY features Mango delight Held together with primer, this ’59 Split is now the ultimate weekend plaything Listen to the band Our how-to guide to making VW steel wheels a little bit wider…