Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i VolksWorld

A decade of development has seen Current Racing’s fully electric Beetle, ‘Black Current’, break many boundaries, the most recent of which is getting into the low 8s, making it the world’s quickest electric door slammer in the quarter mile! Black Current uses a steel 1965 VW Beetle ’shell with carbon / kevlar flip front and rear wings, but underneath the car has had substantial modifications, starting with a full chromoly 25.1sfi tube chassis, Strange Engineering front struts, a Ford 9-inch differential and four link rear suspension, all more commonly seen on V8-powered drag race cars. That’s where the similarity stops though. Power to that back axle comes from a 9-inch triamese DC motor, fed by 864 lithium cobalt cells producing 3,000A at 400V running through an overdrive unit. Power output…

A fully restored 1949 Hebmüller is due to go under the hammer at Mecam’s Monterey auction this August (18-20) with an unreal estimate of $300,000-$350,000 (approx. £225,000-£263,000). It’s been sympathetically uprated with a 50bhp Okrasa engine and disc brakes, although the winning bidder will be supplied with a period 25 horse unit should they wish to return it closer to its original spec. Reportedly, respected Californian Porsche restoration specialist, Bata Mataja of BAD (Big American Dream), oversaw its rebuild so we expect the attention to detail is phenomenal.…

To many of those who attended this year’s VolksWorldShow, Nigel (Nige to his mates) Fleet’s ’72 Beetle may easily have been overlooked. There’s no ultra-low stance, custom paintwork or flashy wheels. The bodywork certainly retains some patina, but not on the scale we’ve become accustomed to, yet, to any serious Beetle fan, Nige’s ’72 is something a little special, and certainly a rare sight globally, let alone in the UK. If you’re familiar with the EMPI badge and indeed its history, then this could easily have been the car of the show for you. Many will know the story of EMPI, its highs and ultimately a big low, quite typical of niche vehicle and component manufacturers of the era, but for those who don’t there’s a brief reminder in the…

Immerse yourself in the crazy world of air-cooled VWs and one thing soon becomes abundantly clear, numbers are everything. Not just how much you can say you’ve spent or saved getting your VW to where it is now, but the year it was made, how many still exist and so on. So, that ’73 of yours? Not as cool as a ’63 is it? And before Mr. ’63 comes over all high and mighty, he can jog on, because Mr. ’53 has just rolled into town. You get the picture? This isn’t my opinion, it’s just the way the classic car scene works. Older is always better. And this is especially true when we’re talking Split Screen Buses. Over the course of the last decade we’ve all quietly mouthed ‘WTF?’…

OWNER INFO NAME: Ian Cushway OCCUPATION: Editor CAR: ’68 Bug WORK THIS MONTH: Lots of air being sucked through teeth… To be honest, I’ve spent the last few weeks breathing a huge sigh of relief. If you missed last month’s instalment, I spotted the ’68 1500 online, paid for it then waited what seemed like an eternity for it to be transported from sunny Portugal to my home in Brittany, France. At one point, I was convinced I’d been mugged off and that the closest I’d get to seeing the thing would be a fuzzy screen image from the original advert. Oh ye of little faith… So it’s now been sitting cosily in my workshop for the best part of four weeks while I’ve variously been trying to get my…

“all the hallmarks of a top drawer show” Rent a racetrack, big up your third decade of evolving into one of Europe’s largest independent VW parts suppliers and then race around it all afternoon and evening with your mates. Can you think of a better way to host a birthday than at Brands Hatch? VW Heritage couldn’t, so that’s exactly what went down on July 7 2016 in the Kent countryside. With free entry to the show ’n’ shine for all who passed through the hallowed gates, this one-time celebration hosted over 1,000 cars and was packed with a liberal sprinkling of both air and water-cooled rides worthy of recognition. Considering it was hosted on a school night, the get together had all the hallmarks of a top drawer show,…

“I’ve only wanted one for about 25 years!” Andy Palmer, ’65 Resto Cal Beetle This is the first Beetle that Andy has owned, which he bought around 1½ years ago. “I’ve only wanted one for about 25 years!” he laughs. “I acquired the car pretty much in its present condition, fully restored but very much unloved, and it needed plenty of tidying in places. The Beetle is a USA import and I believe a company called KCW [Kustom Coach Werks-Ed] based in Colorado completed much of the work. I tried contacting them, but they couldn’t remember very much about the car as the restoration work took place a few years ago. I’m not sure what the original colour was, but it’s currently painted in Diamond Green, an original Volkswagen colour…

“founding strong export markets held back the Type 2” The success of the Volkswagen Beetle was referred to as an economic miracle in Germany, and the rapid escalation in sales was, quite frankly, mind boggling. When the British military chose former manager of the Opel car company, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heinrich Nordhoff, to take over as General Director on January 1 1948, Volkswagenwerk GmbH employed 8,719 workers who, by the end of the year, had produced 19,244 vehicles. By the time Colonel Charles Radclyffe signed the trusteeship of VW over to the federal German government on October 8 1949, production had already risen to 46,154 vehicles. Nordhoff continued to administer VW’s rapid rise in production and sales, rightly realising the real secret to success was in export sales, based on an…

OWNER INFO NAME: Jon Robinson-Pratt OCCUPATION: Photographer CARS OWNED: ’64 Bug WORK THIS MONTH: Fix the accelerator cable, properly this time, and sort out a lot of other little niggles I am, of course, referring to my trip home from The VolksWorldShow. It was late on Sunday evening, it was hammering down with rain and I was only four miles from Sandown Park. Cruising gently towards the M25 (not my favourite place!) and the engine suddenly went from 2,000 revs to about 10,000 revs, to the point it sounded like it was about to explode. My heart sank. I pulled into a lay-by, yet again, to investigate. Thankfully, it was a simple problem, but not so simple to fix in a lay-by in the pouring rain. Turned out the accelerator…

Wartime bombs have been uncovered at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg plant threatening to lead to localised evacuation of nearby residents. Metal fragments, which later turned out to be unexploded ammunition, were discovered by construction workers who were busy carrying out excavation work as part of an expansion plan for the existing factory facility. Reportedly, experts have been called in to assess the likely risks, although regardless of the outcome production is unlikely to be affected. The factory was comprehensively targeted by the Allies with close to 2,000 bombs being dropped in a single raid, which lasted less than five minutes, on April 8 1944. In spite of this, production continued – albeit severely disrupted. Later in April 1944, an American bomber crashed into the factory, destroying many vehicles in the process, including…

Here’s a little known fact, every classic Volkswagen owner in Britain lives in Clacton. Okay, I’ll concede that might not be strictly true, but from the interest we got as soon as Paul Ridgwell fired up his metalflake blue Buggy and drove it onto the seafront it couldn’t be far off correct. Everyone who walked past was either building a Beetle, had a Bus (one even claimed to own a Hebmüller) or previously owned a Buggy and wanted another just like this one. Paul could have named his price for his car, or had his choice of swaps, including a VW trike in the exact same colour. Not that Paul is even entertaining the idea of selling, he’s put too much time and effort into getting the Buggy exactly how…

“Highlights for the tipsy lot I was with had to be the East European Elvis”     “More traders will come now the word is out about how truly fab this event is” “It’s the only VW show on the calendar that offers a soapbox race” Everyone knows about our annual shindig, The VolksWorldShow at Sandown Park, but did you know our sister mag, Camper&Bus, has its own yearly gathering at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire? Now in its third year, there’s already a great buzz about this event, which for 2016 was held over the weekend of 29-30 July. But if, like us, you’d never had any real reason to visit Ledbury until now, you’d be surprised by how lovely the area is. Think chocolate box scenery, a quaint little…

JOB INFO TOOLS NEEDED: Adjustable spanner Screwdrivers Magnetic pick-up tool Crimping tool Spanners / sockets: 8mm, 10mm, 30mm Timing strobe or bulb and wire Wheel chocks MATERIALS USED: Electrical connectors Marker paint SKILL LEVEL: 2 TIME TAKEN: 1-2 hours COST DIY: £85 Many of us have suffered engine trouble caused by the distributor’s points gap closing up, or the condenser failing. A distributor’s points and condenser are fine when they are working, but for peace of mind, an electronic ignition conversion is undoubtedly more reliable, with the added bonus that it doesn’t need servicing or renewing, and helps provide a more consistent supply of voltage to the spark plugs. There are lots of electronic ignition conversion kits available. Some include a completely new distributor, whereas others consist of parts to…