Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2019 i VolksWorld

I am so sick of consumerism. Or, more accurately, the couldn’t-give-a-damn throwaway society that manufacturers have got us all accustomed to living in these days. And no, it’s not something that’s suddenly come on overnight. It’s been playing heavily on my mind since we started having a clear out in advance of a house move in spring. All those trips to the dump made me realise just how much stuff – usually good stuff – we end up simply throwing away. The final agonising knee in the groin though came last week following the purchase of a new fridge freezer. It wasn’t cheap. Yet a month down the road the thermostat’s started playing up. Someone’s supposedly coming to fit a replacement part. It’s barely out of its packaging for Christ’s…

I enjoyed reading Robin Wager’s Tailpipe page in the June issue with regards to Derek Smith and the vintage VWs he owned. I used to buy VW Motoring and remember reading Robin's 1974 article, so it was nice to be reminded of his Beetles again. In his report, Robin questions what became of the cars. I’m a member of the Historic VW Club; the cars are well recognised as being cars 'from back in the day' and Derek Smith is generally regarded as a founder member of the club. However, I recently received the latest summer issue of the club magazine and noticed that editor Mike Johnson has written an article informing members that Derek has sadly passed away. Grant, via email Yes, we too discovered that Derek sadly passed…

One of my friends gave me the heads-up that this Kombat Buggy was for sale, after being stored away in a garage for 15 years. Clearly a great deal of recommissioning work was required and the first job was to strip down the front beam, followed by a repaint. Then a new stainless steel petrol tank was fitted. There were a few other issues and maladies to overcome and the latest job was to have the 1600cc engine fully rebuilt by Wooleys Service Station in Hingham, Norfolk. I am not sure who originally built the buggy but I purchased it as a bit of an automotive toy, so it doesn’t really matter. That said, safety has always been very much at the forefront, so I am pleased it features a…

If you’re sitting comfortably, let me start by telling you a bit about me, my air-cooled VW addiction, and how I came to invest so much time and a not insignificant amount of cash on this 1977 Beetle. In 1987, when I was 14 years-old my parents Peggy and Charlie bought me a project Beetle for Christmas. It was, to this day, the best present I have ever received. My father and his neighbour, Kevin Argue, tied a rope to the old ’68 Beetle and dragged it home on Christmas Eve. Rain, no wipers, no brakes and with holes in the floor it was an interesting journey for my dad. Needless to say when I opened the curtains on Christmas morning I couldn’t believe it. I spent the next 12…

“The genuine Porsche alloys fit the same Cal Look theme” BODY Stock 1962 Beetle, restored; VW L478 Beryl Green paint ENGINE 2332cc by Casey Viscioni; VW AS41 mag case; 84mm Bugpack flanged crank; 94mm Cima/Mahle pistons/ cylinders; 5.5in Scat connecting rods; 9-to-1 compression ratio; CB Performance 45x36mm 044 heads, ported/ polished by Anthony Chicca; Berg 1.45:1 rocker arms; Manton pushrods; Web Cam 86C camshaft; MSD 6AL ignition box with 2-step; MSD distributor; Bosch coil; MSD wires; dual Weber 48IDAs with 40mm venturis; CB manifolds; 13/4in Lowdown A-1 header; owner-made Magnaflow muffler; 30mm Berg oil pump; full flow; 3.5-quart Berg sump; breather box by Jim Kaforski; lightened 12-volt VW flywheel; Kennedy Stage 2 clutch with 4-puck disc; yellow Cadmium-plated hardware; AN fittings by Topline parts GEARBOX 4-speed by Jim Kaforski, Der…

Organised by the Association of British VW Clubs (ABVWC), this event has been running for 30 years at this site and has always been popular for those looking to show their VWs. Stonor Park itself is a picturesque stately home nestled in rolling hills and ancient woodland between the M4 and the M40 close to Henley-on-Thames. Access is good, although the last bit involves negotiating a few twisty roads. We arrived on Saturday afternoon to join the other pre-booked campers in a field alongside the main event on one of the hottest days of the year. Incidentally, you can’t just turn up without a reservation, but the good news is that £22 pays for your Saturday night pitch and entry to the event the next day. Speaking of pre-booking, the…

For the last couple of years I’ve been working towards owning another Bay Window Camper, the plan being to buy a few old VWs, improve them, then sell them on to boost the coffers. Having reached my goal and bought an original paint Sierra Yellow 1971 Bus, I also managed to buy a new daily driver in the form of a Mk5 Golf GTI. The trouble is, having wanted a Mk5 with a DSG auto box for quite a while, I just didn’t fall in love with the car I’d bought. So when the red ‘72 Lindor Strand Single Cab Pick-Up came along late last year, I saw it as a potential daily driver that would match my needs better than a gas guzzler with limited carrying capacity, so the…

What could be better than a holiday where you get to pick up a new Beetle, Bus, Karmann Ghia or even a 411 soon after landing and then drive it to your heart’s content around Europe? Well, that was what Volkswagen offered from the 1950s to the 1970s, courtesy of its Tourist Delivery programme. Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as all that – there were a few caveats. Such as having to actually buy the vehicle. Oh, and have it shipped back to your home country afterwards. Which would have to be somewhere like the United States, Canada or New Zealand. Still, beats a Fiat hire car any day…. “you could apparently ‘re-enact some ancient mystic rite in the Druid temple at Stonehenge.’ Well, that was one suggestion…”…

July Bug Jam 33 Date: 26-28 July 2019 Location: Santa Pod Raceway Contact: www.bugjam.co.uk Old Friends Air-Cooled Only Show Date: 28 July 2019 Location: Chippenham Rugby Club Contact: see Facebook site August Kent VW Festival Date: 2-4 Aug 2019 Location: A2, near Dover (CT15 5AH) Contact: www.kentvwfestival.com Coffee, Cakes & Car – Harry Harpics Open Day Date: 4 Aug 2019 Location: Ashingdon, Essex SS4 3LW Contact: www.harryharpics.com Tatton Park Date: 4 Aug 2019 Location: Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire Contact: www.vwnw.co.uk VW Festival Date: 9-11 Aug 2019 Location: Harewood House, Leeds Contact: www.vwfestival.co.uk Le Bug Show Date: 10-11 Aug 2019 Location: Circuit Spa Francorchamps, Belgium Contact: www.vwbugshow.be Viva Skeg Vegas Date: 16-18 Aug 2019 Location: Revesby, Lincs Contact: www.vivaskegvegasvw.co.uk Run a show? Why not tell us about it? email VolksWorld.ed@ kelsey.co.uk…

After 30 years in the VW scene and as dedicated VW owners themselves, Just Kampers has become aware of a need for dedicated VW finance. As such, they’re now offering their own range of services with fairness, recognition of what vehicles you want to buy – and what you want to do with them – being their key objectives. While finance products currently available have typically been laden with hidden fees, excessive terms and conditions, and high APR interest rates, Just Kampers Finance has addressed these issues and offers a range of financial products specially designed to meet an individual customer’s needs. Whether it’s buying an air-cooled VW from a dealer or private seller; undertaking a dream conversion; or restoring a classic to its former glory there’s now likely to…

When I was learning to drive, old VWs made sense on two levels. First, they were cheap to buy and secondly, they were easy to fix at home using basic hand tools. Now, while the fact that they’re easy to work on obviously hasn’t changed, the relative value of old VWs certainly has. Let’s be honest, only the most fortunate of youngsters can afford to purchase an air-cooled VW as a first car these days and I’d imagine that, more often than not, those classics will be serviced and maintained by a professional garage. In all honesty, the typical teenage driver today is more concerned about the cost of insurance than anything else… i.e. things have changed a lot over the past 30 years (as has the air-cooled VW demographic).…

Terry Cripps is a 50 year-old self-employed electrician from Garden Village, Hatfield and is also the proud owner of this particularly nice Subaru-powered ’65 Split Screen Camper, which he has built from the ground up. Terry explained, “I’ve been interested in VWs for about 15 years, after spotting a Split screen Camper parked at the bottom of my parent’s road. I just fell in love with the shape and style of them.” He continued, “While other VWs interest me, it’s the Split Screen that lights the flame and floats my boat, so to speak.” Amazingly, the Split you see here is actually Terry’s first VW project, which he picked up back in 2006 and has spent a decade building. “I have owned a couple of Golfs since purchasing the Bus,…

BODY 1977 Beetle, built originally in the 1980s as a Cal Looker; dechromed with pre-’67 panels; one-piece front windows; NOS Baby Tornado mirrors; NOS Rossi headlamps with integrated indicators; shaved bonnet handle; colour-coded door handles; subsequent three-year body-off restoration, painted Ferrari Yellow; stainless bumper blades, colour coded on the inside; colour coded NOS glassfibre running boards; grafted-in engine lid louvre behind raised US-style number plate ENGINE 1776cc engine with ported and polished heads and match ported manifolds; Engle 120 camshaft; vented rocker covers; Claude Buggies deep sump; twin 44IDF carbs with velocity stacks; K&N remote oil filter; EMPI breather box; alternator conversion; 009 distributor; 30hp doghouse fan shroud; alloy oil filler neck; colour-coded tinware; yellow dress-up kit; SSP stainless steel exhaust; gearbox mounted fuel filter bracket SUSPENSION Bead blasted, etch…

“I took my now wife, Karen, on our first date in this car...” On the 27th July 1977, our man Trevor picked up a bright orange 1303 Super Bug, which was just five years old at that point in time. Purchased from the original owner for £1,115 the little Bug was put into daily service, which it handled with ease. Over the Trevor’s Bug slowly became part of the family. He commented, “I took my now wife, Karen, on our first date in this car and it also took us on honeymoon, too.” As the years went on, the Super Bug was also used to drive both of his newborn sons home from hospital not to mention taking the whole family away on numerous holidays and road trips. Trevor also…

When it comes to car shows, it’s not very often we let ‘non car’ people in to experience why we enjoy this hobby so much; we tend to lock ourselves away on an old airfield or grassy location in the sticks. There are a few exceptions of course – Ninove, Brighton Breeze, Bad Camberg and coming up fast on the outside for the past four years, Horsham’s Plum Jam. Horsham, a historic market town located 20 minutes from Gatwick airport, has developed a reputation for car shows on the streets where the general public can get involved as well. The town welcomes Italian Supercars with its Piazza Italia event, and the Yank Tanks invade for AmeriCARna. This is something show organiser Plum Jacobs has exploited to the full by adding…

A few months ago, good friends Ann and Mick Johnstone (owners of an orange Oettinger Cabriolet and rare Moortown Split) called to invite me to join them and their club, the Volkswagen Cabriolet Owners Club GB, on their stand at Stanford Hall. The aim was to get 40 Cabriolets together to celebrate and acknowledge three things: 1) 40 years of the club, 2) 40 years since the end of Karmann Beetle production and 3) 70 years since the first convertible Beetle was built. Of course I found their request impossible to refuse, so booked the ferry, made a list of jobs to do and prayed that I’d get the car prepared in time to make the journey over. We (don’t) have ignition! Things didn’t exactly get off to a good…

Matt Hussey and Danny Lord have decided to resurrect the International Notchback Register from the '80s and '90s but this time as a Facebook page. The group is for owners and admirers of the VW Type 3 Notchback from 1961 to '73. Said the duo: "Our aim is to get as many Notches still remaining registered on this group and we are encouraging members to post pictures of their rides and projects, their stories and any technical info/ brochures/publicity photos they may have. In fact if it's Notchback related, we'd love to see it." The Register already has members from across the globe and has celebrated its first official gathering at Stanford Hall with nine members displaying their Notches. So if you have a Notch, or just love Type 3s…

I bought this Beetle in February 2017 from a fellow enthusiast in Suffolk; they’d given it a Rat-Look finish and said it was pretty much good to go. However, we had a bit of a nightmare on the way home as one of the wheels almost fell off while driving down the A12. Luckily my wife, Elaine, was following behind in the daily driver and flagged me over. Oh, and by that point I noticed that there was a trail of smoke behind us! We got the Beetle home only to discover that the split pin had been left out of the rear hub and the castellated nut had come lose. “we had a bit of a nightmare on the way home as one of the wheels almost fell off”…

BODY 1965 Westfalia Type 2 Camper; converted to RHD, extensive body restoration; custom-mixed white over metallic brown paintwork ENGINE Subaru Impreza WRX turbocharged EJ20 2.0-litre remapped to 250+bhp TRANSMISSION Rebuilt Type 25 094-code transmission fitted with RJES bellhousing and operated via a one-off, cable-shift gear linkage / shifter SUSPENSION Front: 4in narrowed CE Weedeater beam and spindles (plus one-off electric power-steering conversion). Rear: IRS conversion with Porsche 944 aluminium trailing arms and T25 drive-shafts/CVs BRAKES Porsche discs and 4-pot calipers all round plus Porsche master cylinder and a remote brake servo INTERIOR Bespoke cabinets housing sink/ hob, fridge, Bose speaker etc; red and white vinyl seats; wool cloth headliner and custom wood flooring kit; full 240/12 volt electrical system with power inverter etc WHEELS AND TYRES OG 16in Porsche Fuchs…

Regular readers will no doubt be familiar with Der Kleiner Panzers and their dedication to the Cal Look scene, established in Southern California by a bunch of young students in 1965. VolksWorld founder Keith Seume was partly responsible for putting the club on the map in Europe, thanks to his book California Look VW. Seume even went on to own a famous DKP club car, a chopped ’62 Beetle built by Keith Goss back in the ’70s. Subsequently, many British enthusiasts fell under the Cal Look spell, including another VolksWorld alumni, our very own Ivan McCutcheon, who cruised in a 2.0-litre beige ’67 saloon with genuine magnesium BRMs over 25 years ago. DKP has had many ups and downs over the decades, with the first generation stretching from 1965 until…

BODY 1973 1303 painted L20B Brilliant Orange; rear luggage floor, rear quarters, rear bumper mounts, front strut tops, frame head replaced while repairs were made to the gutters, front valance, and sections of the rear window frame; Day Mouldings fibreglass wings and running boards; colour-coded Kamei chin spoiler; period Bosch spotlights; later bumpers with integral indicators ENGINE 1776cc Type 1 motor making approx 80bhp; 69mm forged crank; 90.5mm AA pistons; Engle W100 camshaft; 040 cylinder heads (40x35.5); 7.8:1 compression ratio; external oil filter; dual 40IDF Webers Vintage Speed exhaust SUSPENSION Front lowered 2in via shorter springs; new dampers / bushes; rear spring plates re-aligned (to level the ride); AVO dampers BRAKES Front disc brake conversion; rear brakes fully overhauled with fresh pipes and hoses throughout INTERIOR Porsche 944 electric front…

If you use your air-cooled VW as its was intended and like nothing more than taking extended road trips, then we bet you’ve had issues with those pesky slip joints between the heat exchangers or J tubes and the exhaust at some point. There’s nothing worse than being plagued by exhaust leaks on a long trip, and the irritating pops and backfires that might result. Well, OK, there is something worse – finding out that the exhaust and heat exchangers are literally welded together when you come to remove them. Quite often, you literally have to beat or chisel them apart. Having experienced these problems in the past, we decided to address the issue once and for all while our current engine was out for a full reseal and some…

Peace Bus In 1969, a Kombi covered with a psychedelic paintjob by artist Bob Hieronimus became one of the icons of Woodstock’s music Festival. Half a century later, Bob grabbed his paint brushes once again to recreate this faithful copy Bond Bugs VW’s star appearances in 007 films over the decades Boxing clever Troublesome gearshifts made super sweet again DKP cruise/Bug-in #44 Top air-cooled showcars from across the pond Don’t miss it!…

Brazil had a highly protectionist vehicle market in the 1960s, with imports restricted thanks to a specific economic policy. Under its ‘import substitution industrialisation’ initiative it maintained that the country would be better off creating its own goods as opposed to importing them, which would help create and expand domestic industries, forcing the local manufacture of all manner of interesting cars. Hence, over the years, Volkswagen do Brasil found customers wanting a supply of its VW components, especially engines, for use in their own products. One of these was the oddly named (to us at least) Gurgel company, which owes its name to engineer Dr João do Amaral Gurgel, who was determined to modernise the image of the outdated vehicles available in the local market. The Ipanema, their first car,…