Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i VolksWorld

Box set mentality Fresh back from Dubfreeze I’ve been reflecting on the changes in the VW scene over the past 10-15 years, particularly in relation to event reports, magazines and the Internet as a whole. For many years, Dubfreeze was the season opener, and I couldn’t wait to catch up with old friends after a winter away from the shows. It was also somewhere to dig through boxes of goodies and occasionally pick up the odd bargain. Then along came the Internet, along with online auction sites, club page classifieds, forums and Facebook which ultimately changed the face of the swapmeet. Contrary to popular opinion, it didn’t ruin the swapmeet scene, but it did change the way things work, and also the kind of stuff you’ll find for sale these…

“Look closely and you’ll notice a cheeky Porsche crest on the cracked and paint-crazed bonnet” Mark Twain is often credited with describing golf as: “A good walk, spoiled.” And if the man lauded for being America’s greatest humorist can get away with pouring shade on something as popular as stick-ball, maybe I can get away with daring to suggest Beach Buggies are a good Beetle ruined? Too harsh? Want me to shut my filthy trap? Well, it’s just my opinion man and many people far better than me would argue otherwise. Like Steve McQueen, Bruce Meyer and the many thousands of Buggy owners who’ve built, bought and loved the countless variations that have been produced over the years. So what do I know anyway? Actually, what I do know is…

We were parked in the pits at last year’s Le Bug Show to check out the drag and circuit racers when we first stumbled across this ’65 Bug belonging to Maik Koller. Thirty-nine-year-old machine operator Maik lives in the town of Brebersdorf, Germany and has owned a string of neat VWs prior to this project. “I have a ’64 Type 3 1500S at home and have owned cars including a ’69 Bay window, a ’56 Oval Beetle and a ’79 Mk 1 Golf.” This particular project was purchased back in 2000 and Maik spent the next five years rebuilding it. Yes, that’s right, it was completed a long time ago, yet still looks super fresh today. Maik went on to explain that the car had been stripped down to the…

Let’s face it, there aren’t many Bus projects on the market these days that don’t need sill repairs or full replacement and, if a Bus needs sills, you can be sure the front inner wheel well area will need work too. This area really has it tough, getting pounded by grit, water and dirt thrown off the front tyres, whilst also being rusted out from the inside by trapped dirt inside the sills. The ‘patient’ we are operating on here, whilst being a very solid 1961 Bus, had some of the worst inner wheelwell rot we have seen, so we thought it prudent to show you how to tackle the repair in the correct manner. Whilst Bay Window and Split Buses have subtle differences in this area, the repair work…

Tegardless of whether you're a Buggy fan or not, you can't help but revel in the sequence of film in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) where Steve McQueen gets behind the wheel of a bright red Buggy, Faye Dunaway at his side, and indulges in some sand-dune shenanighans, incurring more than just a few self-inflicted brown-trouser moments in the process we understand. Specifically when the throttle jammed at one point. Car-freak McQueen did all the driving himself, there was no stunt double. Well, the Buggy in question has just sold at Bonhams for the princely sum of $456,000 (roughly £350,000). Interestingly, the original film script called for the use of a Jeep, but apparently McQueen had spotted the Meyers Manx flying through the air on the cover of a '66…

Despite growing up enjoying family holidays in a Split Bus and helping his dad convert a Bay panel van into a camper, and even running around in Beetles and a Fastback when he was young, 54 year-old Eddie Blackmore from Workington, Cumbria had never owned a Volkswagen of his own. Until September 2017, that is, when he clicked on the ‘bid now’ button for a dilapidated looking ’69 1200A Beetle. He bought it as a derelict rolling ’shell from a guy in Yorkshire, with no interior, very little glass and a 1200 engine with more end float than Kim Kardashian’s grandmother. It’s almost as if Eddie, a senior corrosion technologist by trade as it happens, had been looking for the scabbiest looking car he could find. And when we put…

While California remains a huge hub of VW activity, the US is littered with talented specialists. Hence why VolksWorld made the trek to the other side of the US this month to shoot Mike Cupurdija’s ’63 Karmann Ghia built by Cooker’s Restoration & Fabrication, a Maryland-based VW shop with an excellent reputation. In an unexpected turn of events, we managed to discover the just-completed Ghia before Mike laid his eyes on it! You see, Mike serves the United States’ armed forces in the Middle East and wasn’t home during the photo shoot, hence we hooked up with Bob Cook at Cooker’s to photograph the coupe. “he bought the Karmann Ghia here, sight unseen, in Arizona 15 years ago” We later spoke with Mike over the phone, during his deployment, and…

There’s nothing we enjoy more at VolksWorld than shooting the breeze, sipping a sugary mug of tea and talking about elderly VWs. So having been issued an informal over-the-phone invite we jumped at the chance of dropping in on Ant Winter and his crew at Kustom Revival who work out of an industrial unit in Small Dole, just north of Shoreham in West Sussex. Ant’s got lots of history when it comes to VWs. He bought his first Bug at 17 and with the various restoration skills he’d learnt fixing his mum’s Mini, got a job in various garages and bodyshops before bumping into Jez Parsons at the 2005 VolksWorld Show. At the time Jez was fitting Porsche engines into Split Buses at his Horsham premises and offered Ant a…

We've just received the news that the International Vintage Volkswagen Meeting in Lavenham has been postponed until 11-13 September, 2020. Featuring only stock, unmodified or period-correct pre-August 1967 Volkswagens, we love this event – not least because being set amidst the glorious timbered buildings of the picturesque mediaeval Suffolk village it attracts guests from all over the world. As in previous years, there's dedicated parking for qualifying vehicles, but worry not if you don't own an old enough VW because there's public parking close by. Visit www. vintagevolkswagens-lavenham.co.uk for more info.…

Joe Da Silva has been tinkering with old VWs for more than 25 years and in that time I think it’s fair to say that he’s owned and built his fair share of killer cars. The list’s long, but notably includes an old-school inspired ’55 Oval, a ’61 Resto-Cal, a lovely ’67 Cal Looker and a wild roof-chopped T34 Razoredge gasser named ‘Gobble Fly’. Forty-three-year old Joe explained, “After I completed this ’53 I decided it was time to open my own business ‘Dr Kruiser Auto Repair’ in my home town of Grézieux-le-Fromental (France) where I specialise in air-cooled restorations,” which comes as little surprise given the quality of work involved in this show ‘n’ go California Look project. Saved from the strip The story begins around a decade ago…

Let me start by giving the following guys a name-check; Trevor Brady and David Cole (Duts), both very good friends in my VW club, Eircooled, and John Filby and Charles Gillman, two VW enthusiasts based in County Cork, Ireland. The four of them saved my bottom within the space of 24 hours. Let me explain. On the Saturday myself, Trev and Duts were planning on joining some other clubmates at Barretstown to bring the kids for their disco run in our old VWs. I was planning on having dinner at an old friend’s house with her family beforehand so I said I would meet the boys at Ballymore Eustace for the two-minute drive into Barretstown as I have done many times before. Sun was out, roof was down and I…

In the days before the Chesil Motor Company, what did you do if you fancied a Porsche 356, but your budget was rather more limited? Well, if it was the 1950s and you lived in Germany, popping along to see Dannenhauer & Stauss in Augustenstrasse, Stuttgart, was always an option. During the decade, this German coachbuilder produced a number of stylish Volkswagen-based convertibles and coupés with more than a hint of Porsche to them. Although they did have a distinctive look all of their own and incorporated certain Beetleish design cues such as quite pronounced and curvaceous rear wings, from the front especially, they could easily be mistaken for a Porker. Especially if you squinted a bit. Well, quite a bit really. Unfortunately for D&S, its success was seriously blunted…