Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i VolksWorld

FROM THE TOP volksworld.ed@kelsey.co.uk While I am a fan of Christmas, I’m an even bigger fan of air-cooled VWs, hence the association I have attached to Christmas trees and decorations makes this an exciting time of year. What I mean is that when I see Xmas trees, my first thought is actually ‘VolksWorld Show’ as this is the time of year when team VolksWorld really knuckle down to pull the event together. Oh, and we exchange gifts in between show chats, but that’s beside the point. I’m particularly excited this year as we’ve already secured a good number of overseas show cars, including some truly world-class debuts, which is great news for everyone. Following that whole Brexit thing, and then travel restrictions in the post-Covid period, we noticed not only…

“the paint glistens, falling from highs to lows as the sun passes over the curves of the body” I started attending VW events with friends in the late ’80s and bought my first VW – a ’72 1200 – in 1991. I built a 1641cc motor, welded adjusters into the front beam and fitted Center Line replicas, but it wasn’t long before I felt the need for more speed, so moved up to a hot 2180cc motor. These days everyone seems to run a 2.0-litre plus motor, but in the early ’90s a stroker motor in a street-driven Beetle in the UK was quite something. I spent many weekends at Santa Pod and even won a few RWYB events, including the Fast Car Challenge two years in a row. For…

Although Phil and Sherry Cohan had been long-time VW enthusiasts, owning everything from a ’59 Split Screen Pick-up to a 2009 Jetta, they weren’t initially in the market for a new project. Until, that is, Sherry received an ovarian cancer diagnosis and the couple decided to buy something to direct their focus into. It must have worked, as Sherry has now been in remission for a number of years. The couple reside in Henderson, Nevada these days, but are natives of Riverside, California, part of an area referred to as Inland Empire. Thought that conjures up some rather fancy images, it’s basically the desert, around an hour’s drive from the beach. It’s also, incidentally, the former and spiritual home of America’s VW aftermarket industry. Joe Vittone owned the Economotors VW…

’69 CUSTOM BAY It was cold on the rear apron at Sandown Park Racecourse on the third Friday in March. The sun had yet to rise high in the sky and there was a chilling wind. Donning a Dayglo tabard to avoid being run over, I’d unwittingly been drummed in to helping marshal new arrivals. There is something special about this time of year though. Seeing the show cars arrive is one of the best parts of the weekend; an opportunity to check debut cars out as their owners breathe a sigh of relief that they’ve made it safely to the venue. Many are so tired they can barely speak, but the excitement is palpable. I watched a white T4 Transporter draw up, idly noting its French number plates (I…

Email your news, thoughts, opinions and products to VolksWorld.ed@kelsey.co.uk EMPI has recently released this new high performance rear disc brake kit with Wilwood calipers. Said to be a bolton fit to any ’58-’67 swing axle Type 1 application (though IRS kits also available) it includes all the hardware, pipes and cables required. Discs are drilled and grooved one-piece units and come with both Porsche 5 x 130 PCD (with 14 x 1.5mm thread) and Chevy 5 x 4.75 PCD (with 12mm thread) bolt patterns. Choose either red (p/no. 22-6154-R) or black (p/no. 22-6154-B) calipers. From: www.empius.com…

’65 CUSTOM SPLIT Living in Britain and loving air-cooled Volkswagens brings with it an almost inevitable side effect – California dreaming. Not the song, but actual neurons firing across our human brains creating scenes of golden sands, perfectly curling waves, blue skies and VWs. Gary Consalvi had similar visions when embarking upon a retirement project with the ’shell of a 1965 VW Bus at its heart. Except his picture is based on a lived reality. Born on the opposite coast in New York, Gary moved to California when he was five years old and lived there all his life until retiring to Phoenix, Arizona last year. “I had a dream to build a beautiful VW Split Window beach cruiser,” he tells us. “I wanted it to be a tribute build…

Yann started his Classic Cars Body Repair business in Saint-Forgeot, France in 2011, largely thanks to the encouragement of all-round nice guy, Pascal Amodru, owner of Serial Kombi. At the point he did so, he had already painted Pascal’s famous Wind Split hi-top drag race Bus, and several other cars, clearly demonstrating his skills for restoration and bodywork. However, as anyone who has ever built a business in the car sector will attest, it’s no walk in the park. And, while it might seem like the perfect way to get your own projects done in double quick time, it actually becomes harder than ever. How so? I hear you ask. Well, if you have the time to build your own projects, you rarely have the money to do so. And…

THE PORSCHE CONNECTION Porsche has an amazing collection of cars in its museum at Stuttgart but, until recently, there was a notable gap in the early timeline of the 911. As this is a VW magazine, not a Porsche one – though we all know the two are inextricably linked – we should perhaps begin with a brief history of the Porsche 901, the short-lived forerunner of the legendary 911. On the outside, they are essentially the same vehicle, 901 being the internal code Porsche initially used at the launch of its new model at the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (Frankfurt Motor Show) in September 1963. However, by the time the 901 was first offered for sale to the public, at the 1964 Paris Auto Salon, a French car maker had objected…

Email your news, thoughts, opinions and products to volksworld.ed@kelsey.co.uk One last dance Dear VolksWorld, here are some images of my Karmann Ghia, which has a place in my heart like no car I’ve ever owned before as I built it together with my father. Let me explain. I’ve been building cars together with my father my whole life, from ’55, ’56 and ’57 Chevys to Mopars and everything in between. Of all the cars we restored, the ones I’ve enjoyed working on most have been the old VWs as I love the simplicity and style. But in late 2019, he announced he was going to sell the last two cars we’d completed as he was done with car restorations. He said he was “getting too old for it all.” I…

’56 OVAL RAGTOP If you’re British and you think of Belgium, it no doubt brings thoughts of chocolate, waffles and Stella Artois. A strange combination in some people’s book, a breakfast of kings in others. But if you’re British and love air-cooled Volkswagens, the first two things that come to mind will more likely be Le Bug Show and European Bug-In. For a country one eighth the size of the UK, and with 54 million fewer inhabitants, it’s fair to say that, when it comes to classic Volkswagens, Belgium definitely punches above its weight. The ease of passage from Germany to Belgium during the peak years of air-cooled manufacturing was clearly a bonus. The head honchos at Wolfsburg saw opportunity in a country with no discernible automotive manufacturing of its…

Toy Nomura Co. was founded in Tokyo, Japan in 1923 and, by the 1950s and ’60s, was one of the largest toy makers in Japan, before being bought out by Hasbro Inc. in 1993. Its products are generally (but not always, as you will soon see) identified by a stamped T.N inside a diamond. Toy Nomura, like many other Japanese toy manufacturers, produced items for the American market and used toy importer, Cragstan Corporation, based in New York for distribution. T.N produced a line of tin plate toy cars in the 1950s that included a very pleasing Volkswagen Cabriolet with the top down. The stamped tin body was painted either blue or maroon and had lots of nicely detailed metal trim pieces, including headlights, a VW bonnet badge, side trim,…