Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i VolksWorld

volksworld.ed@kelsey.co.uk It’s hard not to love a well-built Cal Look VW. The formula is pretty simple, and that’s probably why the style is every bit as current and fashionable today as it was in the 1970s. Sure, there are details that some argue may or may not be ‘authentic’ Cal Look touches, such as the fitment of bumpers, tyre sizes and the age-old side trim or no side trim conundrum, but I think we can all agree that there’s a little more leeway these days than perhaps there once was. Spoiler alert: all the cars in this issue have side trim… As I’m sure you know, following last year’s Cal Look Special, I purchased the cover car (ex-John King ’67) and, while I skinned more than enough knuckles spannering on…

If you’re reading this and you’re too young to remember the pre-internet days of building old Volkswagens, you’ll probably never truly understand just how much more difficult it was back then to source project cars and parts for a build. Although the internet has blown the VW scene up with ready availability of rare cars and parts, in the 1980s and early ’90s you had to make do with what you could find. Frenchman, Olivier Boggio, knows this all too well. He grew up on the delightful Côte d’Azur, the well-heeled part of the Mediterranean coast of south eastern France. It’s a place where the rich drive hypercars if they want to attract attention, but he was dealt a masterstroke at the age of 10 when his uncle imported a…

February 1996 was a seminal month in the history of VolksWorld, as it was when we published our first ever California Look Special. As Ivan noted in his editorial, “The reason it had to be this month was down to Hot VWs magazine, which first acknowledged this phenomenon in its now fabled Feb ’75 issue.” Apparently, we bounced the idea off Dean Kirsten, technical editor at Hot VWs at the time and he “gave us the green light, so we hit the accelerator hard.” But were we pointing in the right direction when we hit it? The first feature car we come to is Scott Smith’s ’67 from California. At the time, Scott was a serious EMPI collector, and his ride was loaded with period kit: Speedwell / BRM mags;…

’74 CUSTOM BUG “The entire concept was based around a purple Cyclone exhaust that isn’t even fitted to the car” Laurent set up his El Dub Nostalgia website, which you’ll find at cal-look.no/nostalgia, in the year 2000, and has been researching anything and everything to do with the pioneers of the custom VW scene ever since. On top of that, he’s also a passionate collector of rare original parts, and his current stable of cars includes the Auto Haus-logo’d Split Bus, the old Auto Haus custom Bug that was discovered by Randy Carlson, an original slalom Bug called the Zig-Zaggin Wagen and the savage Bug. To some, all these cars represent an era of custom VWs that went out of fashion as the ’70s drew to a close, and should…

Sponsored by Contact: volksworld.show@kelsey.co.uk Power to the people’s car The VolksWorld Show is renowned around the world for attracting the crème de la crème of air-cooled VWs however, there’s more to the event rthank just fresh show car debuts! Over the next few issues (and via social media) we’ll be announcing a number of themed collections and special displays, which will be exclsive the 2023 event. First up is the exciting news that the Outlaw Flat 4 racers will be joining us this year, which certainly add an element of ‘go’ to the show! The line-up includes not only some of the UKs quickest cars but some fresh builds and even some European members, too. The racers will be joined by legendary Swedish engine builder and racer Johannes Perrson of…

Mark Paine wasn’t looking for a car at all. He drove to Karmann Konnection in Essex to buy an Okrasa engine for another project and this Porsche 356 was in the showroom with a for sale sign on it, KK selling it for a customer. Now, for most people, an impulse buy while out shopping constitutes some Extra Strong Mints while paying for your petrol, or a Hot Wheels on the way to the checkout, but that day Mark walked away with the Okrasa motor, and a cool 356 Outlaw. I’m sure Mark won’t mind me saying that he’s in a nice position. We featured his incredible Barndoor Bus recently, and he has quite the collection of other vintage VW tin, including an original Back to ’89 car that he…

UK CAL LOOK REGISTER The annual Cal Look Special is, of course, my favourite issue of the year, and the one I most look forward to reading. It also comes out at a time of year when I think we could all use some inspiration, especially here in the UK when the weather is the polar opposite of the California dream! Looking back over 2022, things have been pretty hectic as far as the UK Cal Look Register is concerned. Not only did we showcase 14 of the UK’s best Cal Look VWs at The VolksWorld Show, we also held the annual meet up at Rivo’s Hub in Poole, Dorset. With around 10 cars in attendance, it was a great turnout, and I’m already looking forward to following that up…

One of the industry’s most iconic automotive designers and custom builders, Kenny Pfitzer, caused quite a stir at the SEMA show in Las Vegas with two wide-bodied Split Screen Buses, which have been built in collaboration with clothing brands FB County and The Original Cascade. The wild creations began life as a 1963 Single Cab and a 1961 15-Window Deluxe. Both were completely stripped and 3D scanned to provide the base measurements and dimensions required to digitally design custom body panels including the front and rear arch flares, roof wing, front splitter, rear roll pan and sills. All the bits use a special composite material and were created via CAD software. Meanwhile, the insides were stripped and custom interiors were designed and built from scratch. Other elements of the build…

Email your news, thoughts, opinions and products to volksworld.ed@kelsey.co.uk Kenyan gathering Dear VolksWorld, I wanted to share a few images of an event I organised in Kenya at the tail end of 2022. The Nairobi Volksfest is a very small affair in comparison to some of the UK and US events you cover, but this was our first gathering, and nobody has ever tried to organise anything like this before in Nairobi, so I really didn’t know if anyone at all would attend. I was more than happy to end up with around 20 Bugs and Buses at the show, and I’m hoping to add at least a few Karmann Ghias, Variants and plenty more Kombis in the future. Hey, we all have to start somewhere, right? I was hoping…

BORDER PATROL Being from Yorkshire, I find it hard to imagine growing up in California, or anywhere in the USA for that matter. For a kid who grew up with local motor factors and Halfords, I became familiar at a young age with know-it-alls sucking in air through their teeth and telling me that six-volt batteries weren’t made anymore, or other mistruths. I worked out quite early on not to accept this advice and to dig deeper, despite the lack of internet, and having to find out about things from magazines, or from going all J.R. Hartley and ringing around everyone in the Yellow Pages with any relevance. But then, in 2002, I made my first trip to California, and got a few glimpses of an entirely different world. I’d…