dune buggies and hotVWs April 2022

I really don’t know where to begin. I am writing this column just a few days after the conclusion of the tremendously successful Grand National Roadster Show (GNRS). Man, I still feel like I’m living in a dream. This sort of opportunity comes along only once in a lifetime. After going through the 2021 event’s cancellation due to the pandemic, we finally made it happen this year. Over 100 historically significant VWs gathered in the Feature Building No. 9 at the GNRS. And another 100-plus Volkswagens came on Saturday and Sunday as part of the outside event, aka the “Grand Daddy Drive-In”. It was one of the best experiences in my VW life. But let’s wind back. In December 2018, I emailed my media credential application to the GNRS organizers. I…

As I sit here and type this out, I am still floating down from the clouds after an incredible overload of a week with the big car auctions in Scottsdale, Arizona and the equally incredible Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, California. The roadster show will be covered extensively in the magazine I am sure so I will focus on the former. There was an awful lot of action in the VW scene already this year and is well worth sharing. This year, I had nothing of my own going up for bid, so my attendance was purely as a spectator. My two brothers joined me for the trip which was pretty magical as we rarely get time to play together. We attended five auctions that were happening during the week:…

From late 1967 thru 1969, we of the Panzers were developing a look – later it would be dubbed “Cal Look”. We didn’t call it that; in fact, we didn’t call it by any name – it just was. Now back in those days, we were trying different things (or styles) and this month’s column is all about the ones that didn’t stand the test of time! Many members tried different parts, pieces and styles. Among those early subtleties, many are still around and in fact formed the core of today’s Cal Look. One that really stands out was the tinted rear quarter windows. Not tinted like today but colored to match or accent the body color. There were a number of ways this coloring was achieved. One was to use…

Old or New School? We have a 1975 Westfalia with fuel injection. It’s time for a new engine! We like the EFI platform and would like a bit more power. I’m a little old school and somewhat leery of the early EFI technology. How would you advise to achieve our goal: increased power, reliability and miscellaneous parts availability/cost? John Loerke El Cajon, CA John, I see that you are in California, so I assume that your ’75 model will have to pass a smog test. This limits your options severely. I’ll start by saying that I’m not a fuel injection guy at all, and any opinion I give should be taken lightly. If you were going to stick with the original EFI system, stick to a stock camshaft and maybe increase the bore size…

When people ask me what year Buses came with all those windows on the roof, I explain that it was simply a different model, which started in 1951 and was available alongside all of the other versions. This month, we will discuss the fourth model of Transporter that VW introduced: the Deluxe sunroof Microbus. These Buses were passenger versions like Standards, but they were definitely “more Deluxe”. They had more than twice the number of windows, and lots of aluminum trim and even some chrome. The windows are commonly counted with the three panes of glass in each cab door only being one window, thus Deluxe sunroof models are commonly referred to as 23-window Buses. That’s until the rear corner windows went away to make room for the larger rear…

We Germans are said to be very law-abiding, obedient and not very creative. That may be true on the whole, but it doesn’t apply to the air-cooled VW scene. I don’t know if that’s the case in the country you live in, but the majority of Beetle, Bus and Ghia owners in my country seem to have little regard for categories and the associated specifications – unusual for people from a country that is known for guidelines and regulations. Would you like an example? On an internet forum, someone asked about the correct gold hue of genuine EMPI 5-spoke rims. If you expect that someone, who has the right answer to the question, will contact you, you are wrong. Instead, there are replies such as: “It doesn’t matter, paint them the…