(c)Tero Virta, 1995-2009

Monday, December 13, 2010

Link: www.restoredsportscars.com



Found this site from up North while surfing for fun yesterday. That's pretty rapid restoration I would say!

www.restoredsportscars.com

Sunday, November 7, 2010

2010 WCA Swap Meet II

Some shots from the 2H/2010 Olari Swap Meet..


Is there a club for clean '58 - '64 Bugs? :)




My favourite car was actually a truck.




Juse's latest addition to his collection.

After party at Studio 44
Big thanks to Heebah&Jatimatic for fun night in the garage.



Wednesday, October 27, 2010

My '52 Split

I bought this '52 Split some time ago in Spring and have been storing it in "secret lair". Started slowly taking it apart, but for some reason took first pictures only couple of weeks ago, so these are as much as "before" pictures as there are. I was originally looking for roughly 10 years younger car as my first Beetle was a 1963 and I really like the combination of looks looks and practicality on 1962-64 Sedans. I like the square rear window as the whole car looks perhaps better balanced than Splits or Ovals, but this Split was too much to resist, so it'll replace the one that got away.


Just in case you're wondering the background, no, I am not into 80's Peugeots too :)


One major issue is the poor panel fitting done long time ago. The car had been out of traffic since Summer of 1971, so maybe this repair took place already in 60's. The driver's side has some pop-rivet mounted thin metal sheet baked with filler, just something that gave one more year of driving until the next MOT test. Wonder what the guy who did these repairs would think about some idiot 40 years later trying to fully restore the car :)


Pan is surprisingly solid. Bit strange detailing on the hand brake lever, shifter and pedals.


Spare-wheel well doesn't look too bad neither.


The headlining didn't escape the "hippie" detailing neither.

The Plan

Gotta have the layout, right Jyri? :) As I've read "real" (native Californians) Cal Look guys' stories in the Lounge I was toying with the idea of what if I had been in their shoes and got a Beetle as a first car when 16 years old; "how could or would I have built it or where would I have picked the influences". This was the trigger for finding a new project Beetle and sort of a theme for the car.

Okay, when I was teenager in mid 80's I wasn't interested in VWs but Street Rods and Muscle Cars. I did like Porsches back then and actually 944 even more than 911 (well, that has changed..). So as I was thinking about the theme, I wanted to use Porsche stuff like gauges in this project but with Split dash both the speedo and rev counter should be same size which is not the case with 911 or 914 gauges. Couple of ebay searches later I learned that 924/944 gauges are same size and to my surprise when receiving my "proof-of-concept" gauges (don't know whether these suckers work or not.. cheap anyway..) arrived they bolt right into Split dash pods.

924/944 seats also look suitable so at least the plan now is to hunt a pair of them. Wheels-wise I am going to start with wheels I already have; 4.5/6" Fuchs or Gas Burners, but if you happen to have vacant a pair of 911-numbered 7x15s Fuchs do email me. Colour-wise I have been thinking would the world be ready for the nostalgia revival of India Red?

Continuing with the 80's theme I need to find C-cassette player to the car and find out whether my mother threw my NWOBHM collection away :)


With that nipple-type of glass swapped to flat one I think the gauges are going to look just great. Great thing about the speedo is that it's from some US spec model from the times when lower speed limits were enforced and it displays only 140 km/h. The dials with "typical Porsche speeds" exceeding 200 km/h would look rather ridiculous in Bug (even though it could be theoretically capable of reaching them depending on the engine).

Next steps on the "layout-list" are to figure out what switches etc to use among other details and on "real project-list" continue disassembly, scrape the rust protection stuff off, have the empty shell blasted and off to body shop. I am not going to do the body work, being old enough to know the constraints I have. The fun starts when I get the painted shell back.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Vintage Helsinki Photos

Yesterday's local paper had an article about exhibition of Helsinki photos from 40 years ago.



Looks like every traffic/rush-hour related photo has a Volkswagen in it, but strange that the most of the photos have crappy weather, just like in sunny weather the photographers have had better things to do. Or maybe they have wanted to get the maximum depression in the rush-hour photos? :)



The Type III Fastback above with Fuchs-like hubcaps is pretty cool.

Monday, October 4, 2010

The latest Boxertje magazine



Received a copy of the Dutch/Belgian VW magazine Boxertje today, I'm "well chuffed" as they say in UK :)

Thursday, September 16, 2010

2010 X-treme Car Show

Holy fook!! Looks like I won 3rd prize of the Retro Class in X-treme Car Show meanwhile I was at home watching the Italian GP (which turned into crap with El Banco's win).

Saturday, September 11, 2010

2010 X-treme Car Show


First things first; Luftsick Lineup :)


From stock pea-shooters to wheelie bars to Type IIs..


One more kick-ass Type II from North Coast.














Bengt Stafberg's '23 Buick Roadster he raced in mid 70's. Thanks Bengt for the nice chat and the insight about the car.
























Unbelievable skills and effort but don't float my boat stylewise.












Oh yeah.. One more Volkswagen from the show..

Monday, September 6, 2010

Link: US Road Trip in VW Bus

Came across this cool blog of road trip pictures with VW Bus from Canada to US and back.

Monday, August 23, 2010

2010 Scandinavian Cal Look Classic

The Bug Run seems to be lost cause but now there is a replacement in Nordics and not that much further for us Finns. My first SCC and had really good time over the weekend. Nothing to bitch about, everything was very smoothly run and organized.


Inside the SCC Taxi, cool to arrive to event in style. Thanks Tor-Odd for the ride.


Scandinavian action hero Leif Nyström.


It was pretty cool to see CSP Ghia pushing below the 9-second barrier, especially having Peter from CSP explain us his vision about the car (original German engine block and transmission cases) the night before.


The famous Skinne Beetle.


Vegard's new one. One of my favourite cars in the show, some very cool parts and really good thinking layout-wise.




Another cool Norwegian Looker that I hadn't seen before.




I am not very keen on Super Beetles but really liked this one (okay couple of details don't float my boat). Maybe it is the exception that enforces the rule :)




Heebah's Split draw a steady crowd of onlookers whole weekend.

SCC Photos: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5