Barn Findings

Kai's trusty '52..



..and crusty '51.

Revenge of the Tuning Brothers?

I admit doing occasional practical joke in the garage, but what did I found glued into my Oval..

Hot Rodding Is Dead?

I received link to this clip long time ago, but the video is still cool and touching nevertheless.. Ever get the same feeling when reading Volkswagen magazines and seeing all the school book Lookers looking the same?

Flashback: 80's Porsche-tuning

80's were hard decade also for Classic Porsches as this duo from 1988 Super Car Expo witnesses. Quite many of the (now) vintage Porsches were updated with then modern fender flares and spoilers or even with total brand new styling kits like the red Koenig below. Sometimes the updating craze let to really strange looking end results like 60's short wheel base car on black license plates (pre '72 plates) and with Turbo flares and spoilers.

Flashback: West Coast Aircoolers

The rise and fall of WCA :-) West Coast Aircoolers was among the most innovative and energetic car clubs in Finland early 90's. Due to various reasons the activity from big-time event organizator scaled down to bunch of friends meeting every Monday at the Mc Donalds' parking lot, 5-10 cars attending each time. Lot of fun but that shrinked too when most of us got closer to middle age.

Hopefully we get our asses out of sofas even couple of Mondays during this summer, even if we have to fix a certain day for it :-)

Flashback: Ähtäri Look

Cannot remember how town of Ähtäri became the nick name of misunderstood California Look. No idea who invented the term, I first heard the term in one of West Coast Aircoolers meeting in McDonalds of Niittykumpu, Espoo from my friend Jyrki. I guess California Look needed Finnish translation and someone picked name of the town from countryside.

I found the above pennant from my missus' sister's room back in their childhood home, apparently either of them had visited Ähtäri Zoo on a school trip.

Flashback: Alhoracing's Old School Cal Look Sedan

The first Finnish Old School Cal Look car built by Kari "Alhoracing" Alhonen in early to mid 90's. Kari visited VW Jamboree in California 1993 and that changed his Volkswagen orientation, off went his Sonderbus (Samba) project and 1302 Cabriolet. He acquired this newly painted '61 from Make Railo. The '61 became '62 look-a-like with red brick coloured interior, it is pretty obvious which DKP car had made the impression.

The first iteration round had Sprint Stars and lasted for few seasons, until in 1997 Kari bought set of MWS fake Berms from Kuplapaja (I got mine from same batch back then) and in 2001 car was updated with Gas Burners.

The '61 served all year daily driver.
1995, and times were changing, 12-second stroker engined Old School Cal Look car is challenging the 80's Looker.

Flashback: Jani's Resto Custom

West Coast Aircoolers member Jani built this '66 Beetle in early 90's as one of the very first Resto Cal / Resto Custom rides built along the trends represented in Hot VWs or VW Trends magazines. The '66 is pictured here in American Car Show while it was in Jussi Jyränkö's ownership in Kuplapaja and sold forward.

Flashback: Sebastian's 'Vert

Sebastian Vuorisalo built this '68 Cabriolet in mid 90's. The '68 was imported from Germany and started it's life as a Police car. Apart from couple of strange accessories (not hand cuffs..) that came with the car one of the interesting details from the Police-era was the blackened window frames that had never been chromed.

Although haven't seen it during the past couple of summers, car is still around in Helsinki. The '68 would make really nice Resto Cal even in today's standards, perhaps except for the stance and original width front beam. Best part of the car is the fact that it was left to be the post '67 Fat Chick and not faked into earlier look which was very fashionable thing to do back then.

Wheel Guide Updates: Cragar and AEW

Click on the image to proceed to Wheel Guide..

Flashback: Luftsick-Takis' 80's Custom

Luftsick-Takis' ride from 80's.

Olari Spring Swap-o-Rama

Olari Swap Meet opened the local Volkswagen event season. The traditional pre-Swap party was held at Studio 44 which is one of the three Volkswagen garages/communities in downtown Helsinki area. Both events suffered bit of lacking participants but I enjoyed both..

Juse's beautiful '66 Ghia.

Jaska's '62 waiting the slam hand.

Heebah's beautiful '61 Looker.

King of accessories providing bit of amusement. Someone had looted a trash pallet of local hospital's renovating site.

'07 American Car Show: Few More Photos

No Cal Look guy simply cannot undig Street Rods and Gas Coupes :-)
Some GM-products from the times they weren't made in Korea and didn't look like microwave owens..





Besides Bullit these '67/'68 Fastback Mustangs remind me one of my teenage favourite TV-series, Spenser for Hire, which was favourite mostly due to Spenser's rides.

'07 American Car Show

My shots from the show.

Spam: Why man needs a woman

Cool photo from one of today's spam emails. Based on this real life Borat it looks like the "iron curtain" still exists is some form :-)

Herbie @ Disneyland

I came across these shots from cold Disneyland Paris while browsing old holiday pics. They had cool and ridicilous at the same time stunt show about shooting special effects parts in action movie.

Cutest part was the presentation of the only Disney movie star that performs his own stunts. This particular Herbie seems to be bit incorrect about body model compared to the original movie.

Another Herbie at the Disneyland shop which was bit closer to the correct year model.

Flashback: Kirkkis' Standard

West Coast Aircoolers was the most innovative Finnish Volkswagen club in it's heyday in early 90's. Kirkkis, one of the main men behind the club, built this very stylish '63 Standard during early 90's. After Kirkkis moved into Porsches he quickly sold the Standard Beetle, it changed hands couple of times among WCA members. Vesku owned it at least two different times and Jaska built a 13-second Old School Cal Looker out of it. Kirkkis' Looker is photographed here in 1996 VW Open at it's best (IMHO).

Window frames rechromed

I did receive these some time ago, but got to give credit when receiving good service. Autoentisöinti Kalliokorpi did good job in rechroming these and kept the promised budget pretty nicely from the first estimation.

New Look

Big thanks to Tomi "Heebah" Asikainen for creating me new logo for my site/blog. The old logo, also created by Heebah, became bit boring after 7 years of use. Also the content and my interests has never been 100% Cal Look so this suits me perfectly.

Flashback: Marko's Tubeframe Type III

Marko Jääskeläinen's turbocharged tubeframe Type III was the fastest aircooled Volkswagen in Finland during late 90's with low 10 second ETs. This Notchback was sadly totalled in racing incident during early part of this decade.

Marko's Notchback is pictured here from 1999 VW Open (photo by Jyri Erämaa).

Flashback: Finnish Looker

This scalloped Looker from Helsinki built by dude called Jukka was photographed in 1993 American Car Show. It was featured also in Street&Race Magazine at that time along another scalloped Looker that the same guy built.


He built also this '64 Beetle, photographed here next my '63 Beetle in 1998 VW Open.