Merry Christmas

Link: Der Blitzkrieg Käfers

Along with German Folks, Der Blitzkrieg Käfers is busting out impressive new cars with equally impressive quality and pace, also and in impressive numbers. Pretty impressive, huh?

>>http://www.derblitzkreigkafers.com

Extreme VWs DVD #4

Didn't realize my '55 was in the Xtreme VWs #4 / EBI 1 DVD until some weeks ago. Here's a link to a trailer from Youtube.



Must have been these guys :)

1976 Keimola Drag Race

Unbelievable footage from Youtube :)

Issue #2 of Type Magazine

New issue of the Type Magazine is available from: http://www.type-magazine.com

Wheel Guide Updated

My Californian connection Danny Depeda made one more interesting swap meet find. Very unusual two-piece 5-spoke desing with similar back-side as original EMPI 5-spoke.

Moon subject revisited

Now that I uploaded Sebu's photos I remembered seeing Dean Moon's front-engined dragster in cover of my old stashed Hot Rod-magazines.

As a reminder of coming middle-aged; I've had that issue close to 20 years.

There used to be two second-hand bookshop in Vallila having good stock of old car magazines. The shop owner of the other (cannot remember the name now) spent lot of time in States and in one of his trips he had bought a van or pickup truck to be imported to Finland plus visited several garage sales of private persons collecting all the old car magazines they had. On top of that he started to import new magazines, I think there I became familiar with Hot VWs first time, naturally passed those issues while browsing Hot Rods :)

Among the new magazines were Hemmings Motor News to which I became quite hooked as around the same time some semi-professional wheeler-dealers started to import vintage cars due to the local "25 year rule". So there I was saving money and thinking about what car I would import.. While thinking about cars and continuing studies I focused on old magazines and memorabilia. As this was late 80's / early 90's few years before I got online, 10 years before eBay etc, the only option was to send cash in letter along with a wishlist. I received dozens of parcels and never got screwed, something I cannot trust anymore :)




Moon advertisement from the same magazine.

Mooneyes

Some shots from Sebastian's visit to Moon HQ in California.



Dean Moon's front-engined Dragster









Showroom


While I enormously dig the nostalgia stuff the current stuff somehow reminds me about original EMPI and today's Mr Bug EMPI. Maybe it's the Japanese ownership?

Werks Photos

Link to batch of cool 50's/60's photos copyrighted by Life Magazine:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=volkswagen+source%3Alife&btnG=Search+Images

Wheel Guide Updated

Added better photos of Astro wheels and new photos of Dan Gurney 911 wheels to the Wheel Guide.

Big thanks to DannyZ once again for the photos :)

Link: Doo-Dah Pannuhuone

Home of the Baja-styled Ovals in Finland? :)

Nope, just some fast kick-ass cars from upper West Coast of Finland:
http://doodah-pannuhuone.blogspot.com/

Flashback: Another Cal Look Oval

Cool Oval photographed in location that looks like Kuplapaja's premises in Vantaa around the turn of the decade. The car has some "Berglar" look and feel, maybe due to the combination of metallic paint, full US spec towel rail bumbers and dechroming?

Cannot remember why Jussi had it at that time and never seen the car since, wonder what happened to it..



For some reason I couldn't motivate myself to dechrome any of my cars but I really would like to get my hands on car like this. Too high mounted tail-lights hurt my eyes a little bit :)

Flashback: Patina brothers in Bug Run '98

Two unrestored rides from Helsinki photographed in 1998 Bug Run. Cannot remember who they were but the Turkish Green '62 was owned by Heebah when I got to know him.

Old magazine clip

I was just searching for some old photos and came across to this old scanning from a trade magazine. For non-Finns the headline is pondering with the idea of IT-sector needing girl-energy (ain't that the truth!) and photo of your average summertime terrace in Helsinki.. can you spot who's into Volkswagens&Porsches in the photo :)

Late POC for my Cabriolet Top

Little proof-of-concept for the brown cabriolet top. I got the top material bit too late to fit in the upholsterer's schedule for this Fall and that pretty much screwed the idea about finishing the car this year.



Bit too late now as I have the material on my hands :) Still easier/cheaper to switch back to black in case I change my mind. The black fender beading and running board mats somewhat bother me. One option would be buying beige fender beading and running board mats from Wolfsburg West and getting them dyed to brown.

Aaron Broughton Oval

One of my all-time favourite cars for sale at OldBug.com. Simply an awesome car.

December Volksworld Wallpapers

Bit unusual to see local cars in Volksworld's Wallpapers, but Jussi and Jyrki have made it.

DFL 10 Year Birthday

Couple of cameraphone shots from Der Fieser Luftkuhler VW Club's 10th birthday party. Crappy, I know, but unfortunately this is all I got as somehow the camera got left back home.





Managed to sneak in while the bouncers looked the other way :) The whole deal turned out to be very smoothly organized evening in really cool old movie theater in Gross-Gerau. Along with the club branded beer, one of the highlights of the evening was a rare footage club member Georg known from VW Speed Magazine had found from Bug In #1 or #2 (the US one) filmed by German VW enthusiast back in the day.

Here's a link to proper photos by Andi, one of the club members.

To any DFL guys reading this blog; many thanks for the invitation and for the great time!

Trip to Germany

Hotel Schwanen in Metzingen, I guess this is my kind of parking lot :)


not too shabby on this side neither..


Looked like a contryman beated us visiting the place. The hotel walls had pictures of nearly every McLaren driver from the Senna/Prost days until today (except strangely Gerhard Berger and not so strangely Kimi :) We were bit puzzled about the big names as the F1 tracks etc quite far away but then realized the nearby HQ of one of McLaren team's sponsors for 20+ years.


During a nice drive in beautiful misty Schwabian mountains on Saturday Morning we came across to something like 100-150 people on the road, so we thought that they must be up to something..


..and they were; bit surreal sight to see herd of cows appearing from the fog.


:)

Bug Box TV

German TV has a new reality TV series about Walter Jelinek's company Bug Box restoring a Split Screen Samba or Sonderbus as they're called in here.

See more in the Series Homepage and Bug Box homepage and Walter's Blog.

Link: Las Vegas Bugorama Pictures

Shots of my two favourite new cars debuted in 2008 show season (at least new for me..)


Henry Marcena's Split 'Vert is just awesome and sits right.


Even that this is the model that a certain 356-dude from Espoo would call "the fat chick of the 356s" or "the Super Beetle of 356s", this is one of the best modified 356 I've seen both in pictures and in real.

Shots by Volksarama from Town Square and Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Shots by Strictlyair from Town Square and Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The Strictlyair and Volksarama galleries are the best sites for US events shots.

OG 4-lug Berms?

I am not too keen about BRMs since 90's, but seeing real ones in the Forum parking hall in Helsinki stopped me even that they were 4-lug ones under a Reliant :) I must have passed this weird looking car over 5 times before I payed attention to the wheels.

Olari Swap-O-Rama

Some photos from Volkswagen swap-meet held twice a year in Olari, Espoo.


Another DWL takeover :)


Juses Ford Pick-up and Äyris' Pagoda Mercedes.


Bus that changed hands from Jaska to Vesku and then forward..


Valtteri's Split got the "best development potential" award..


..while Tomi has utilized the development potential in his Split to the max :)