Land of hot Powerplants

I have had this one on my desktop for so long I can't remember where I got it from. All I know is, it hails from Sweden or maybe Finland. Not to put down Mr. Andersson, but this one looks even more potent than his engine. Maybe they should run for pink slips on Tullinge Raceway in August to find out.

Night of the living Blogs Pt3

I'm not to sure if this is the car I would start out with, although I have to admit late lookers do look awesome.

But if Mr. Andersson is planting this Turbo Turbo Turbo in it's arse then all the power to him. From the pictures I've seen this looks like one nicely built engine with a lot of one-off parts.

A nice little VoPo

This is one fine 914/6, in my opinion I have to add. This one has supposedly been converted into a Speedster by a company called WILCO in the States. They planted a nice 3.2 liter Carrera engine in the back coupled to a 915 5-speed gearbox to put the 254 Hp to good use. Not to bad for a 900 Kg kart. Add some nicely detailed Fuchs to the equasion and you have a nice power package for sale in Västerbotten, Sweden.

For reason of comparison, this is a picture of an "ordinary" 914/6. Take note of the different windshield and the part behind the driver. Also take notice of the big bulges over the wheels, lacking on the speedster.

Freaks and Monstrosities

This one definately is a freak, but meant in a good way. I always thought a variant bubbla was lacking in VW's offerings, and here it is. You also have the kits with the Willy's nose, those I don't like, but this one could really be factory built. Except for the lowering job, the flames and wheels off course.

Now this one is far stretched from original ( get the pun ? ), but yet I think it looks great. It shows true craftmanship to perform such bodywork and even though purists will cringe, I think the effort is wortwhile. Are those original foxcrafts in there ?

Now I warned about the monstrosities. This is one of the worst creations I've ever seen ! Strange how some people can get even crazier than Mr. Stripe during one of his episodes. What really ticks me off is the fact that the finnish is so sloppy. Imagine the same project, with the Karmanns doors welded shut and a decent looking window in the front cab and some wheels that actually fit. Add a quality paintjob, and maybe, just maybe this could turn out to be a showgoer. Doubtfull, and not worth a try, but it would beat this waste of time in a beat.

For more specials, go check the meanbugs forum. And while you're there go look around, lots of fun stuff to see.

Helmutbuilt

If your back-end is shot anyway, barndoor the hell out of it. This nice project folkabuss resides somewhere in Sweden, where else. New steel is being welded in all around, including this barndoor rear hatch.
And when you have no rear window anymore, what's the use of the rear-view mirror? Go ahead, cut it up and fab it into a nice tachoholder. Clearly this bus is going to be race inspired.

And I do have to emphasise "race-inspired", look at the seats and windownet. But this buss will be one fat chick when she's finished, lots of heavy new iron inside. But put a bigger engine in and no-one will notice.
I like it a lot and will keep you posted on the progress of this mongrel. Or check for yourselves, somewhere on the Meanbug site.

Rednecks !

As you can see, Northern Europe can be compared to Southern USA. Only one word for it : Rednecks !
No, kidding aside, I found this picture on a Swedish forum. This nice 51 with "Reumakleppen" was put in the boneyard around '67, and 30 years later the current owner had to fix the paperwork as this was considered as junk and all identification was lost when he bought it. Imagine that, this is how the car looked when he put it on the trailer to bring it home after 3 decades in some barn.

By now it has a new engine and a respray and has several nice accesories, like the "Gangsterkepsen", some sort of Albert mirror look-a-like, and a very nice spotlight you can point from inside the car. And although this car was found in '97, I can assure you that even today finds like this surface from time to time in Sverige.

Night of the living Blogs Pt2

And of course how could we forget about the two main players of Scandinavian Blogging, the wellknown Jöran, who brought this dragracer home from the Volksworld show. He's now busy shoehorning a mighty package of power in the rear end of this metalflake Blue baby.

And off course Jhu, who makes us happy punters every friday when it's Gasser Time. Then he tries to educate us in the long lost art of couch racing with pictures of the Gassers from way back when Mullets were considered cool.

Night of the living Blogs

We all now the more than famous vwList of Blogs by now. There's plenty to read if you read a blog a day from the List. But actually there are a lot of other blogs around, probably more than we can count, some of them even never laid an eye on by any of us. And plenty of those hail from Scandinavia.
Lets start of with the MeanBugs Site, in fact an amalgam of Blogs ran by the medlem of the Swedish Hoodride Assosiation. If you want to check them out, click on "about us" and scroll down to read about specific cars. As a matter of fact, the rustlooker as seen way back in the early days of my own blog is one of the Mean Bug Cars.

Winter Wonder Land

Maybe next time I make the Sverige Express during a freezing cold winter, I could try to get one of these, a genuine Flat 4 - powered Snow-Trac. There are only a few of these around though, so if only I'd be able to Trac one down ( no pun intended ), I'd even run it on the concrete Belgium roads during the long hot summer. Just fasten your seatbelts and belt it.

And if finding one of these specials isn't difficult enough, imagine your luck running into two of them at the same time. And lucky the owner is, as one of the Snow-Tracs didn't want to fire up. They just put a long rope in between the two, and off they went, pull starting the Lady in Red.

At the beach

And while we're at the beach I thought I'd throw in this ugly duckling. Although it looks a bit like a Papler, one of the most coveted convertibles on earth, it sure isn't and it sure won't fetch the same price. And though I'd love to own a Papler, if only for the collectability of it, I wouldn't want to be caught dead in a concoction like this.
I doubt if it gets a lot of use up there in Sweden, just look at the background. Looks warm and inviting, not !!

Swedish brethren of the Players?

It's a bit hard to see, I had better pictures of it but lost them somehow, but what's of importance to us is the side of this van. Just look at the chap riding the waves on his twinfin surfboard. The other side was a mural of a windsurfing dude. If you know of the Players other passion, you also know why this would be the perfect bus for them.

Crazy Svensk Tüp Drei

Now this one looks just plain, except that it seems to be in quite a good condition an that it is a loverly color red. But looks can deceive, this actually is a vintage drivingschool car. A 1500 S which has been, maybe even from factory, converted with dual commando's for gas, brake and clutch. It also has an extra rearview mirror installed and some other neat details. Too bad, I sent the owner a request for more pictures, as they would be invaluable for the avid Belgian Type Three community, but he has never replied.

I guess for most people this one would be less valuable. A welded shut pig nose variant, with a porthole in the back, a very eighties paintjob and to top it all off, really the piece de resistance, a spoked sparewheel on the backdoor. Those were the days my friend, we thought they would never end.

Now this is more like it. Still a butchered pig nose variant but this time as a very well executed pick-up truck. Lovely in white by the way. Look at nice attention to detail as the chrome railing on the bed and the little roofrack on top of the cabin. It's daring, but it shows what the fourth type 3 should have been like instead of the cabrio.

The last type three for today is this rallied notchback. I don't know any specs but the paintjob looks fast as a bat out of hell.

Keep it running

Now we were on the long stretch home, across Germany, then Holland, finally back in Belgium and home by thursday late afternoon. To avoid any problems starting, we decided to keep the car running, even for gassing it up, 10 long hours. We had loads of luck concerning traffic jams, with only a small one just before Munster, due to works on the road. As for the rest it was trouble free driving. Around noon we switched sides again and a bit later we passed by Essen without even the slightest mistake, which is no mean feat as this town is hell for those who are roadbook inclined. The last stretch from Antwerp to Ghent we did a constant 110-120 with pedal movement to spare. And by 17h30 the car was in its new stable and we were ready to go to the monthly DFV get-together for a quick bite. And then of to bed for the sleep of the innocent. Much needed. Remember we left tuesday afternoon to be back thursday afternoon, some 1800 km in a '59 bug later. Now who's saying road trip days are over !

You crazy Bridge !

Once in Germany, we could turn of the lights, as in Scandinavia, you have to run them headlights even during the day. And to our amazement, or maybe not, the car started to run better again. Our diagnosis changed yet again, and we were thinking either faulty generator or regulator ( it turned out to be the regulator ). And now the little energy being made went fully to ignition, the burn was much more efficient, hence our top speed was increasing steadily to the 120 it was during the good old days.
By the time we reached Hamburg, where this crazy bridge is, and my photographic skills don't do it justice, the car was back with a vengeance.

Sad, sad morning

Jelle started of the next heat. Well once we got the car under way that is. The engine was stone cold after our reststop and we tried to push it, but to no avail, it didn't want to start. So we decided to push it backwards up the offramp of the highway, getting momentum to get it to run. We tried this twice but still couldn't get the speed we needed to fire up the beast. By then courage was far gone.
We managed to stop a couple of Danish, and they pushed us up the hill again and with combined forces we at least got a huff and a puff out of it. We persuaded them for an other run, even though they were convinced that we would be stranded, and lo and behold, she started with a lot of smoke and unburned gasses. And of we were, courtesy of the Danish.
On the road again, the car just didn't run to well, we could only reach top speed of 90, where-as the day before we even did 120 once or twice. Again we were beginning to fear the worst, we still had to do some 900 km. Maybe that is why some hints of worry are on Jelles face.

Frostbite

Those of you who went on last years Bugtour, might remember the icecold flyer. Well we went trough this for real. We slept in Denmark, just after crossing both toll-bridges, on the parking lot where we had slept on earlier trips. You have to keep with tradition. It was freezing and we slept in our sleeping bags in the car, Jelle on the backseat and me in front. By dawn our toes were black with frostbite.
But first we had to get there, after we left the bikers home base, the car started running worse and worse every km we did. By the time we reached Malmö, some 300 km down the beautifull road the car had hickups all the time, and by then it was also pitch dark and people kept pulling their light horns, so we decided to stop and check what was wrong. As we pulled over the car died immediately. The lights were weak but existant, but when we checked ignition, it appeared that the brand new distributor cap was at fault, the sparks had to arc a 1 cm gap between the rotor and cap. So this cold well be our problem then. We pushed the car into action and of we went wit a lot of shuddering, but we did the next 200 km, knowing at least we weren't slowly killing he engine.

A V-dub always comes out on top

This junkyard will be revealed to us, next time we visit Sweden. According to the seller of the hottad bubbla, it is out in the woods, a forty km drive through the forest on gravelroads away from civilisation. And he will take us there, though I'm not sure if it would be wise to get into the outback with an animal as he is. As much as 1400 cars would be dying there, with none younger than the seventies. For more pictures check Andersson racing and try to find the VW as this guy is more into American Iron.

Hydrate Green

The only nice thing on the car, besides a red tip antenna, was the Hydrate Green interior, a 61 only color scheme, only used on turqoise cars, with a very nice fabric on the seats also. But to buy a car just for that would be crazy. We aren't talking about a teak Notchback, now that would be a find.
So we left the car behind an were off again, this time heading straight home with a dissapointed Jelle reading the map. But we made the right descision, who knows if we ever would have gotten home in that piece of Bubbla.
We did make the owners day though, they were pretty awestruck by the sight of two Belgians turning up to buy their car. And when we told them the Bubbla we came in was just ours for only an hour or four, they almost fell on the floor laughing of amazement. And then we had to leave for a 1300 km drive, pushstarting the car, now that completely killed them. And you have to take into account that these guys were crazy motherfuckers themselves, and still they thought we were worse.

Hottad Bubbla

This was the car Jelle was after, a 61 lowered beetle. It looks scary, but in fact it was even worse. The owner failed to send pictures of the little rust there was on this car. Little as in no more heaterchannels, rotten quarterpanels, unadjustable doors due to welded doorposts, long gone front panels, ... This one was ready for the scrapyard to be honest. What didn't help were the homemade, cut-up and welded rims with fat rubber back and front, rubbing the fenders. We were almost to afraid off the owner and especially his Biker Brother to refuse the car, but in the end the turned out to be nice as most of the Swedish people seem to be.

freezing our asses off

It still was cold as hell, if you know what I mean, up in Scandinavia. Lakes were frozen to a degree that, I'm sure, you could drive a truck over them. And to make things worse, we didn't try to use the bubblas heater, as we were in doubt if they were connected right and if they would be leaky or not. So instead of the brainfreeze we usually have prior to planning such crazy trips, this time our toes were slowly turning black with frostbite.

Beautifull Sweden

The car ran great, with its rebuild engine, brakes, suspension, everything. We still had to pick up Jelle's blue monster so we had to drive trough rural Sweden, which I think is very nice. Nothing to be seen except for vast woods and nature.
Notice the interior of the car is black, painted with a brush. This is the biggest downside to the car, its crappy paint, firetruck red on the outside, with hints of blue and black on the inside, with half of the headliner in black tapestry.

On the road again

Around noon we went to Erics storage to pick up the red ruby. It was parked in a heated warehouse, next to a very nice oval, perfect interior, no rust and black. We pushed the 59 outside and it started straight out of storage. Off course, as I'm such a good photographer, my Kodak was somewhere in my backpack, so no pictures of that. After changing the numberplates and saying goodbye, Eric led us to the highway and off we went. Only to break down with a nasty smell, just a few km down the road. A leaking fuel pump was the cruelpit, but once fixed, the car wouldn't start and soon we had a flat battery, 6V is lame. We pushstarted the car and we were happy campers once again.

Action Jackson

Just 2 weeks prior to our arrival there was still half a meter of snow in the streets of Norrköping. Lucky for us it had all melted except for a pile or two. When we drove around in Sweden we saw a lot of snowy fields and frozen lakes. I guess what they say is true, it can get cold in Sweden, time to start believing.

A nice piece of art

Although it has nothing to do with cars, I couldn't lett you miss out on this beautifull piece of street art. We found this in the streets of Norrköping, and it actually is a piece of mozaique pasted up to a gatepost. Now you're all a slight bit richer, just by having seen this.

Other Cars

There are not only old Beetles in Sweden. This car was parked in a communal parkinglot, a nice old Alfa Romeo, there was also an old Jag and a very nice Datsun. They al seem to belong to the same man who has over 50 cars located everywhere troughout Norrköping.

V-Dub comradery

It is also crazy how someone you hardly know, and with whom the only thing you have in common is the passion for old Bubblas, offers you to stay at his house for the night and act as if at home, even leaves you the spare keys next morning to wander arround Norrköping while he's off doing his bussiness. Thanks again Eric, and if you're ever in Belgium, I'll do anything I can to accomodate you.

Sweden and back in 2.5 days

Earlier this week, I was off again to the land of moose. This time Jelle aka LowFastBus came with me. We were both on a mission to retrieve a good ol' bug from the still snowbound Sweden. We flew into Sweden by 11 at night and landed at the airport of Nyköping, where my friend Eric, the PO of my new 59, picked us up. It is crazy how you can buy an airplane ticket for only 0,01 Euro, just add airporttaxes and costs for luggage and visa and your at only 14 euro for a 1500 km trip.