Folke, R.Z.R's vaktbikkje

This is Folke, Regenstadt Zombie Racewerks ghastly hound. It has been born/built exclusively out of Volkswagen Bobble parts and now lives in the toolchest of a single cab pickup. At least all off this is true, only if my comprehension of Norwegian is up to par. And I'm not too sure of that. Now R.Z.R, there's a picture of Folke and his friend Deano Dalmatian, ready to rumble!

Memories, allas not mine

Greece, on a marketplace, a truckload full of melons. This reads like a wishlist of Fast Fernando, but in fact it is the scribling next to this picture taken by my Girlfriends dad. He used to work for Clayson, a tractor company near Bruges, and on a bussiness trip through Greece with a Beetle this is what cought his attention. I'm not as interested in melons, but look to the left, look to the right, Splitscreen busses a plenty. I just love these old shots, so keep them coming.

Project Pinks

Finally, one week before the drawing my project pink stubs got delevered by the mailman. How else was I to know I had the winning numbers, unless I could watch the drawing with those tickets in my very own hands. If I'm lucky, there will be yet another spitfire on the European Bug-In racetrack. If I'm not...
Well there's always the next lottery to sucker me into!

Crap Looker

And this car could well apply for most Svenska Bubbla of 2006. A Germanbuilt Car motivated by a VOLVO B23 turboed engine. Not for the pure and faint of heart, built for GO, definately not for show. And streetable if you make left turns only, which is a bit a pain in the ass around town.

Finish of the car is outstanding. Sanded in just the right places, with a primered lower door and tinded windows with slap on Iron Cross decal. Take notice of the wheel combo with steel in front and sort of centerlines out back, Turtle Style! And I thought I was crazy running only 4/5 of my lugnuts, but if you look real close, weightsavings on this car have gone as far as running only two bolts per wheel.

Scan Looker

Don't you just love that Eighties feel of a chopped, raked and dechromed car, motiflackad in pink, purple an french royal blue. A paintjob that wouldn't be out of place on Boy Georges face.
Why is it that only in Sweden you can find crazy cars like these by the dozens. Try putting a top-chopped car on the road in this region, and then try the same with the poke-in-the-eye paintjob. Almost impossible and just plain stupid respectively. And yet in Sweden they get away with it.

And talking about the Eighties, how about this chromed out engine. Only to be applied on Speedsters and Scan lookers, the only thin missing is colorcoded clear distributorcap and assorted plastics.

And yet another Porkarr

This time it is for real, this is the unloved, yet rare as a hens teeth karmann coupé, for sale in Sverige. Built by Karmann it had a hardtop welded onto the overproduced cabrio bodies, when they saw a need to venture into the coupé bussiness, up till then dominated by Reutter.

Not seldom they are now cut back to their former cabrio glory, as even converted cabrio's fetch higher prices than the unwanted notchback 356. So in the end even less good Notches will remain. I wonder if they will ever be valued higher then their more svelte sisters.

This is the profile of a restored specimen, and to be honest, it is ugly. Or should we rather say different or unknown, or even unappreciated?

Porkarr

Now if I were to go roadracing, I'd invest in this one, the handling of a 911 Porsche and the feminin curves of a Karmann, all combined through the true craftmanship of yet another Swede with too much time on his hands during the dark, cold winter.

As you can see it almost looks as if this was a factory built car. It looks a bit rough now, but imagine the car all painted and trimmed. Everything is here except for the gearbox and 2.4 six cilinder engine ready for you to assemble all the technical Porsche stuff and all of the Ghia's beautifications. Now if only I had some money.

No halfass job, where a porsche trans and engine is crammed into a v-dubs engine bay. On this car all underpinnings are signed Porsche.

Real Road Racing

In Sweden they still race Beetles like they are supposed to, with a flat four in the back instead of some souped up watercooled Golf engine, like they do in the Belgian Fun Cup. Check out racing regulations, if you read Swedish, on the official Nordic Beetle Cup pages. If you lack some of the finer grammar, you can still look at some awesome racing under the bilder topic.

And yet another proof of ovals being ordinary scrapheaps up north. They use them to beat the hell out of them on the track, slipsliding through the chicanes.

Family ties

Could it be that Die Volksfreundes very own Messiah has some family living over in Sweden, because that's where this scenery was shot. I think it has a close resemblance with Baron Messie's own backyard, a black oval parked under the trees, next to some other German steel, amongst which a Ghia ready to be transformed into a Cal Look streeter.

Hauler

While on the hunt for a nice Karmann in the Eb*y wild park, I had the chance to take a glance at foto's of this yellowish T34 in state of decomposition. While I like a good type three Karmann when I see one, this one just doesn't cut the mustard. But the pick-up truck on which it is stored grabbed my attention right from the first glance. A full size car on a type 2 T1 single cab pick-up truck? That does ring a bell, a bell sounding like K-E-M-P-E-R-I-N-K. I promptly e-mailed the seller with high hopes, but I'm afraid this could be a wild goose chase as this was the sole picture of the K. on top of the other K. All other pictures were looking newer. But if you don't try ...

R.I.P.

Must be the last time I can steal a picture from Jhu's Gasser Time, as he decided to call it a day, due to the time-consuming upkeep of his blog. Which is really bad as he dug up more than a few of yesteryears high speed cars. But I'm sure he's done well, passing the torch on to that other Nostalgia Bench Racer, or should that be French Racer, Speedwell.

Sveriges Största Veteranmopeder

Speedriders, Sweden's place to be on the net if you're into hardcore two-wheeler action. A lot of pictures of gatherings and original Swedish moppes.

Some of the bikes pictured, are perfect examples. Like this baby blue and white Monark in nyskick. Which means they restored the hell out of it.

Others are rather customised, like this one in front : Purple Haze. Built from a Crescent, which I guess is yet another Scandinavian Moped, nothing has been left original. I have to admit I wouldn't want to drive this thing to work every day, but you'd catch me posing next to it on every sunny occasion, if it were mine. All we have over here though are "racebred" Peugeots and Honda Camino's, what a world of difference between them.

Sveriges Finnaste

Don't think Sweden is only filled to the brim with freaks on wheels. Don't forget, it compares easiely with the likes of California-aye. Only colder.
This is one pristine example of a very nice, no frills needed, resto-cal, built and driven on the Nordic roads.

What's especially cool about this car, is the interior. Although it is not really my cup of tea, I have to admit I'm in awe to the skills involved in fabricating this one-off front seat/bench. It really gives it an American touch of styling.

Two standard front seat-frames, siamese twinned in both the seatarea as the backrest. Nice! Could have been an original factory option, if only they had thought of it.

My barn find

While on the topic of old porsches, these just got out off retirement, well..., just...

For the full story on these Californian rarities, check My Barn Find, way down below, burried underneath the pile of old Benzes and American Iron. Cool site, it proves that every once in a while someone still can get lucky. Despite what people say about all the empty barns.
Didn't a resurfaced pristine, as new Kubel come up for sale just lately? Or was that just the proof in the pudding.

Grundwaffe

This is the car legends are built on. April fools story goes that this car belonged to a Luftwaffe airman, who drove it hard when not flying around being a menace to society as we know it. Of course this is utter bollocks, but it is a cool car anyway.

This car should be retired by now, or at least belong to a retired old fart, but instead it spends it's old days ripping up the track up north on the Tullinge Raceway. Just look at it launch.

Loveletters from Scandinavia

I scored this paper artefact on the ever so powerfull Eb*y. All the way from Scandinavia this is a real unused stamp depicting a, you guessed it, Bubbla. Supposedly this would date back to the late forties and if you look real close you can barely make out it's split window, which could indeed date it back to as early as pre-53. If anyone knows anything about these, do tell.

Copycat

If you love your Swedish bubblas as much as anyone else, you just go get one then. That's just what Kristof aka Fons did this summer. This kinky blue darling blue lady belonged to an equally nice kinky blue-eyed swedenette ( just guessing here, correct me if I'm wrong), forced by her dad to sell her car.

And this would be the happy new owner, who was mad enough to take the train to Stockholm, with the adresses of 10 (as in Ten) bubblas to go look at with his girlfriend in tow. The Blue one happened to be the last and nicest one to boot.

Kristof contacted me for info on my evil ways of getting those Bubblas to a new home. What I didn't put him up to, was to take a tent. Good thinking as camping is free almost anywhere in Sweden, you just have to ask. And I bet it beats sleeping in the backseat of a car, let alone across the two front ones, with the gearshift poking your crotch or worse.

And it wouldn't be an adventure if you didn't have to drive your brand new car through real bad weather. It's almost a cliché, but still it's traditional.

Faller in mi taller

This one is for the one bugging me the most about the almost defunct Bubbla blog. Guillermo got one of these blue beetles for his last birthday but he's lacking the track for a little testdrive. Maybe this Swedish Faller Club can supply one, or maybe someone closer to home has one strolling around the attic. Contact Guillermo on the DVF blog.

OC refugee?

Could this be one of yesteryears shredders of the strip now residing is Sweden? Or is it just another crazy Svensk concoction. I think it is great up to the guldfargad slotmag lookalikers. Only the gasserstyled stance has something to be said about. But put a selectadrop in this baby and yo're ready to roll. Just a shame that even I am not crazy enough to drive a car like this through Germany on it's own power.

Off course, this could prove the only solution to my problems. All of the modern age comfort (well modern as opposed to barndoor-steering) with aircooled cool motorisation (check for the triple airvents in the back), slightly lowered for ease of loading this Ultra Fat Chick. Let's call Kemperink about the generation they missed out on, I might well be their first (and only) customer.

Bubbla Breakdown

Finally, an update to the Svenska Bubbla blog, I know you've all been begging for it.
Contrary to what you might believe, my sweet swedish '59 didn't suffer from engine trouble in Switzerland, only to be pushstarted by two valkyrie vixens. No, this was just a nice foto-opp. during the week before Spa. This is in front of the hostel/wafflehouse "Ferme Libert" in the Malmedy hills. Even the late Belgian King Boudewijn ate his lunch here.